Ingram Marshall

Marshall was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and studied gamelan music in Bali. In 1990 he was awarded a doctorate of philosophy in music by Lake Forest College, largely in recognition of his Fulbright award and gamelan studies in Bali. In addition to his Fulbright award, he received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Fromm Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Marshall wrote for the Kronos Quartet: Voces Resonae (1984) and Fog Tropes II (1982), featured in the 2010 film Shutter Island, and for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra: Orphic Memories (2006).

He first gained recognition for his electroacoustic pieces, often performed by the composer himself on synthesizer, tape looping, gambuh (a traditional Balinese flute), and voice ("Fragility Cycles" [1978] is one of his best known works using this method of solo performance). His acoustic music frequently incorporated tape delay, and later, digital delay (such as "Soe Pa", for solo classical guitar, and "Hymnodic Delays" for the Theatre of Voices). Many of the tape parts of his pieces include the composer's own keening falsetto and gambuh playing (such as "Fog Tropes" and "Gradual Requiem" (1980)). Some of his works were produced in coordination with the assistance of noted Norwegian photographer, James Bengston of Studio Nord in Oslo.

He taught at the California Institute of the Arts in the early 1970s, joined the music faculty at The Evergreen State College in the late 1980s, and later moved to New Haven, Connecticut. He taught at the Yale School of Music and the Hartt School, and also held visiting teaching positions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Brooklyn College. Among his notable students are Timo Andres, Armando Bayolo, Christopher Cerrone, Tyondai Braxton, Jacob Cooper, Adrian Knight, Matt Sargent, and Stephen Gorbos.

Marshall was born in Mount Vernon, New York. He was the son of Bernice Douglass and Harry Reinhard Marshall, Sr. Marshall's early interest in music was the result of encouragement provided by his mother, herself an accomplished pianist and vocalist. As a youth, he performed as a soprano in the Boy's Choir at the Mt. Vernon Community Church, and during his high school years was influenced early by noted music instructor Victor Laslo. After graduating from the Fox Lane High School in 1960, he pursued musical studies at Lake Forest College and Columbia University, becoming affiliated with the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. In 1970 he became graduate assistant to Morton Subotnick at Cal Arts, staying on to teach for several years after receiving his MFA in 1971.

Though the composer used the term "expressivist" to describe his music, Marshall's music is often associated with post-minimalism. His music often reflects an interest in world music, particularly Balinese gamelan tradition, as well as influence from the American minimalism trends of the 1960s (the composer often acknowledged the work of Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and John Adams).

Ingram Douglass Marshall (May 10, 1942 – May 31, 2022) was an American composer and a onetime student of Vladimir Ussachevsky and Morton Subotnick.