EMCT Master Class: John Chowning + Computer Music Concert with Maureen Chowning

Monday 3rd march | Lecture 5 - 6pm, Concert 7:30pm

St James Hatcham Church, Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross SE14 6NW

EMCT MASTER CLASSES offer a fresh perspective on electronic music inviting composers, scientists, artists, technologists and wizards at the forefront of electronic music, computing and technology, originally ideated for the Electronic Music, Computing and Technology BMus and BSC programme at Goldsmiths, University of London, Computing and Music departments.

For the seventh edition we have invited the godfather of electronic music (or digital pop, as defined by the Guardian in October 2024), Professor John Chowning, artist, scientist, musician and inventor of FM synthesis, Chowning is the also the founder of the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stamford University. For this edition the lecture will be followed by a concert featuring a spatialisation of some of the most iconic compositions of the master accompanied live by the mesmerising voice of coloratura soprano Maureen Chowning. An experience not to be missed!

John Chowning was born in Salem, New Jersey in 1934. Following military service and studies at Wittenberg University, he studied composition in Paris for three years with Nadia Boulanger. In 1964, with the help of Max Mathews then at Bell Telephone Laboratories and David Poole of Stanford, he set up a computer music program using the computer system of Stanford University's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He then began the research leading to the first sound spatialisation algorithm implemented in a quad format. In 1967 he discovered the frequency modulation algorithm that was later licensed to YAMAHA, leading to the most successful synthesis engine in the history of electronic instruments. His four early pieces, Sabelithe (1971), Turenas (1972), Stria (1977) and Phoné (1981), make use of his spatialization and FM synthesis algorithms. After more than twenty years of hearing problems, Chowning was able to compose again beginning in 2004, when he began work on Voices, for solo soprano and interactive computer. Chowning was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1988 and awarded the Honorary Doctor of Music by Wittenberg University in 1990. The French Ministre de la Culture awarded him the Diplôme d’Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1995. He was given the Doctorat Honoris Causa in 2002 by the Université de la Méditerranée, by Queen’s University in 2010, and Hamburg University in 2016. In 1974, with John Grey, James (Andy) Moorer, Loren Rush and Leland Smith, he founded the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), which remains one of the leading centres for computer music and related research.

Maureen Chowning, coloratura soprano, studied at the Boston Conservatory of Music before moving to the San Francisco area. She has since appeared on the Public Broadcasting System’s NOVA series and Smithsonian World with Max Mathews, demonstrating his Radio Baton and conductor program. She has also performed in Canada, Poland, and Japan and at the International Electronic Music Festival at Bourges, France, where in 1990 she gave the world premiere of Solemn Songs for Evening by Richard Boulanger and of Sea Songs by Dexter Morrill in 1997. She performed Sea Songs in celebration of Max Mathews ‘50th anniversary of Computer Music at the Computer History Museum in 2007.

In 2005 she gave the world premiere of Voices (v.1) at the Maison de Radio in Paris , commissioned by GRM. In March 2006 she performed the US premiere of Voices (v.2) as part of the Berkeley Symphony Concert series. Then in September 2006 she performed Voices and Jean-Claude Risset’s “Oscura” for soprano and computer in Buenos Aires and Montevideo followed by performances at U. of Florida and the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. She performed Voices (v.3) at the University of Washington in April 2011, then at MIT, Brown, Eastman Rochester, and Yale Universities and in Beijing in 2011 and Taipei in 2012.

The EMCT Master Class series is curated by Eleonora Oreggia, founder of Nebularosa and head of the Electronic Music, Computing and Technology BMus/BSc at Goldsmiths, University of London. Nebularosa is a record label publishing experimental noise, techno, industrial and algorithmic electronic music that challenges the established modes of music production.

This event is co-produced with Prof Atau Tanaka’s research project, Hybrid Venue in collaboration with IKLECTIK Art Labs. The project has received funding support from the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), grant reference AH/Y006054/1.