Ben Patterson

Born in Pittsburgh on 29 May 1934, he studied contrabass and composition at the University of Michigan and went on to play with orchestras in Canada before settling in Cologne in 1960. There he assisted George Maciunas in organizing the first Fluxus Festival in Wiesbaden in 1962, establishing himself as a founding member of the movement. His score-based works, including Paper Piece and Variations for Double-Bass, dissolved the boundaries between concert music and performance. After two decades in arts administration he returned to making art in 1987. He died in Wiesbaden on 25 June 2016.