Radiofest - New American Music:
The Pioneers of Electronic Music in America

This is a program, produced by the American Society of University Composers in conjunction with Radiofest: New American Music, in which the work of two early American pioneers in electronic music is explored. During the early 1950s Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky collaborated on a number of electro-acoustic recordings that utilized the newly available tape recorder, and employed such seemingly basic techniques as feed back and changing tape speeds to transform pitch with considerable effect and remarkable musicality. In 1958 the two men founded the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Both men are interviewed in this program and a number of their earliest electronic pieces are heard.