Celebrating 40 Years
of Electronic and Computer Music

In establishing an electronic music studio at Peabody in the late 1960s, Jean Eichelberger Ivey was clearly a woman ahead of her time. It was the first such studio in Maryland—and among the first anywhere in the nation based in a conservatory. This fall, Peabody celebrates four decades of pioneering breakthroughs in electronic and computer music with a 40th anniversary concert on November 3, featuring the Peabody Computer Music Consort Digital Arts Ensemble in Forty Years of Looking to the Future.

Jean Eichelberger Ivey

According to Geoffrey Wright, founder of the Computer Music Studio 20 years ago and today director of the combined Electronic/Computer Music Department, Peabody was unique in its marriage of technology and music. “In universities, these groups developed around scientists who were interested in music,” he said. “Here, from the start, the program was developed by musicians for the purpose of composing music.”

The program initially offered summer workshops for music teachers and public performances even before Peabody began to offer courses for its conservatory students in 1969. Eager to share their knowledge with the greater public, Eichelberger Ivey—a one-time Guggenheim Fellow whose compositions have been widely performed and recorded—and the rest of the studio held regular public demonstrations and lectures on how electronics could be integrated into traditional orchestral performances.

“In the early days, the synthesizers and computers were so huge that the only way to bring the sounds into the concert hall was in a recording,” explains McGregor Boyle (Composition, DMA ’90), who studied composition with Eichelberger Ivey and today is chair of the Composition Department and on the Computer Music faculty.

Soon, the development of computers, and Peabody’s affiliation in 1977 with Johns Hopkins University (which brought with it increased computing capacity), vastly expanded what could be done with electronic music—allowing for multimedia opportunities and the creation of new sounds that couldn’t otherwise exist.

In 1982, Wright launched the Computer Music Studio and the Computer Music Consort. The professional digital arts performance group, in residence at Peabody, has appeared in concert around the globe.

In 1989, the electronic and computer music studios combined, and a new master of music degree in computer music was born. “Peabody’s computer music MM degree is unique in that students can focus on one of three areas: composition, performance, and research,” Boyle explains. The department’s bachelor of music degree in computer music currently has about 20 students enrolled.

Geoffrey Wright and McGregor Boyle

“We are especially close to the Composition Department,” says Boyle. “Student composers are required to take at least one of our courses during their time at Peabody.” (Doctoral students in composition may opt to complete a concentration in computer music.) “When technology is required, people usually turn to us,” he says. “This has led to some great performances that combine acoustic and electronic elements.”

Wright, himself a classically trained composer and organist, notes that working with computers allows musicians to expand their palette of colors. “They can control sounds more, while also creating new ones,” he said.

Today, the department boasts a number of successful alumni. Peabody computer music graduates have gone on to teach at the University of Virginia, Mansfield University, Lawrence University, SUNY Stony Brook, and other institutions. Some lend their talents to scoring films and television shows. Fans of the popular Baltimore-based TV series Homicide, for instance, may recall the former show’s theme song; it was composed by alumna Lynn Kowal as part of her master’s portfolio.

Today, observes Boyle, “things just keep getting smaller. The ability to interact with music software in real time is very exciting and has led to performances that could not otherwise exist.”

Though electronic and computer music has evolved greatly in the four decades since its start at Peabody, the operating mission, say today’s leaders, remains true to that of its founder, Eichelberger Ivey, who once noted: “All the musical resources of the past and present…[are] at the composer’s disposal, but always in the service of the effective communication of humanistic ideas and intuitive emotion.”