Tony Conrad dead: Buffalo professor was artist, filmmaker and Lou Reed bandmate

Tony Conrad

University at Buffalo professor Tony Conrad speaks about his minimalist approach to art and filmmaking in a video.

University at Buffalo professor Tony Conrad is dead at the age of 76, according to the multiple reports.

The Buffalo News confirms he died Saturday in Hospice Buffalo, Cheektowaga, after a battle with prostate cancer and complications from pneumonia. He had been a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo since 1976 and was scheduled to retire next month.

Conrad made a name for himself internationally as an avant garde artist with a minimalist approach to art, music and film. After graduating from Harvard University with a degree in mathematics, he moved to New York City and released the experimental film, “The Flicker,” performed as a violinist with the Theatre of Eternal Music, also known as the Dream Syndicate, and pioneered droning sounds in a pre-Velvet Underground band with John Cale and Syracuse University alumnus Lou Reed.

“Tony saw the world differently from others – the analytical sparkle of mathematics gave his vision substance,” Cale told the music magazine. “I’d barely arrived stateside when we met – he was one of the very few with whom I felt an instant bond. Ours was a never ending feast of science, music and performing. I’d found my ‘nerd-brother’! In those early sessions with La Monte [Young] – If Tony hadn’t introduced the electronic pickup on his bowed acoustic guitar (and I hopped on the bandwagon with my viola) it would’ve taken much longer for the music to arrive at the just intonation system – it crystallized the direction of the drone in Dream Syndicate music thereafter and his contribution to that music will long be recognized as seminal – he IS an ARTist in the truest sense. Goodnight Tony.”

The New York Times reports Conrad also made several movies with his first wife, early Andy Warhol muse Beverly Grant, and challenged the senses with 1973’s “Yellow Movie,” featuring canvases painted with black-bordered white screens that, over time, would eventually turn yellow. Conrad also recorded the influential album, “Outside the Dream Syndicate,” with German progressive rock band Faust, in 1976.

According to the Buffalo News, a celebration of Conrad’s career and life is scheduled for May 2 in the UB Center for the Arts. Other memorials and arrangements are being planned.

Conrad is survived by his third wife, Paige, a son and two grandchildren.