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David A. Jaffe: From "Silicon Valley Breakdown" to "The Space Between Us"

This colloquium and concert by David A. Jaffe highlights 30 years of spatial music with computers. In the mid-1950s, American composer Henry Brant wrote that “single-style music can no longer evoke the multi-directional assaults of contemporary life on the spirit.” In pursuit of a framework for music based on simultaneity, he made a series of experiments and compositions exploring the physical position of sounds as an essential compositional element. Jaffe met Brant in the mid-1970s, and became a life-long friend and advocate. In 1979, at CCRMA, he began applying the principles of acoustic spatial music to the computer domain. In this colloquium and concert, Jaffe discusses and presents three of his spatial works, spanning a 30-year period.  

Silicon Valley Breakdown for synthetic plucked strings (1982) will be heard in a newly-restored form, a rare opportunity to hear this well-known work in its original 4-channel format. Impossible Animals (1986) for live performers and computer-synthesized voices creates a hybrid human-bird vocalise, as if the brain of a bird were transplanted into the body of a wildly-gifted soprano.  Finally, The Space Between Us (2011), an acoustic spatial work with interactive computer control, uses 21 robotic mechanical instruments created by Trimpin, positioned around and above the audience. A video of this work will be presented, featuring CCRMA alumnus Andrew Schloss performing on a new version of the Boie / Mathews Radiodrum, accompanied by eight string players distributed throughout the hall.

David A. Jaffe (b. 1955) is a composer, performer, and computer music innovator. He attended Bennington College and Stanford University, where he received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1983, and has taught at Princeton University, UC San Diego, Melbourne University, and Stanford. His large catalogue is noted for its personal "maximalist" approach in the American experimentalist tradition of Charles Ives and Henry Brant, as well as its ground-breaking use of technology in pieces such as Silicon Valley Breakdown, frequently cited as a a landmark of computer music. Also an expert programmer, he was hired by Steve Jobs in 1987 to collaborate with Julius O. Smith in creating music software for the NeXT Computer. He later co-founded Staccato Systems, Inc. and is currently Senior Scientist/Engineer at Universal Audio, Inc. Jaffe's music has been performed by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, and numerous chamber ensembles, with commissions from the Kronos Quartet, the Russian National Orchestra, Cello Octet Amsterdam, Chanticleer, and others. His music has been featured on the San Francisco Symphony chamber music series and at festivals in 26 countries, including the Berlin Festival, the American Festival in London, and the Venice Biennale.