To: Computer Music Lovers Everywhere
From: Rick Thomas
Re: The Ministry of Funny Noises Concert

Purdue University Theatre will present The Ministry of Funny Noises, featuring Brad Garton, on Saturday, December 13th at 7:30 p.m. in the Carole and Gordon Mallett Theatre.

The concert features Brad Garton, Director of the Computing Music Center at Columbia University in New York City. An alum of Purdue University, Brad will forever be remembered as Mr. Science in the punk rock band Dow Jones and the Industrials, that became underground sensations at Purdue University and well beyond from about 1979 until 1981. After Purdue, Brad went on to earn his PhD from Princeton University in 1989, studying computer music with Paul Lansky and Jim Randall. Over a long and extremely successful career, Brad has assisted in the establishment and development of a number of computer music studios throughout the world, and is an active contributor to the greater community of computer musicians/researchers, formerly serving on the Board of Directors of the International Computer Music Association ICMA) as editor (with Robert Rowe) of the ICMA newsletter and artistic director/co-organizer of several high-profile festivals and conferences of new computer music. His research focuses on the modeling and enhancement of acoustic spaces as well as the modeling of human musical performance on various virtual "instruments".

He is also the primary developer (with Dave Topper) of RTcmix, a real-time music synthesis/signal-processing language. His most recent work includes the creation of generative/ambient music applications (called "loochings" [http://music.columbia.edu/~brad/looching/] and integrated music-text books such as My Book of Dreams [http://music.columbia.edu/~brad/BookOfDreams/]. At Purdue, Brad will perform with Gregory Taylor. Taylor was trained initially as a visual artist, has studied central Javanese gamelan and electroacoustic music in the U.S. and the Netherlands, written for publications such as Wired, Array, and Option, and hosted a radio program of contemporary audio since 1986 (http://www.rtqe.net). In addition to his work with Brad Garton and Terry Pender, he has released two solo recordings on c74 and Palace of Lights, performed and recorded as The Desert Fathers with quarter-tone trumpeter Jeff Kaiser, and remixed artists such as Scott Fields, Kim Cascone, and BMB.con. He currently labors on behalf of the new media software company Cycling '74, makers of the extremely popular Max/MSP/Jitter software.

Following the concert, Brad and Gregory will also meet informally with audience members to discuss both of their careers in computer music composition and performance, and the state of the computer music industry. Opening for Brad Garton will be Crazy People, a group of Purdue Theatre students that have spent this last semester studying how to make funny and interesting sounds armed only with a computer, and a few good math equations. The concert is free and open to the public.

2011 Purdue University Electronic and Time-Based Arts