Pioneers Of Electronic Music
Liner Notes   Cat. No. 80644     Release Date: 2006-01-01
Works by Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, Pril Smiley, Bülent Arel, Mario Davidovsky, Alice Shields

In 1950, the Columbia University Music Department requisitioned a tape recorder to use in teaching and for recording concerts. In 1951, the first tape recorder arrived, an Ampex 400, and Vladimir Ussachevsky, then a junior faculty member, was assigned a job that no one else wanted: the care of the tape recorder. This job was to have important consequences for Ussachevsky and the medium he developed. Electronic music was born.

Over the next ten years, Ussachevsky and his collaborators established the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, which Ussachevsky directed for twenty years. It was the first large electronic music center in the United States, thanks to the path-breaking support of the Rockefeller Foundation and encouragement from two of the country's leading universities. The Center became one of the best-known and most prolific sources of electronic music in the world. All of the music on this historic reissue (originally released on CRI) is the result of the pioneering work of the Center and its composers.

The guest composers and Columbia-associated composers who have produced pieces at the Center include Bülent Arel, Luciano Berio, Mario Davidovsky, Jacob Druckman, Arthur Kreiger, Daria Semegen, Pril Smiley, and Edgard Varèse. Ussachevsky's own students at the Center included Jon Appleton, Wendy Carlos, Charles Dodge, Robert Moog, Alice Shields, Harvey Sollberger, and Charles Wuorinen. Of the seven composers most closely associated with the Center from its early years, six are present on this disc.

Various Artists

Pioneers Of Electronic Music

MP3/320 $16.00
FLAC $16.00
WAV $16.00
CD-R+ $26.00
CD-R+ titles come in a jewel case with print booklet.                         Liner Notes
A *.pdf of the notes may also be accessed here free of charge.

Track Listing

Sonic Contours
Vladimir Ussachevsky
Buy
Low Speed
Otto Luening
Buy
Invention In Twelve Notes
Otto Luening
Buy
Fantasy In Space
Otto Luening
Buy
Incantation
Otto Luening
Buy
Moonflight
Otto Luening
Buy
Piece For Tape Recorder
Vladimir Ussachevsky
Buy
Kolyosa
Pril Smiley
Buy
Stereo Electronic Music No.2
Buy
Computer Piece No. 1
Vladimir Ussachevsky
Buy
Two Sketches For A Computer Piece: Sketch 1
Vladimir Ussachevsky
Buy
Two Sketches For A Computer Piece: Sketch 2
Vladimir Ussachevsky
Buy
Synchronisms No. 5
Mario Davidovsky
Buy
The Transformation of Ani
Alice Shields
Buy