Electro-acoustic music pioneer Barry Schrader’s works for tape, dance, film, video, mixed media, live/electro-acoustic music combinations, and real-time computer performance have been presented throughout the world. Schrader is the founder and first president of SEAMUS (Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States). He is also the author of the book Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music.

Schrader teaches at the School of Music at Calarts. He has several current CD releases, including Lost Atlantis and EAM.

In this interview with Synthtopia, Schrader talks about electroacoustic music, the role of classical electronic composers, collaborating with pigs, and more!

Background

Synthtopia: In the late 60s, when you first got into electronic music, electronic sounds were still avant garde. They were beginning to catch the public’s ear, but mainly for their novelty. What piqued your interest in electronic music?

Barry Schrader: My first experience with electronic music was in 1956 when, at the age of 11, I saw Forbidden Planet. I was fascinated by the music in that movie, so much so that I stayed in the theater and watched the film several times until my somewhat exasperated father came looking for me and dragged me home. Over the next 12 years I heard snippets of electronic music on the radio and on recordings, and I also had a tape recorder and experimented a little with the manipulation of recorded material. But it wasn’t until 1969 when I was a graduate student in musicology at the University of Pittsburgh that I actually became involved with working in a studio.

Synthtopia: What made you decide to make this the focus of your career?

Barry Schrader: The University of Pittsburgh installed a studio built around a Buchla 100 system, and I became the teaching assistant for the studio which forced me to learn things rather quickly. I became absorbed by the medium and,even though I finished my degree in musicology, I decided to devote myself to electro-acoustic music from this point on. The things that fascinated me about the medium then are the qualities that still interest me: electro-acoustic music offers the composer an intensely personal and controlled environment within which to create new musical universes.

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