Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center The Computer Music Center (CMC) at Columbia University is the oldest center for electronic music, electronic and computer music research in the United States. It was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Locatio ...

'' was an album of

electronic music Electronic music is a Music genre, genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or electronics, circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromech ...

released in 1964. It was the recording of a concert performed at the McMillin Theater (today called the Miller Theater) at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

on May 9 and 10, 1961. The stereo version was MS 6566 and the monophonic version was ML 5966. There was a sequel released in 1998 on the New World label titled ''Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center 1961–1973''.

Bülent Arel Bülent Arel (23 April 1919 – 24 November 1990) was a Turkish-born composer of contemporary classical music and electronic music. He was born in Istanbul, and studied composition at the Ankara Conservatory and sound engineering in Paris. ...

is the only artist who appears on both albums. The Arel composition is completely electronic, with articulated signals over a continuous background texture.

Halim El-Dabh Halim Abdul Messieh El-Dabh ( ar, حليم عبد المسيح الضبع, ''Ḥalīm ʻAbd al-Masīḥ al-Ḍab''ʻ; March 4, 1921 – September 2, 2017) was an Egyptian-American composer, musician, ethnomusicologist, and educator, who had ...

's composition, an "electronic drama," has a text drawn from the epic of

Layla and Majnun ''Layla & Majnun'' ( ar, مجنون ليلى ; Layla's Mad Lover) is an old story of Arab origin, about the 7th-century Bedouin poet Qays ibn al-Mulawwah and his ladylove Layla bint Mahdi (later known as Layla al-Aamiriya). "The Layl ...

, and consists primarily of tape manipulated instrumental and vocal sounds. Ussachevsky's work has lyrics derived from the '' Enuma Elish''

creation myth A creation myth (or cosmogonic myth) is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it., "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop ...

, with chorus and electronic accompaniment. Babbitt's piece is composed entirely on the RCA Synthesizer of the Columbia-Princeton Computer Music Center. Davidovsky created a work manipulating

sine wave A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or just sinusoid is a mathematical curve defined in terms of the '' sine'' trigonometric function, of which it is the graph. It is a type of continuous wave and also a smooth periodic function. It occurs often in ...

square wave A square wave is a non-sinusoidal periodic waveform in which the amplitude alternates at a steady frequency between fixed minimum and maximum values, with the same duration at minimum and maximum. In an ideal square wave, the transitions b ...

, and

white noise In signal processing, white noise is a random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies, giving it a constant power spectral density. The term is used, with this or similar meanings, in many scientific and technical disciplines, ...

generators. Luening's composition combines solo violin with RCA Synthesizer sound followed by tape manipulation.

Track listing

Side one

: Stereo Electronic Music No. 1 – 10:28 #

: Leiyla and the Poet – 5:20 #

Vladimir Ussachevsky Vladimir Alexeevich Ussachevsky (November 3, 1911 in Hailar, China – January 2, 1990 in New York, New York) was a composer, particularly known for his work in electronic music. Biography Vladimir Ussachevsky was born in the Hailar District ...

: Creation—Prologue – 8:09

Side two

Milton Babbitt Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music. Biography Babbitt was born in Philadelphia to Albert E ...

: Composition for Synthesizer – 10:36 #

Mario Davidovsky Mario Davidovsky (March 4, 1934 – August 23, 2019) was an Argentine-American composer. Born in Argentina, he emigrated in 1960 to the United States, where he lived for the remainder of his life. He is best known for his series of compositions ca ...

: Electronic Study No. 1 – 5:50 #

Otto Luening Otto Clarence Luening (June 15, 1900 – September 2, 1996) was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music. Luening was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to German parents, Eugene, a conducto ...

: Gargoyles – 9:21

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (Album) 1961 live albums Columbia Records live albums Live electronic albums