BEAM FOUNDATION - Key Persons
Ashley Adams received her Bachelor's in double bass performance at the University of Arizona School of Music, in 1996. She currently performs regularly in both classical and club venues and has appeared at numerous local and International New Music festivals. In 1997, The Ashley Adams Trio put out, "Flowers for Ms. Dalloway", music based on the Virginia Wolfe novel on the Evander Label. Her performance credits also include Ted Saveres, Ralph Carney, Beth Custer, Eugene Chadborne, Tin Hat Trio, the Women's Philharmonic, Khadra International Dance Company, Bay Area Balalaika Ensemble, Trio Garufa (Tango), The Hulagains ( Hawaiian Trio), Zmrzlina, Octomutt, BottomFeeders (electric cello/bass duo) , and the Bay Area Bass Band. Ashley has taught privately, for the SF symphony's youth outreach program, and as a clinician at the Golden Gate Bass Camp. In addition to her composition and bass playing, Ashley has immersed herself in music programming and audio processing. She has worked on MACAIS and performed with Keith since 1998.
Drawing from a childhood dissatisfied with classical music recitals, Marielle Jakobsons aims to rebuild musical performance as a breathing system of sound, people, and space. Born in Cleveland in 1982, she received her B.A. in Music Performance and Biology from Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, studying contemporary piano performance with Anita Pontremoli. At the CCMIX in Paris, France, she studied computer music composition with Gerard Pape, Jean-Claude Risset, Trevor Wishart, and Curtis Roads. Completing her MFA in Electronic Music at Mills in May 2006, her thesis work deconstructs the violin as both performance interface and sound generator utilizing custom electronics and interactive computer programming. Recent solo work has been heard at Les Voutes (Paris) and the Luggage Store Gallery (SF), as well as performances with Agnes Szelag in the electro-acoustic pop duo myrmyr.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Technical Manager
- Electronic Musician and Programmer
- Media Technology Consultant
Barry Threw is a media technology consultant who develops tools that enable digital media artwork. He focuses on work that is immersive and interactive, for both installation and performance. He is also an electronic sound artist, who enjoys soundscapes that suspend time and suggest space.
Barry Threw is an electronic musician and programmer specializing in interactive and experimental media. His music attempts understand our relationship to technology and create beauty and space within its context. When he is not striving to perfect the systems at the BEAM Foundation, he works with Recombinant Media Labs and Immersive Media Research to develop tools and methodologies for surround media, and is an engineer and sound designer living in San Francisco, CA.
Chris Muir has been embroiled in computers and music for over thirty years. He has been heavily involved with music software environments for much of this time. Previous employment includes Beatnik (nee Headspace) a company creating synthesis engines for industry, Gibson Western Innovation Zone (GWIZ), an R&D lab run by Gibson Guitar, Electronics For Imaging (EFI), Zeta Music, and Salamander Music Systems (SMS). Chris has also worked with CNMAT (Center for New Music and Audio Technology), and has contributed to Cycling 74's Max environment. An accomplished musician and composer, he has been involved with many projects, in many genres. He currently performs with "Lunar Asylum", "Yo Miles!" and "Zen Disaster". In his spare time he enjoys referring to himself in the third person.
Daniel Kobialka has commissioned over 30 works from such composers as Pulitzer Prize winners Charles Wuorinen, William Bolcom, and Wayne Peterson. Kobialka has premiered both solo works and concertos for violin, including Ben Weber's Violin Concerto, dedicated to him, with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under Robert Shaw. With the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, he gave both the American premiere of Toru Takemitsu's "Far Calls, Coming Far," and the world premiere of Charles Wuorinine's "Rhapsody," a work written especially for Kobialka. Musical America wrote, "With de Waart conducting, Kobialka played the kind of heart-and-soul, totally secure performance composers dream about but all too rarely get to hear." He premiered Henry Brant's Litany of Tides with the San Jose Symphony and George Barati's Violin Concerto with the Santa Cruz Symphony. Other composers who have written and dedicated works for Kobialka include George Rochberg, Meyer Kupferman, Olou Harrison, Vivian Fine, Henry Brant, Fred Fox, Arthur Custer, Theodore Antoniou, Marta Ptaszynska, and Benjamin Lees. Kobialka served as concertmaster for the premier of Leonard Bernstein's Mass, which opened in the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Prompting Bernstein to state, " Kobialka is a musician of unusual strength and devotion."
Dave Smith founded Sequential Circuits, the premier manufacturer of professional music synthesizers, in the mid-70s. In 1977, he designed the Prophet-5, the world's first microprocessor-based musical instrument. This revolutionary product was the world's first polyphonic and programmable synth, and set the standard for all synth designs that have followed. The Prophet instruments played a major part in the recordings of all popular music styles, and are still prized by musicians today. Dave is also generally known as the driving force behind the generation of the MIDI specification in 1981-in fact, he coined the acronym. In 1987 he was named a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) for his continuing work in the area of music synthesis. After Sequential, Dave was President of DSD, Inc, an R&D division of Yamaha, where he worked on physical modeling synthesis and software synthesizer concepts. He then started the Korg R&D group in California, which went on to produce the professional musician favorite Wavestation products and other technology. He then took over as President at Seer Systems and developed the world's first software based synthesizer running on a PC.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Professor of Music at the UC Berkeley
David Wessel In Memoriam is Professor of Music at the UC Berkeley where he is Director of CNMAT (Center for New Music and Audio Technology). In 1985 he established a new department under Pierre Boulez devoted to the development of interactive music software for personal computers. David founded the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) and is a highly regarded performer and composer.
Jay Cloidt is a composer and sound designer working in the San Francisco Bay Area. He studied at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College with Robert Ashley and David Behrman. As a composer, he has collaborated with many groups, beginning with the late Ed Mock's group and including the Paul Dresher Ensemble, the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, the Gary Palmer Dance Company, ODC/San Francisco, California EAR Unit and Kronos Quartet. Current projects include premiere performances of two new dance scores for ODC/SF: "Flight to Ixcan", and "Noir". Other notable recent projects include "Span", a piece for solo piano commissioned by pianist Vicki Ray of the California EAR Unit; music for the feature film "Send Word", directed by Lynn Feinerman; and "Eleven Windows", his third commission for Kronos Quartet. He produced a CD of Paul Dresher's music theater works, "Anybody's Land", to be released in 2004. A CD of electronic music, "Dark Matter" was released on Phthalo in 2002; and a CD of his chamber music and electronic works, "Kole Kat Krush", is available on Starkland Records (ST-208). The San Francisco Chronicle has dubbed Cloidt "The Spike Jones of the Bay Area new music scene."
George Alistair Sanger, a.k.a The Fat Man, is a well-respected leader in the field of game audio. He is the cofounder and host of Project Bar-B-Q, the premier interactive music conference, an annual event since 1996. He has worked for many years to improve, simplify, and promote interactivity in game audio. His recent efforts in this endeavor helped to form the IASIG's Interactive XMF working group, of which he is a member. He is the audio advisor for Game Developer Magazine and is responsible for that publication's audio column. He is also on the advisory boards for Full Sail, the Austin Community College game department, and the Game Audio Conference. He is a member of NARAS, the IGDA, the Kealing Middle School PTA, and the Rolls Royce Owners Club. The Fat Man's innovations include the first General MIDI score for a game, the first soundtrack CD that shipped with the game, the first game music considered a work of art, the first game featuring a live band recorded to MIDI, the first game music considered a selling point of the game, and the first context-sensitive soundtrack to attract industry attention.
J.S. Bach made his money as an organ tuner who worked closely with Gottfried Silversmith to perfect and exploit the multirank multi voice organ. New tools equal new music. This same period, the Baroque (French for "bizarre") saw the perfection of the violin from the viola de gamba, and the mighty piano replaced the harpsichord thanks to technical advances in metallurgy and mechanical design.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Jaron Lanier is best known for his pioneering work in the field he named "Virtual Reality". In the early 1980s he founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. He co-developed the first implementations of virtual reality in surgical simulation, vehicle interior prototyping and virtual sets for television production. He has the world's largest private collection of musical instruments and is a noted composer, musician, author and artist.
Jaron Lanier is probably best known for his work in Virtual Reality. He coined the term ‘Virtual Reality' and in the early 1980s founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. While at VPL, he co-developed the first implementations of virtual reality applications in surgical simulation, vehicle interior prototyping, virtual sets for television production, and assorted other areas. He led the team that developed the first widely used software platform architecture for immersive virtual reality applications. As a musician, Lanier has been active in the world of new "classical" music since the late seventies. He is a pianist and a specialist in unusual musical instruments, especially the wind and string instruments of Asia. He maintains one of the largest and most varied collections of actively played instruments in the world. Lanier has performed with artists as diverse as Philip Glass, Ornette Coleman, George Clinton, Vernon Reid, Terry Riley, Duncan Sheik, Pauline Oliveros, and Stanley Jordan. Current recording projects include his "acoustic techno" duet with Sean Lennon and an album of duets with flautist Robert Dick.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
- External Counsel
John Katovich was General Counsel of the Pacific Stock Exchange from 1980 until 1995 when he became a founding member of ePit, one of the first internet based trading companies. He has participated in multiple financial startups and represents the monetary and legal interests of BEAM.
John Katovich has been in-house and external counsel to companies for the last 20 years. He became General Counsel for the Pacific Exchange in the mid '80s after several years as both a trader and regulator. John was also the in-house General Counsel for two software-trading companies, OptiMark Technologies and ePIT Systems. John currently provides general, licensing and regulatory counsel to several technology, software and trading companies in the Bay Area. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1976, and Southern Illinois Law School in 1979. He is licensed to practice in both California and Illinois. He plays Saxophone.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
"I have been a close observer of Keith McMillen's musical journey over the past 25 years. Early in that period, Keith had a vision for what music could be and how musicians could be freed to create without limitations. Keith has steadily marched towards achieving that vision and TrioMetrik is a major step forward in that trek. The concert in June was fun, moving, and exciting. The musicianship was outstanding and the audience could clearly see the rich interaction between the performers. I will definitely want to see the next TrioMetrik performance when they come to town again!"
Keith McMillen composer, inventor, entrepreneur, is BEAM's founder and director. Keith founded Zeta Music in 1979 and managed to reinvent the violin. Zeta is the world's leading purveyor of modern violins, cellos and basses. Keith has started and sold multiple audio companies and has spent 25 years developing MACIAS - an integrated composition performance system. His invention, vision and money are the root cause of BEAM
Keith McMillen has been working his entire adult life on one single problem - how to play live interactive music in an ensemble using extended instruments moderated by computer intelligence. This goal has required him to create scores of new instruments, patented technologies and multiple successful companies in order to advance the technology sufficiently to reach his performance objectives. Keith began his audio career in 1979, when he founded Zeta Music. The company's revolutionary electronic instrument designs created a new market in the music industry, and the brand "Zeta" is synonymous with the modern violin. Later, as Vice President of R&D at Gibson Guitars, Keith worked with UC Berkeley's CNMAT and created a new technology group focusing on audio networking, synthesizers and string instruments. As Director of Engineering at Harman Kardon, he formed an innovative new software product division dealing with audio processing and distributed networks. Keith founded Octiv in 1999 to solve major issues with live audio and led the company as both technologist and business guru raising over $20M from VCs such as 3i and Intel Capital. In April of 2005, Keith successfully sold Octiv to Plantronics (NYSE:PLT) and is personally funding the current operations of the BEAM Foundation. Keith received his BS in Acoustics under James Beauchamp from the University of Illinois where he also trained in classical guitar and studied composition with Herbert Brun and Sal Martriano. Keith has spent 25 years developing MACIAS - an integrated composition performance system that is the foundation of TrioMetrik's music. He now works full time at composing, creating and performing while pursuing his original goal of a next generation music he has termed NuRoque.
Margaret Anne Schedel is a composer and cellist specializing in the creation and performance of ferociously interactive media. Her works have been performed throughout the United Stated and abroad. While working towards a DMA in music composition at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, her thesis, an interactive multimedia opera, A King Listens, premiered at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center and was profiled by apple.com. She is working towards a certificate in Deep Listening with Pauline Oliveros and has studied composition with Mara Helmuth and McGregor Boyle. She is a founding member of NeXT Ens, an ensemble with the unique mission to perform and support the creation and performance of interactive electro-acoustic works. She serves as the musical director for Kinesthetech Sense and sits on the boards of the BEAM Foundation, the Electronic Music Foundation Institute, the International Computer Music Association, the New West Electro Acoustic Music Organization, Organised Sound, and the Women's Audio Mission. She can usually be found in the Bay Area where she runs workshops for Cycling‘74 & Making Things.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board of Directors
Max Mathews started it all. Working at Bell Labs in 1962 he taught the first computers to sing (memorialized by HAL singing "Daisy" in 2001 a Space Odyssey) using his program Music V. He is currently Professor of Music Research at Stanford University and continues to pioneer in human machine interfaces and new musical instruments.
Max V. Mathews In Memoriam directed the Acoustical and Behavioral Research Center at Bell Laboratories from 1962 to 1985. This laboratory carried out research in speech communication, visual communication, human memory and learning, programmed instruction, analysis of subjective opinions, physical acoustics, and industrial robotics. Mr. Mathews' personal research is concerned with sound and music synthesis with digital computers and with the application of computers to areas in which man-machine interactions are critical. He developed a program (Music V) for the direct digital synthesis of sounds and a program (Groove) for the computer control of a sound synthesizer. Music V and its successors are now widely used in the United States and Europe. His past research included development of computer methods for speech processing, studies of human speech production, studies of auditory masking, and the invention of techniques for computer drawing of typography. He is currently investigating the effect of resonances on sound quality. He was Scientific Advisor to the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Paris, and is currently Professor of Music (Research) at Stanford University. He holds a Silver Medal in Musical Acoustics from the Acoustical Society of America, and the Chevalier dan l'order des Arts et Lettres, Republique Francaise. Max plays violin.
Paul Dresher is an internationally active composer noted for his ability to integrate diverse musical influences into his own coherent and unique personal style. He is pursuing many forms of musical expression including experimental opera and music theater, chamber and orchestral composition, live instrumental electro-acoustic chamber music performances, musical instrument invention and scores for theater, dance, and film. His most recent projects include a collaboration with former Kronos Quartet cellist Joan Jeanrenaud on his cello concerto Unequal Distemperament and the music theater work Sound Stage, for which Dresher designed and constructed a stage full of large-scale invented musical instruments. In 1993, Dresher premiered his Electro-Acoustic Band on a five-city tour of Japan as part of Festival Interlink. This ensemble performs the works of a broad range of contemporary music and has also premiered the music for dance and theater collaborations with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, ODC San Francisco, and the John Adams/June Jordan/Peter Sellars production "I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky." Born in Los Angeles in 1951, Dresher received his BA in Music from U.C. Berkeley and his M.A. in Composition from U.C. San Diego.
Job Titles:
- Advisor
- Professor at the Berklee College of Music
Richard Boulanger, professor at the Berklee College of Music, describes how important MAPPS is to the world of music and composers. "I've always felt it's my responsibility as a 21st century composer to write for the instruments of my time. As a composer depending on marginal technologies, I've all but given up the fight and stopped composing and performing. MAPPS is a timely, important and essential project that will support, sustain, and inspire the next generation of contemporary composers and new media artists."
Richard Boulanger was born in 1956 and holds a Ph.D. in Computer Music from the University of California, San Diego where he worked at the Center for Music Experiment's Computer Audio Research Lab. He has continued his computer music research at Bell Labs, CCRMA, the MIT Media Lab, Interval Research, and IBM and worked closely for many years with Max Mathews and Barry Vercoe. Boulanger has premiered his original interactive works at the Kennedy Center, and appeared on stage performing his Radio Baton and MIDI PowerGlove Concerto with the Krakow and Moscow Symphonies. His music is recorded on the NEUMA label. Currently, Dr. Boulanger is a Professor of Music Synthesis at the Berklee College of Music where he has been honored with both the Faculty of the Year Award and the President's Award. He has published articles on computer music education and composition in all the major electronic music and music technology magazines. Most recently, Boulanger edited a definitive textbook on computer music that was published by The MIT Press entitled: The Csound Book.
Naut Humon has been staging underground events that have inverted and blurred the roles of audience and participant for over 40 years as STC creator, curator and conductor. He is the co-founder of Asphodel Records, and was the primary catalyst, producer, arranger and performer of Rhythm and Noise. He later founded Sound Traffic Control in 1991 with two intentions: first, to replace Rhythm and Noise's group form by a more flexible collective; and second, to focus on using an orchestral setting to explore three-dimensional space. More recently, he is the co-founder and curator of Recombinant Media Labs, and experimental new media facility in San Francisco that fosters radical methodologies for spatial media synthesis, and is the premiere institution presenting emerging surround cinema works.
Tom Oberheim has been developing electronic products for musicians for over 35 years. He invented a number of innovative electronic music products, including: the first polyphonic music synthesizer, the first phase shifter and ring modulator for the performing musician, the first completely programmable music synthesizer, and the first electronic music system that incorporated a synchronized music synthesizer, digital sequencer and digital drum machine. He has founded and managed three electronic music product companies, and served as a CEO and CTO. He also participated in the development and implementation of the MIDI standard.