60 years ago, Princeton University engineers noticed members of the music department, staring agog at a recently-installed computer. It wasn’t long before a not-so-unlikely alliance was formed that helped to change history. New Jersey’s role in the creation of digital music is the subject of a new podcast, “Composers & Computers.”
The accessible, absorbing presentation illuminates the work of engineers at RCA Laboratories in Princeton in the 1950s, Princeton music faculty at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York, and musicians who first entered the computer center in the Princeton University EQuad in 1962, with the intention of harnessing a new IBM 7090 to synthesize music.
No less than 20 subjects were interviewed for the series, to create an oral history spanning six decades. Commentary, anecdotes, and insights are punctuated and underscored by samples of electronic music, from Milton Babbitt and Charles Wuorinen (his Pulitzer Prize-winning “Time’s Encomium”) to Stevie Wonder and The Beach Boys.
Aaron Nathans, Digital Media Editor at Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, is the mastermind behind the podcast. He too is an interesting, multifaceted individual, who became the unexpected co-subject of an article I wrote for this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo.
Learn more about electronic music pioneers Milton Babbitt, Godfrey Winham, Paul Lansky, Ken Steiglitz, and their colleagues and students, and the continued vitality of the Princeton computer scene as exemplified by the Princeton Laptop Orchestra and the multidisciplinary experimentation of Naomi Leonard and her “Rhythm Bots.”
Look for the story in print in area vending machines and local businesses, or find immediate gratification here:
The “Composers & Computers” podcast, sponsored by Princeton University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, can be heard on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and other platforms. Show notes, including playlists, sources, rare photos, and podcast audio, are also available at https://engineering.princeton.edu/series/composers-computers-podcast
ONCE UPON A TIME IN NEW YORK: Princeton composer Milton Babbitt at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center