Switched-On Daddy

by Joseph Dalton, September 28, 2007

The sound of your ring tone (cellphone or land line), the portability of your music (CDs to iPods), and the general onslaught of electronic media all around us: 80-year-old Max Mathews had something to do with all of it. You can thank him, or damn him. Fifty years ago, while working as a staff engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories, Mathews succeeded at turning digital code into music.

Often called the “father of computer music,” Mathews is known best among denizens of the electronic arts scene, who have been building on his pioneering work for decades. Many of Mathews’ progeny can be found in the offices and studios of EMPAC—the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, which will honor him in a special program on Thursday, October 11. “Memories, Futures, and Dreams of Computer Music” will feature Mathews speaking about his earliest computer programs, Music I-IV, and how their principles are still in use today. He’ll also perform on the Radio Baton, his 1987 invention, including a duet with Schenectady Symphony violinist Theodore Mihran.

The free program begins at 7pm at RPI’s Biotech Auditorium. (518) 276-3921; www.empac.rpi.edu

—Joseph Dalton