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[[Category:Women composers]]
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Revision as of 01:35, 27 November 2012

Laurie Spiegel (born September 20, 1945 in Chicago)[1] is an American composer. She has worked at Bell Laboratories, in computer graphics, and is known primarily for her electronic-music compositions and her algorithmic composition software Music Mouse. She also plays the guitar and lute.[2]

Spiegel was seen by some as a pioneer of the New York new-music scene. She withdrew from this scene in the early 1980s, believing that its focus had shifted from artistic process to product. While she continues to support herself through software development, Spiegel aims to use technology in music as a means of furthering her art rather than as an end in itself. In her words, "I automate whatever can be automated to be freer to focus on those aspects of music that can't be automated. The challenge is to figure out which is which."[3]

Spiegel's realization of Johannes Kepler's "Harmonices Mundi" was chosen for the opening track on the "Sounds of Earth" section of the golden record placed on board the Voyager spacecraft in 1977.[4] Her piece called "Sediment" was used in the "cornucopia scene" of the 2012 movie The Hunger Games.[5]

Career

Best known for her use of interactive and algorithmic logic as part of the compositional process, Spiegel worked with Buchla and Electronic Music Laboratories synthesizers and subsequently many early, often experimental and prototype-level music and image generation systems, including GROOVE system (1973-78), Alles Machine (1977) and Max Mathews's RTSked and John R.Pierce tunings (1984, later known as the Bohlen-Pierce scale) at Bell Labs, the alphaSyntauri for Apple II (1978-81), the McLeyvier (1981-85).[6][4]

Spiegel's best known and most widely used software was "Music Mouse - An Intelligent Instrument" (1986) for Macintosh, Amiga and Atari computers.[7][8] The "intelligent instrument" name refers to the program's built-in knowledge of chord and scale convention and stylistic constraints.[9] Automating these processes allows the user to focus on other aspects of the music in real time.[10] In addition to improvisations using this software, Spiegel composed several works for "Music Mouse", including "Cavis muris" in 1986, "Three Sonic Spaces" in 1989, and "Sound Zones" in 1990.[4] She continued to update the program through Macintosh OS 9, and as of 2012, it remained available for purchase or demo download from her website.[8]

In addition to electronics and computer-based music, Spiegel's opus includes works for piano, guitar and other solo instruments and small orchestra, as well as drawings, photography, video art, numerous writings and computer software.[7] In the visual domain, Spiegel wrote one of the first "drawing" or "painting" programs at Bell Labs, which she expanded to include interactive video and synchronous audio output.

Pursuing her concept of "visual music", she was a Video Artist in Residence at The Experimental Television Lab at WNET/Thirteen in New York (1976).[11] She composed series music for the TV Lab's weekly "VTR - Video and Television Review" and audio special effects for their 2-hour science fiction film The Lathe of Heaven, both under direction of David Loxton.[12]

During the 1970s Spiegel supported herself by both teaching and soundtrack composition, having steady work at Spectra Films, Valkhn Films, the TV Lab and for various individual video artists, animators and film makers. Spiegel did much less accompanitive music in the 1980s, focusing on creating music software and consulting in the music technology field, as well as additional teaching at Cooper Union and NYU.[7]

Education

Spiegel's early musical experiences were largely self-directed, beginning with the mandolin, guitar, and banjo she had as a child, which she learned to play by ear.[13] She taught herself Western music notation at the age of 20, after which she began writing down her compositions.[14]

Spiegel attended Shimer College through the school's early entrance program, which allows students to enter college without having completed high school.[15] She subsequently attended Oxford University, initially through Shimer's Oxford study abroad program, under which students spend a year continuing the Great Books core curriculum in Oxford while taking tutorials from Oxford.[16][17]

After receiving her AB degree in the Social Sciences from Shimer in 1967,[18] Spiegel stayed in Oxford an additional year,[16] commuting to London to study guitar, theory and composition with John W. Duarte.[18] After moving to New York, where she briefly worked in social sciences research and documentary film, she went on to study composition with Jacob Druckman and Vincent Persichetti at the Juilliard School from 1969 to 1972, privately with Emmanuel Ghent, then she relocated along with Druckman to Brooklyn College, completing her MA in Music Composition there in 1975.[1]

Articles and interviews

Discography

  • 60x60 (2006-2007) released 2008. A two-CD compilation of 60-second works from the 60x60 project.
  • Ooppera, 2004. An album of 10-minute operas created from processed animal sounds.
  • Harmonices Mundi (1977, released 2004). A realization of Kepler's vision of planetary motion.
  • The P-ART Project - 12 Portraits, 2001. 12-composer compilation including Spiegel's "Conversational Paws".
  • Obsolete Systems, 2001. A retrospective of Spiegel's work through the 70s and 80s, performed on currently-obsolete electronic instruments.
  • OHM: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music, 2000. 3-CD compilation featuring Spiegel's 1974 Appalachian Grove.
  • Miniatures 2 - a sequence of sixty tiny masterpieces, 2000. A sixty-artist compilation soundtrack to Dan Sandin's video A Volume of Julia Sets.
  • Female of the Species, a 2-CD compilation of female experimental composers
  • Enhanced Gravity, 1999. Compositions as well as text and multimedia art by Spiegel, also featuring multimedia art by 9 others.
  • Cocks Crow, Dogs Bark: New Compositional Intentions, 1998. Companion CD to Leonardo Music Journal #7, featuring The Unquestioned Answer, described in that journal.
  • Women in Electronic Music - 1977, 1977, re-released 1998. Compilation CD of women in electronic music.
  • Computer Music Journal Sound Anthology, 1996. Companion CD to the 20th Anniversary Issue of Computer Music Journal
  • Unseen Worlds, 1991, re-released 1994. Works by Laurie Spiegel.
  • The Virtuoso in the Computer Age - III, 1993. Compilation CD of four electronic artists, featuring Spiegel's Cavis Muris (1986).
  • Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record, 1992. Music from Sounds of Earth produced to be sent up on the Voyager spacecraft, containing on excerpt of Harmonices Mundi.
  • New American Music Vol. 2. Out of print LP.
  • The Expanding Universe, 1980. Contains 4 pieces created using the GROOVE system at Bell Labs. Re-released with additional material in 2012.[19]
  • Music for New Electronic Media, 1977. Early works by several electronic composers.

Works cited

  • Dean, R.T. (2003). Hyperimprovisation: Computer-interactive Sound Improvisation. ISBN 0895795086. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Gagné, Nicole V. (2011). Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music. ISBN 0810867656. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Hinkle-Turner, Elizabeth (2006). Women Composers And Music Technology in the United States. ISBN 0754604616. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Holmes, Thomas (2002). Electronic and experimental music: pioneers in technology and composition. ISBN 0415936446. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Jacobs, Alan (2004). Shaming The Devil: Essays In Truthtelling. ISBN 080284894X. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Sadie, Julie Anne (1995). The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers. ISBN 0393034879. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Simoni, Mary (1998). "Profiles of Determination". Computer Music Journal. 22 (4): 19–28. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

References

  1. ^ a b Don Michael Randel (1996). "Spiegel, Laurie". Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music. p. 857. ISBN 0674372999.
  2. ^ Amirkhanian, Charles. "Women in Electronic Music - 1977". Archived from the original on 2011-12-10. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
  3. ^ Hinkle-Turner 2006, p. 241.
  4. ^ a b c Gagné 2011, p. 255.
  5. ^ Dayal, Geeta (2012-03-29). "Rare '70s Electronic Music Is Hidden in The Hunger Games". Wired. Retrieved 29 March 2012.
  6. ^ Hinkle-Turner 2006, p. 46.
  7. ^ a b c Simoni 1998, p. 20.
  8. ^ a b Laurie Spiegel. "Computer Software by Laurie Spiegel". Retrieved 2012-04-12.
  9. ^ Dean 2003, p. 62.
  10. ^ Hinkle-Turner 2006, p. 47.
  11. ^ Norton/Grove, p. xxx.
  12. ^ "Lathe of Heaven - Credits". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2012-04-12.
  13. ^ Hinkle-Turner 2006, p. 48.
  14. ^ Laurie Spiegel. "Education of the L-Spiegelular Unit". Retrieved 2012-04-12.
  15. ^ Shimer College. "Early Entrance Program". Retrieved 2012-04-08.
  16. ^ a b Shimer College. "Laurie Spiegel". Shimer.edu. Retrieved 2012-04-08.
  17. ^ Shimer College. "Shimer-in-Oxford Program". Shimer.edu. Retrieved 2012-04-08.
  18. ^ a b Art & Science Collaborations, Inc. "Laurie Spiegel". ASCI.org. Retrieved 2012-04-09.
  19. ^ Unseen Worlds Records. "Laurie Spiegel - The Expanding Universe". Retrieved 2012-09-14.

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