Pioneers of Electronic Music, by Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, Pril Smiley, Bülent Arel, Mario Davidovsky, Alice Shields

Pioneers of Electronic Music

by Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, Pril Smiley, Bülent Arel, Mario Davidovsky, Alice Shields

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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.

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	1.	Vladimir Ussachevsky: Piece For Tape Recorder 05:43
	2.	Vladimir Ussachevsky: Sonic Contours 07:24
	3.	Otto Luening: Low Speed 03:45
	4.	Otto Luening: Invention In Twelve Notes 03:47
	5.	Otto Luening: Fantasy In Space 02:57
	6.	Otto Luening: Incantation 02:36
	7.	Otto Luening: Moonflight 03:00
	8.	Pril Smiley: Kolyosa 06:43
	9.	Stereo Electronic Music No.2 14:23
	10.	Vladimir Ussachevsky: Computer Piece No. 1 03:49
	11.	Vladimir Ussachevsky: Two Sketches For A Computer Piece: Sketch 1 00:58
	12.	Vladimir Ussachevsky: Two Sketches For A Computer Piece: Sketch 2 02:17
	13.	Mario Davidovsky: Synchronisms No. 5 08:38
	14.	Alice Shields: The Transformation of Ani 09:04

about

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 Composers Recordings, Inc.) 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.

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released January 1, 2006

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New World Records Brooklyn, New York

Anthology of Recorded Music, Inc., which records under the label New World Records, was founded in 1975.

We are dedicated to the documentation of American music that is largely ignored by the commercial recording companies.

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