Image: Wikimedia Commons

Jon Appleton

American composer (1939–2022)

PersonDied aged 83humanQ3183173

Born: January 4, 1939
3
Sources
1.Stated in Musicalics
2.Stated in B.R.A.H.M.S.
3.theaterencyclopedie.nl/id/01944073-5ebf-702f-8b29-5bcc0f33e500
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Died: January 30, 2022
1
Sources
1.cdm.link/2022/02/jon-appleton-composer-and-synclavier-innovator-has-died/
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Birthplace: Los Angeles
Place of death: White River Junction
1
Sources
1.Stated in Find a GraveRetrieved 2022-02-13
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Citizenship: United States
Occupation: composer
2
Sources
1.Stated in B.R.A.H.M.S.Retrieved 2022-04-05
2.Stated in MusicalicsRetrieved 2022-04-05
View statement on Wikidata ↗
, university teacher
, music educator
1
Sources
1.Stated in Czech National Authority DatabaseRetrieved 2022-12-16
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Education: Columbia University
, Reed College
, University of California, Berkeley
+1 more
Employer: Harvard University
, Stanford University
, University of California, Santa Cruz

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Jon Howard Appleton was an American composer, an educator and a pioneer in electro-acoustic music. His earliest compositions in the medium, e.g. "Chef d'Oeuvre" and "Newark Airport Rock" (1967) attracted attention because they established a new tradition some have called programmatic electronic music. In 1970, he won Guggenheim, Fulbright and American-Scandinavian Foundation fellowships. When he was twenty-eight years old, he joined the faculty of Dartmouth College where he established one of the first electronic music studios in the United States. He remained there intermittently for forty-two years. In the mid-1970s, he left Dartmouth to briefly become the head of Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) (sv) in Stockholm, Sweden. In the late 1970s, together with Sydney Alonso and Cameron Jones, he helped develop the first commercial digital synthesizer called the Synclavier. For a decade he toured around the United States and Europe performing the compositions he composed for this instrument. In the early 1990s, he helped found the Theremin Center for Electronic Music at the Moscow Conservatory of Music. He also taught at Keio University (Mita) in Tokyo, Japan, CCRMA at Stanford University and the University of California Santa Cruz. In his later years, he devoted most of his time to the composition of instrumental and choral music in a quasi-Romantic vein which has largely been performed only in France, Russia and Japan.

Overview

Performed

2 linked to Jon Appleton in Wikidata

All data

74 statements · 36% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship
1
Sources
1.Stated in Guggenheim Fellows database
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Given name: Jon
Sex or gender: male
2
Sources
1.Stated in BnF authoritiesRetrieved 2015-10-10
2.Stated in Integrated Authority FileRetrieved 2024-06-15
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Family name: Appleton
Name in native language: Jon Appleton
Birth name: Jon Howard Appleton
1
Sources
1.Stated in Find a GraveRetrieved 2022-02-13
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Field of work: electroacoustic music
1
Sources
1.Stated in Czech National Authority DatabaseRetrieved 2022-11-07
View statement on Wikidata ↗
music composing
1
Sources
1.Stated in Czech National Authority DatabaseRetrieved 2024-08-21
View statement on Wikidata ↗
composed musical work
1
Sources
1.Stated in Czech National Authority DatabaseRetrieved 2024-08-22
View statement on Wikidata ↗
music composition
1
Sources
1.Stated in Czech National Authority DatabaseRetrieved 2025-04-03
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Label: Empreintes DIGITALes

On other databases

46 identifiers linking Jon Appleton across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

36%

externally sourced

Source last edited August 20, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

Suggest a fact or correction

Links

Use this data

curl https://aidb.si/api/v1/entities/Q3183173

API docs, limits & keys

Cite this page

AIDB. (2026). Jon Appleton (Q3183173). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/jon-appleton-Q3183173