The Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) presents a celebration of visiting artist John Chowning, pioneer of Computer Music and father of FM Digital Synthesis. Works on the program include some of Chowning’s most notable compositions played over a state-of-the-art surround sound system, as well as his composition Voices (2005) for soprano and live electronics, performed by soprano Maureen Chowning.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
7:30 p.m.
Meany Theater | University of Washington | Seattle | USA
TICKETS $10 ($5 students/seniors)
206-543-4880
www.music.washington.edu
PROGRAM DETAIL
Composer John Chowning is considered one of the pioneers of Computer Music. His contributions to this field, such as the invention of FM Digital Synthesis, had a strong cultural impact in the worlds of both classical and popular music. His invention allowed the production of one of the most popular digital synthesizers, the Yamaha DX7, which sold millions of units in the 1980s and was used by virtually every rock band from that era. Revenues from the licensing of this technology to Yamaha Corporation allowed Chowning to create the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University, one of the most important Computer Music research centers in the world.
Chowning’s most important contribution to the world of music, however, can be found in his compositions, all considered master pieces of Computer Music: Sabelithe (1971), Turenas (1972), Stria (1977), and Phoné (1981). Several of these pieces will be played during DXARTS’ concert in Meany Hall over a state-of-the art surround sound system. The program will also include a more recent piece by Chowning, Voices (2005), for soprano and live electronics, performed by soprano Maureen Chowning.
GUEST ARTIST BIO
JOHN CHOWNING
John Chowning was born in Salem, New Jersey, in 1934. Following military service he studied music at Wittenberg University where he concentrated on composition and received his degree in 1959. He then studied composition in Paris for three years with Nadia Boulanger. In 1966 he received the doctorate in composition from Stanford University, where he studied with Leland Smith.
With the help of Max Mathews of Bell Telephone Laboratories and David Poole of Stanford, in 1964 he set up a computer music program using the computer system of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. This was the first implementation of an on-line computer music system ever.
Beginning in 1964 he began the research leading to the first generalized sound localization algorithm implemented in a quad format in 1966. In 1967, John Chowning discovered the frequency modulation (FM) algorithm in which both the carrier frequency and the modulating frequency are within the audio band. This breakthrough in the synthesis of timbres allowed a very simple yet elegant way of creating and controlling time-varying spectra. Over the next six years he worked toward turning this discovery into a system of musical importance. In 1973, he and Stanford University began a relationship with Yamaha in Japan, which led to the most successful synthesizer technology in the history of electronic musical instruments, known as FM synthesis.
John Chowning has received fellowship grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and was artist-in-residence with the Kunstlerprogramm des Deutschen Akademischen Austauschdiensts for the City of Berlin in 1974, and guest artist in IRCAM, Paris in 1978, in 1981, and in 1985. His compositions have been recorded on compact disc, WERGO 2012-50. In 1983 he was honored for his contributions to the field of computer music at the International Computer Music Conference in Rochester, New York. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1988.
In 1992 he was given The Osgood Hooker Professorship of Fine Arts by the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford. The French Ministry of Culture awarded him the Diplôme d’Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1995 and he was given the Doctorat Honoris Causa December 2002 by the Université de la Méditerranée. Chowning taught computer-sound synthesis and composition at Stanford University’s Department of Music and was founder and director of the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), one of the leading centers for computer music and related research.
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