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| Center for New Music and Audio Technologies | |
|---|---|
| Name | Center for New Music and Audio Technologies |
| Established | 1990 |
| Type | Research center |
| Location | Berkeley, California |
| Affiliation | University of California, Berkeley |
| Director | (see article) |
Center for New Music and Audio Technologies is a research center at the University of California, Berkeley focused on experimental music, sound technology, and interdisciplinary audio research. The center brings together composers, engineers, performers, and scholars to develop novel instruments, software, and compositional practices linked to fields such as computer science, electrical engineering, cognitive science, and media arts. It hosts concerts, workshops, and residencies that connect academic research with professional communities in contemporary music and audio industries.
The center was founded in the context of late 20th-century developments that included initiatives at Mills College, Stanford University, MIT Media Lab, IRCAM, and CCRMA at Stanford. Early activity intersected with figures associated with Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California Institute of the Arts, New York University, and Columbia University sound art programs. Founding influences drew on the work of composers and researchers linked to Morton Subotnick, Don Buchla, Max Mathews, John Chowning, Paul Lansky, David Tudor, and La Monte Young. The center evolved alongside institutions such as Banff Centre, Berklee College of Music, Royal College of Music, Hochschule für Musik programs, and festivals like Sonar, Moogfest, Björk Digital, and Sound Art Festival.
Over time, collaborations expanded to include scholars from Stanford University, Princeton University, Harvard University, Yale University, New England Conservatory, and research labs such as Xerox PARC, Bell Labs, Microsoft Research, and Apple Inc. R&D. The center’s trajectory paralleled developments at Synthfest, AES Expo, International Computer Music Conference, SEAMUS, ISMA, and NIME conferences. Influential visiting artists and technologists emerged from backgrounds connected to Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Terry Riley, and Alice Coltrane.
The center’s mission emphasizes innovation in composition, signal processing, spatial audio, machine listening, and interactive performance. Research areas intersect with projects in digital signal processing, spatial audio practices such as Ambisonics and wave field synthesis, machine learning approaches associated with DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, and algorithmic composition traditions linked to Iannis Xenakis and Brian Eno. Work connects to institutions like National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, DARPA, and initiatives at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The center engages with topics related to sonification, audio coding, psychoacoustics, music information retrieval, and instrument design influenced by Don Buchla and Bob Moog.
Facilities include electroacoustic studios, anechoic and reverberant rooms, multichannel performance spaces, and electronics labs comparable to resources at IRCAM, CCRMA, Sonic Arts Research Centre, and ZKM. Technology resources span workstations running environments such as Max/MSP, Pure Data, SuperCollider, Csound, PD, ChucK, Ableton Live, and development frameworks related to MATLAB, Python (programming language), TensorFlow, and PyTorch. Hardware inventories echo devices from Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments, Moog Music, Roland Corporation, Yamaha Corporation, and companies like Native Instruments, Universal Audio, and Focusrite. Spatial arrays employ speaker systems akin to setups at Berliner Philharmonie, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Miller Theater.
The center fostered work spanning acousmatic pieces, interactive installations, algorithmic scores, and real-time systems. Projects referenced practices from Steve Reich’s phase pieces, Helmut Lachenmann’s extended techniques, and electronic works by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Edgard Varèse. Compositions premiered in collaboration with ensembles such as San Francisco Symphony, Bang on a Can, Kronos Quartet, Ensemble Modern, International Contemporary Ensemble, and festivals like Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Tanglewood, and Donaueschingen Festival. Research prototypes influenced commercial products from Ableton, Native Instruments, Apple Inc., and Google and informed academic outputs at International Computer Music Conference and NIME.
Educational programs include graduate seminars, undergraduate courses, artist residencies, and public concert series modeled after curricula at Royal Academy of Music, Curtis Institute of Music, Juilliard School, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Outreach partners have included Bay Area Rapid Transit cultural initiatives, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SFJAZZ, California Humanities, and community organizations such as Exploratorium and Oakland Museum of California. Student projects have led to collaborations with labels and presenters like Nonesuch Records, ECM Records, Warp Records, Sub Pop, and venues including The Fillmore, Warfield Theatre, and YBCA.
The center maintains partnerships with university departments at University of California, Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UC San Diego, Stanford University, California College of the Arts, and research centers such as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, NASA Ames Research Center, and SRI International. Industry collaborations involve Google Research, Apple Inc., Ableton AG, Native Instruments GmbH, Avid Technology, Dolby Laboratories, and Sennheiser. Festival and ensemble partners include San Francisco Symphony, Bang on a Can, Ensemble InterContemporain, La Jolla Music Society, and broadcasters like NPR, BBC Radio 3, and KEXP.
Work associated with the center has received grants and awards from National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Fellows Program, Fulbright Program, Pew Fellowships, Grammy Awards, Pulitzer Prize for Music, and recognition at international competitions and festivals such as Prix Ars Electronica, Golden Nica, ICMC Awards, and Sony World Music Awards. Faculty and affiliates have been honored by institutions including American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Royal Society, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and national academies.
Category:University of California, Berkeley Category:Music research institutes