Computer Music Lecture Presentation at UW April 2

The University of Wyoming School of Computing will host a free public computing lecture-recital program Wednesday, April 2.

Stephen Beck, the Derryl and Helen Haymon Professor of Music at Louisiana State University (LSU), will present a lecture-recital titled “Tech and Music: A Concert Conversation on Computer Music” at 7:30 p.m. in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts recital hall.

Beck teaches music composition, electroacoustic music and computer applications in music at LSU. He received his PhD. in music composition and theory from the University of California-Los Angeles. In 1985, he studied computer music at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique in Paris with the support of a Fulbright Fellowship.

He joined LSU’s faculty in 1988 and, since 2003, he has held a joint faculty position at the Center for Computation and Technology. He established the Cultural Computing Group and led the development of the Ph.D. program in experimental music and digital media and the undergraduate digital media minor.

His research interests include large-scale sound diffusion technologies, granular sound synthesis techniques, interactive computer music and music over networks.

“The use of technology in my music is not meant to replace musicians, but rather to enhance and expand a performer’s potential for expressiveness, technique and, most importantly, timbre,” he says. “There is an uncanny beauty in the physical and mathematical laws of nature -- a beauty of intense complexity bound by simplicity, order and logic. For me, this is a constant and powerful source of inspiration, and modern technology seems the perfect tool for expressing that inspiration and awe.”

For more information about the program, call the UW School of Computing at (307) 766-5299.