Eastman Computer Music Center
Established in 1981 by Allan Schindler as an outgrowth of the former electronic music program at the School, the ECMC provides digital audio and computing facilities for the realization of compositional, performance, multimedia, theoretical and other types of musical projects by Eastman, University of Rochester and visiting faculty, students, musicians and researchers. Currently, the Center supports creative and instructional work by about thirty users annually. Between 40 and 50 % of these users are composers; another 25 % or so are musical performers; our remaining users include music theorists and jazz studies, music education, science and liberal arts majors. The two central functions of the Eastman Computer Music Center are:
Our Artistic Mission
to provide professional and innovative audio and computer resources in support of the creation and public performance or presentation of creative and research projects of the highest musical and technical quality.
Our Educational Mission
to teach and to help disseminate the use of these resources to student, professional and area musicians of varying specialties, interests and prior experience, and to audiences of similar diversity, in a manner that encourages each partici pant to explore and to stretch his or her own musical capabilities and artistic vision.
Given the wealth of solo, chamber and large ensemble performing talent at Eastman, many of our projects involve collaborations, from the brainstorming stage through eventual concert presentations and/or recordings, between composers and performers or performing ensembles. Lists of available compact disc recordings and of publications of works realized at the Center are included within the home web pages of several of our current and alumni users.
An increasingly important resource of the ECMC is our resident Switch~ Ensemble, a group of virtuoso performers, established in 2012, who specialize in the performance of new works for chamber ensemble and electronics and/or realtime processing of instrumental and vocal sounds.
The Center also seeks to foster artistic collaborations between musicians and film makers, choreographers and dancers, literary and theatrical artists, and professionals and students in a variety of other other fields. ECMC users have collaborated on hundreds of projects with choreographers from the Graduate Department of Dance at Graduate Department of Dance at SUNY Brockport, with filmmakers from the School of Film and Animation at the Rochester Institute of Technology and with independent artists and artists in a variety of disciplines from other area schools.
The ECMC sponsors a yearly concert series as well as a series of lectures and presentations by visiting artists. Additionally, the Center provides technical support for about 40 concerts, recitals and other events each year that are sponsored by other Eastman and community organizations.
ECMC's History