The San Francisco Tape Music Center, or SFTMC, was founded in the summer of 1962 by composers

Ramon Sender Ramón Sender Barayón (born October 29, 1934) is a composer, visual artist and writer. He was the co-founder with Morton Subotnick of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1962. He is the son of Spanish writer Ramón J. Sender. Education ...

and

Morton Subotnick Morton Subotnick (born April 14, 1933) is an American composer of electronic music, best known for his 1967 composition '' Silver Apples of the Moon'', the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch. He was one of the f ...

as a collaborative, "non profit corporation developed and maintained" by local composers working with tape recorders and other novel compositional technologies, which functioned both as an electronic music studio and concert venue. Composer

Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...

, artist Tony Martin and technician William Maginnis eventually joined the SFTMC. The SFTMC was an active and important hub for experimental music and interdisciplinary art in the Bay Area from 1962 to 1966.

History

San Francisco Conservatory of Music

Before the SFTMC was officially established, it began as a small music studio built in the attic of the

San Francisco Conservatory of Music The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) is a private music conservatory in San Francisco, California. As of 2021, it had 480 students. History The San Francisco Conservatory of Music was founded in 1917 by Ada Clement and Lillian Ho ...

by Ramon Sender in October 1961. The studio was minimally equipped and housed little else than the conservatory's two-channel

Ampex Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence.AbramsoThe History ...

tape recorder, but Sender and fellow Sonics composers creatively explored the limitations of the studio by using

contact microphone A contact microphone, also known as a piezo microphone, is a form of microphone that senses audio vibrations through contact with solid objects. Unlike normal air microphones, contact microphones are almost completely insensitive to air vibrat ...

s to augment their recordings in an experimental manner.

The Sonics series

The concert series that also paved the way to the creation of the SFTMC, titled Sonics, was organized by Sender and Pauline Oliveros, a fellow composition student of

Robert Erickson Robert Erickson (March 7, 1917 – April 24, 1997) was an American composer. Education Erickson was born in Marquette, Michigan. He studied with Ernst Krenek from 1936 to 1947: "I had already studied—and abandoned—the twelve tone s ...

. The first Sonics concert of December 1961 consisted of original tape compositions by Oliveros, Sender,

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for i ...

and Philip Winsor as well as a collaborative live improvisations. The sixth and last concert of the series took place on June 11, 1962.

Activities

The premiere of Terry Riley's seminal minimalist composition

In C ''In C'' is a musical piece composed by Terry Riley in 1964 for an indefinite number of performers. He suggests "a group of about 35 is desired if possible but smaller or larger groups will work". A series of short melodic fragments, ''In C'' is o ...

was performed at (and organized by) the SFTMC on November 4 and 6, 1964. It was performed by Riley, Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, Pauline Oliveros,

Stuart Dempster Stuart Dempster (born July 7, 1936 in Berkeley, California) is a trombonist, didjeridu player, improviser, and composer. Biography After Dempster completed his studies at San Francisco State College, he was appointed assistant professor at the ...

, Morton Subotnick,

Warner Jepson Warner Jepson (March 24, 1930 – July 5, 2011) was an American composer from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In 1952, he graduated from Oberlin Conservatory of Music with a degree in composition. He spent most of his remaining years in the San Francisco ...

and others, while Tony Martin operated the light show or "visual environment". The SFTMC members, particularly Morton Subotnick, were instrumental in the creation of the

Buchla Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments (BEMI) was a manufacturer of synthesizers and unique MIDI controllers. The origins of the company could be found in Buchla & Associates, created in 1963 by synthesizer pioneer Don Buchla of Berkeley, Californi ...

analog modular synthesizer.

Later years

Over the course of four years, the SFTMC changed locations twice, first to 1537 Jones Street and then to 321 Divisadero Street, before the

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carne ...

awarded a $200,000 grant to

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was r ...

to bring the SFTMC to Mills and merge it with the Mills Performing Group, where it eventually became the Mills Tape Music Center. Pauline Oliveros, Tony Martin and William Maginnis collectively served as directors for the new center, which is now the Center for Contemporary Music (CCM).

References

External links

EMF Institute: SFTMCThe Electronic Music Men
by Edwina Bowe, San Francisco Chronicle (March 22, 1964)
The Music of Pauline Oliveros
by Heidi Von Gunden
The San Francisco Tape Music Collective
by Ramon Sender and Tony Martin; performed by Pauline Oliveros, produced by Randall Packer and Zakros InterArts, October 17, 1988, Victoria Theater, San Francisco. Review by Charles Boone.
San Francisco Tape Music Center: Modest and Vital Drive
by Alfred Frankenstein, San Francisco Chronicle (March 30, 1964) {{Authority control Electronic music organizations Culture of San Francisco 1962 establishments in California Organizations established in 1962