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Glenn Branca
Born in 1948 in Harrisburg, PA, Glenn Branca studied performing arts at Emerson College in Boston, and after graduation formed two bands, Theoretical Girls and Static.
The first Glenn Branca Ensemble, featured four guitars, bass and drums. Later versions of the ensemble added mallet guitar, keyboards, and an additional drummer. The most recent Ensemble features 8 guitars, bass and drums.
Each guitar is strung with two pairs of three strings, tuned an octave apart. (The soprano guitar is tuned to B, the tenor guitar to E, and the alto guitar to G.) The unrecorded Guitars D'Amour, performed at Expo 94 in Seville, Spain, was Glenn's first and last piece for guitars in standard tuning.
Symphonies No.8 and 10, featured an octave guitar tuned to E, but covering 3 octaves, with 2 pairs of strings per octave. The bass guitars are in standard tuning, except on the final problem, where all guitars use a microtonal variation of Glenn's normal tuning.
Glenn has recently been writing for symphony orchestras, but continues to work with his guitar ensemble. The group performed Symphony No.12 on October 31, 1998 at the Barbican Centre in London, England.
Glenn performed Hallucination City: Symphony for 100 Guitars on June 13, 2001 in New York City.