Ludwig Tuman, Composer

~ art on the wings of spirit
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For Readers' Responses to Ludwig Tuman's writing, click here
For Listeners' Responses to Ludwig Tuman's music, click here
For a Reponse from Dr. Daniel C. Jordan, click here
For Reviews written about Fellow Artists by Ludwig Tuman, click here
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In addition to his work as a writer, Ludwig Tuman is by profession a composer, performing pianist, music educator and producer.
 
As a composer, Ludwig has written for varied media, including orchestra, chorus, chamber, and solo.  He is a long-standing member of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers).  He studied classical composition under Darius Milhaud in Aspen, Leon Kirschner at Harvard, and Roger Nixon in San Francisco.  He also studied the piano under the internationally recognized artists Adolf Baller (who toured with violinist Yehudi Menuhin) and Istvan Nadas, himself a prized piano pupil of Bartok.  His degrees in music composition are from Harvard (B.A. cum laude) and San Francisco State University (M.A.).  Ludwig has been a faculty member of the Chicago Conservatory College, where he designed and taught courses in composition, theory, and non-Western music.  One of his courses, surveying the extensive influence of the music of Africa on that of North and South America, featured a series of guest lecturers, including jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie.

Ludwig Tuman is one of a growing number of contemporary composers whose perspective views the earth as a whole, and the diverse arts and cultures of the world as organically related to one another.  Like many such composers, his attraction to musical cultures of various continents and historical periods has led him to selectively blend, in his compositions, musical elements from a variety of origins.  The presence of such elements in his works is sometimes overt, sometimes subtle.  An example of the latter is Awakening, a short work for chamber orchestra that can be heard on the "Music" page of this web site. 
 
Ludwig's works range widely in style, from renaissance choral pieces, to ragtime for four hands, to songs blending the classical Lieder with the harp and other folk instruments of South America.
 
His works have been presented in venues in England, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Florida and Venezuela, as well as in several television and radio broadcasts.  As a pianist, he has given numerous recitals and has performed as a soloist with orchestras.

He is also a music producer and has owned and managed a professional production facility, where he created and produced music for television.  As a private teacher, he has worked with a wide range of students in composition, theory, and piano.  Some of his students have gone on to produce their own albums.  He is the author of a book, several published articles on the arts, and is an experienced choral director.
 
 
Selected Publications & Talks of Ludwig Tuman 

 

SOME PRESENTATIONS

 
* "Fostering a Climate of Encouragement in the Arts," a keynote address at the 2008 Baha'i conference on the arts, sponosored by the Wings to the Spirit Foundation, Pensacola Beach, Florida.  For a downloadable, written summary of the presentation from the foundation's web site, click here.
 
• “A New Vision for the Arts in Spiritualizing Society,” a keynote address given at the 2000 Bahá’í Conference on Social and Economic Development, Orlando, Florida, sponsored by the Rabbani Trust.
 
• “A Flexible Format for Public Worship Programs”, given as a facilitator for the workshop on Integrating the Arts into Community Life, at the 2000 Bahá'í Conference for Social and Economic Development, Orlando, Florida. Paper published by the Rabbani Trust on their web site as a downloadable document at www.rabbanitrust.org/papers2000.htm
 
• "Understanding the Arts in a Spiritual Community". Videotaped presentation in Thousand Oaks, California, 1998.

• "The Role of the Artist in an Emerging World Order". Presented in the Landegg International Music Forum, at the invitation of the Landegg Academy, Wienacht, Switzerland. Oct. 1992
 
• The late Charles Wolcott (composer and General Music Director at Disney Studios) selected and presented a musical work by Ludwig Tuman ("Renaissance Variations"), together with a work by Lasse Thoresen, at the first International Baha'i Musicians Conference, held in Puerto Rico, 1985.

 
PUBLICATIONS

• “The Potential of Art to Affect Ethical Values, Social Harmony and Stability”, paper delivered at the 2002 Conference of Pacific Rim Institute for Development and Education (PRIDE), at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). To be published in Conference proceedings in both English and Chinese.

• “Kunst im Dienste der Bahá’í-Religion”, translation into German of “Can Art for the Bahá’í Faith Become Distinctive?” Produced by the Association for Bahá’í Studies for German-Speaking Europe, in Kunst: Dienerin der Einheit? Published by Bahá’í-Verlag, Hoffheim, Germany, 2001.

• Espejo de lo Divino: El Arte de la Diversidad, a book of 458 pages. Translation into Spanish of Mirror of the Divine. Published by Arca Editorial, Barcelona, Spain, 2001

• Nine Steps to Raise and Nurture a Community Choir, a booklet co-authored with K.A Tahiri, published by Celestial Navigation, Wilmette, Illinois, 2001.  Revised 2nd edition, 2007.  (Available to download from this web site by clicking here.)

• “A New Vision for the Arts in Spiritualizing Society,” paper given at the 2000 Bahá’í Conference on Social and Economic Development, Orlando, Florida, and published by the Rabbani Trust as a downloadable document on their website at www.rabbanitrust.org/papers2000.htm  

• “Networking our Vision of the Core Concepts of Art,” essay contributed to the 1999 Bahá’í Conference on Social and Economic Development, Orlando, Florida, and published by the Rabbani Trust.  By decision of the organizers of the "Wings to the Spirit" Arts Conference, in Pensacola, Florida, the essay was recommended as preparatory reading and was included in the basic conference materials for all participants in both 2007 and 2008.  (Available to download on this web site: click here.)

• “Reflections on the Relation Between Art and Teaching”, in Art Matters, Dec. 1996, No. 3.

• Mirror of the Divine: Art in the Bahá’í World Community, a book of 326 pages. Published by George Ronald, Publisher, in Oxford, England. 1993. Explores the role of the arts in society, the dynamics of multicultural relations in a contracting world, and the future emergence of a world culture where populations and artists are interconnected by travel and technology.  (For more information, click here.)

• “The Spiritual Role of Art”, 26-page essay, The Journal of Bahá’í Studies, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1992. Won the Association for Bahá’í Studies’ Award for Excellence. Reprinted in The Bahá’í World, Vol. XX.

• “Can Art for the Bahá’í Faith Become Distinctive?”, a 22-page essay, in The Creative Circle: Art, Literature, and Music in Bahá'í Perspective. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1989.

• "Toward Critical Foundations for a World Culture of the Arts," an essay of 30 pages, in World Order magazine, Wilmette, Illinois. Summer 1975.  (To see a response to this essay, from Dr. Daniel C. Jordan, who referred to it as a "seminal contribution," click here.)