Wednesday, January 18, 2012

columbia-princeton electronic music center




The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center was highly influential in the invention of synthesizers and electronic music as we know it today, and its members featured early electronic music pioneers such as Milton Babbitt, Pril Smiley, and Wendy (Walter) Carlos.

You can read a little more about it on the Columbia website.

I was fortunate enough to take classes at the Computer Music Center while at Columbia, and some of the old equipment like the remnants of the infamous RCA Mark II synth are still in Prentis Hall on 125th St. Need to thank Prof. Brad Garton for encouraging my interest in electronics and synths! There are still a lot of amazing electronic and acoustic projects coming out of the CMC, and I'll post about a few of them at a later date.

For now, a look at some of the records that came out of that early era for electronic music experimentation, which I'm always on the lookout for: