Unsung Stories: Women at Columbia’s Computer Music Center
ABOUT
Unsung Stories: Women at Columbia's Computer Music Center is a first step focusing on the legacy of women who have studied and worked at the renowned Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (CPEMC; renamed the Computer Music Center [CMC] in 1996). The project includes three parts: a two-day symposium (April 9-10, 2021), a podcast series released in March-April 2021, and a concert in Fall 2021.
Unsung Stories highlights the work of women, including the work of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ composers and musicians at the Center, examining how institutional networks and intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, national origin, and other identifications impacted the daily work, modes of interaction, and visibility of women composers at the CPEMC/CMC historically and in the field more broadly. It features panels and roundtables with over thirty composers/sound artists, and scholars who will discuss the lineage, musical excellence, experience, and visibility of the diverse women who have worked at the Center from the 1950s to its recent history.
This project has received a public outreach grant from the Center for Science and Society, an anti-racism seed grant from the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement, and a Diversity Matters grant from the Arts & Sciences' Committee on Equity and Diversity, and is cosponsored by the Fritz Reiner Center for Contemporary Music, the Department of Music, The Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality (IRWGS), the Computer Music Center at Columbia University (CMC), the Sound Art Program at Columbia University, and the Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW).
Special thanks to the Society of Fellows/Heyman Center for the Humanities for sponsoring and hosting the symposium portion of this project.
UNSUNG STORIES PODCAST
This podcast series features five initial episodes of the stories of women who undertook significant work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and the Computer Music Center. In conversation with historical musicologists, music theorists, and fellow composers, they explore aspects of their experiences within the field of electronic music. We hope to continue building on this archive of interviews in the future.
To listen to parts 2 & 3 of this conversation, visit: tinyurl.com/alice-shields2