Primavera

Festival of Contemporary Arts and Digital Media

April 20–24, 2009, UCSB

In the Spirit of Henry B.

April 23 — CREATE

A concert of electro-acoustic music, featuring special guest David Wessel of CNMAT at the University of California–Berkeley, plus a premiere by CREATE Associate Director Curtis Roads.

CREATE

The Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology was established in 1986, and is situated within the Department of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin founded CREATE and serves as its director. Dr. Curtis Roads is Associate Director.

CREATE serves as a productive environment available to students, researchers, and media artists for the realization of music and multimedia works. Courses are offered at the undergraduate and graduate levels in collaboration with several departments. The Center also serves as a laboratory for research and development of a new generation of software and hardware tools to aid in media-based composition. Their web site describes in detail the educational, research, and production activities at CREATE. CREATE is committed to maintaining the highest possible level of artistic and technological capability. Professional composers will find the Center a productive place to realize their works. Among those who have made use of our facilities are Iannis Xenakis, Thea Musgrave, and Bebe Barron.

Website

JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Director

Dr. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin is a composer, Professor of Media Arts and Technology and Music, and a researcher in multi-modal media systems, content and facilities design. She created, built, and designed the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology and is the Center Director since its inception in 1986. Her years of experience in digital media research led to the creation of a multi-million dollar sponsored research program for the University of California, the Digital Media Innovation Program. She was Chief Scientist of the Program from 1998 to 2003. In 2000 she began the creation, design, and development of a Digital Media Center within the California Nanosystems Institute. The culmination of her design is the Allosphere Research Laboratory, a three-story metal sphere inside an echo-free cube, designed for immersive, interactive scientific and artistic investigation of multi-dimensional data sets.

A composer of mixed media works, she received her Ph.D. in 1984 from the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. Her current music research is focusing on a general purpose interface for control of digital information through natural performance gesture. A composer of primarily electro-acoustic works, her music has been performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia.