Pauline Oliveros was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music.
Ellen Fullman is an American composer, instrument builder, and performer. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is known for her 70-foot (21-meter) Long String instrument, tuned in just intonation and played with rosin-coated fingers.
Laurie Spiegel is an American composer. She has worked at Bell Laboratories, in computer graphics, and is known primarily for her electronic-music compositions and her algorithmic composition software Music Mouse. She also plays the guitar and lute.
Electroacoustic music is a genre of popular and Western art music in which composers use technology to manipulate the timbres of acoustic sounds, sometimes by using audio signal processing, such as reverb or harmonizing, on acoustical instruments. It originated around the middle of the 20th century, following the incorporation of electric sound production into compositional practice. The initial developments in electroacoustic music composition to fixed media during the 20th century are associated with the activities of the Groupe de recherches musicales at the ORTF in Paris, the home of musique concrète, the Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne, where the focus was on the composition of elektronische Musik, and the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York City, where tape music, electronic music, and computer music were all explored. Practical electronic music instruments began to appear in the early 20th century.
Downtown music is a subdivision of American music, closely related to experimental music, which developed in downtown Manhattan in the 1960s.
Acousmatic music is a form of electroacoustic music that is specifically composed for presentation using speakers, as opposed to a live performance. It stems from a compositional tradition that dates back to the origins of musique concrète in the late 1940s. Unlike acoustic or electroacoustic musical works that are realized from scores, compositions that are purely acousmatic often exist solely as fixed media audio recordings.
Chris Brown is an American composer, pianist and electronic musician, who creates music for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics, for computer networks, and for improvising ensembles. He was active early in his career as an inventor and builder of electroacoustic instruments; he has also performed widely as an improviser and pianist with groups as "Room" and the "Glenn Spearman Double Trio." In 1986 he co-founded the pioneering computer network music ensemble "The Hub". He is also known for his recorded performances of music by Henry Cowell, Luc Ferrari, and John Zorn. He has received commissions from the Berkeley Symphony, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, the Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio, the Gerbode Foundation, the Phonos Foundation and the Creative Work Fund. His recent music includes the poly-rhythm installation "Talking Drum", the "Inventions" series for computers and interactive performers, and the radio performance "Transmissions" series, with composer Guillermo Galindo.
Ruth Anderson was an American composer, orchestrator, teacher, and flutist.
Alice Shields is an American classical composer. She is one of the pioneers of electronic music, and is particularly known for her cross-cultural operas.
Maggi Payne is an American composer, flutist, video artist, recording engineer/editor, and historical remastering engineer who creates electroacoustic, instrumental, vocal works, and works involving visuals.
Sharon Ann Cheslow is an American musician, composer, artist, writer, photographer, educator, and archivist. In 1981, she formed Chalk Circle, Washington, D.C.'s first all-female punk band. She has since become an accomplished artist who works between different mediums, mostly sound-based.
Sarah Cahill is an American pianist based in the Bay Area. She has also worked as a writer on music and as a radio show host.
Launched from the Lower East Side, Manhattan in 1983 as a subscription only bimonthly publication, the Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine utilized the audio cassette medium to distribute no wave downtown music and audio art and was in activity for the ten years of 1983–1993.
Musicworks is a Canadian avant-garde music magazine, launched in January 1978 by Andrew Timar (editor-in-chief) and John Oswald.
Anna Rubin is an American composer of electroacoustic and instrumental music.
Barbara Barg was a poet, writer, and musician.
Margaret Mara Helmuth is an American composer. She studied at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, and then continued her studies at Columbia University, graduating with a doctorate in music.
Judy Klein is an American composer, music educator. She is the founder of the Computer Music Studio at New York University and served as its director in 1980's. Her music is primarily acousmatic, and includes works for the electronic medium, sound installations, music for theatre and collaborations with visual artists.
Shiva Feshareki is a British-Iranian experimental composer, turntable artist and radio presenter. As a turntablist, she plays her compositions solo or alongside classical orchestras. She was born in London in 1987. She obtained a Doctorate of Music from the Royal College of Music. In 2017 she was honoured with the Ivor Novello Award for Innovation.
Ghost Ensemble is a New York-based experimental new music ensemble composed of flute, oboe, accordion, percussion, harp, viola, cello, two contrabasses, and conductor. Frequently commissioning new repertoire that merges classically notated music and improvisation with experimental sound practices, the ensemble follows an aesthetic that has been described as "music composed for a deep listening that fixes you in the present" that "uses sound to seek an altered consciousness, from a meditative awareness to a look, perhaps, into a different dimension". The ensemble is also closely connected to the music of Pauline Oliveros, who introduced several members of the ensemble before its inception. The group frequently performs the work of Oliveros and advocates for her philosophy of Deep Listening. Ghost Ensemble's 2018 debut LP features work by Oliveros, ensemble director Ben Richter, and founding oboist Sky Macklay; 2021 release Mountain Air features the Oliveros work of the same name and works by Marguerite Brown and Teodora Stepancic. Other composers commissioned by the ensemble include Catherine Lamb, Miya Masaoka, ensemble bassist James Ilgenfritz, Liisa Hirsch, Elizabeth Adams, Kristina Wolfe, Andrew C. Smith, and Kyle Gann. Performance collaborators have included Carmina Escobar and David Rothenberg. Ghost Ensemble performs nationally at venues such as REDCAT in Los Angeles and Pioneer Works in New York.
