Creation of an Electronic Music Studio

In the 1980s, before the computer revolution, the UW–Madison School of Music acquired a smattering of electronic music hardware that is now antiquated. In the intervening years, music professors Daniel Grabois and Mark Hetzler have built small computer-based recording setups, and produced ground-breaking recordings. But experimentation in this area by UW–Madison staff and students has been limited by the expense and space required to assemble equipment that could serve a larger group of musicians.

With UW2020 support, a broad group of music faculty will equip a permanent space in the School of Music with state-of-the-art tools for the production and recording of electro-acoustic music by soloists or collaborative researchers.

The studio will dramatically improve the opportunities to record, which is the coin of the realm of music research. Faculty and graduate students alike will be able to create new kinds of music, different from anything they had played before. Small groups of graduate students can form improvisatory ensembles to produce sounds never before heard — in styles of music that do not yet exist, but lie at the borderlines of many musical styles. The opportunities for faculty and graduate student collaborations would rise. And all of these efforts could lead not only to commercial recordings, but also to smaller scale publications such as iTunes songs, YouTube videos, and SoundCloud postings.

Principal Investigator

• Daniel Grabois
  Assistant professor of horn
  School of Music
  

Collaborators

• Mark Hetzler
  Professor trombone
  School of Music
• Stephanie Jutt
  Professor of flute
  School of Music
• Marc Vallon
  Professor of bassoon
  School of Music
  
• Soh Hyun Park Altino
  Assistant professor of violin
  School of Music
• Paul Rowe
  Professor of voice
  School of Music
• Jessica Johnson
  Professor of piano and piano pedagogy
  School of Music
• Anthony Di Sanza
  Professor of percussion
  School of Music
  
• Stephen Dembski
  Emeritus professor of composition
  School of Music
  
• Laura Schwendinger
  Professor of composition
  School of Music
  
• Teryl Dobbs
  Associate professor of music education
  School of Music