| A BRIEF HISTORY OF CEMI...
 In
1963 UNT faculty composer Merrill Ellis established the Electronic Music
Center (EMC), a tape music studio in an old Denton home on Mulberry Street.
This vital part of the Division of Composition Studies allowed faculty and
students to work together creating art with the most experimental modern
technologies. During the first ten years, composers working at EMC
concentrated on the forms of electronic music that were at the time most
prevalent: namely, compositions for magnetic tape, and live performances
using analog synthesizers.
During the 1970's, UNT composers increasingly explored
"mixed-media" projects: works including dancers, actors, or narrators, with
more elaborate theatrical settings and visual projections enhancing the
electronic soundscapes. The new Intermedia Theater, built in 1979, as well
as an expansion of the EMC studios, and staff, brought Ellis's
interdisciplinary vision to a new fruition; in 1981 this was was recognized
by a change of name to the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia
(CEMI).
 | Larry Austin at the Synclavier |
An important element in CEMI's transformation into an
internationally-renowned center was pioneering work in the developing field
of computer music. Thomas Clark and Larry Austin, who joined the faculty in
the late 1970's, shifted CEMI's orientation from the use of hybrid
analog/digital systems to software synthesis on general-purpose UNIX-based
systems. Three years after Austin's appointment, in November 1981, the
Center was literally put on the map: North Texas State University (as UNT as
then known) hosted four hundred scientists and composers of computer music
at the 7th annual International Computer Music Conference (ICMC).  | | Phil Winsor in the Laser / Analog lab |
Following Ellis' death in 1981, Phil Winsor joined
the UNT faculty, and became co-director of CEMI with Larry Austin in
1983; through the following years, directorship passed to Austin alone
in 1990, Winsor in 1991, Clark in 1993, and Austin again in 1995. When
Austin retired in 1996, Jon Christopher Nelson joined the composition
faculty as the new director of CEMI. Under his leadership, the computer
music program experienced a further transformation: as computers became
more powerful and less expensive, Nelson oversaw CEMI's important shift
from expensive, specialized computer systems to more general- purpose
machines.
In 1999 Nelson became Dean of Operations for the
College of Music, and passed the baton to a new hire, Joseph (Butch)
Rovan. Rovan's multifaceted work with interactive computer systems,
real-time performance, dance, and digital video invigorated the
performance and intermedia aspects of CEMI. Fulfilling Ellis's
decades-old vision, CEMI embarked upon a new wave of multi-media
performance events by faculty, students and guest artists.
When Rovan left CEMI in 2004, composer and sound
artist John Mallia joined the faculty for a year-long appointment and
Nelson resumed Directorship of CEMI. The following year, Andrew May
joined the faculty as CEMI director, continuing the thread of
interactive computer music and real-time performance; in the same year,
Damian Keller brought his expertise in intermedia and environmental
computer music as a year-long faculty hire.
In 2006, composer, performer, and intermedia artist
David Bithell joined May and Nelson in forging the future of CEMI.
Representing the gamut of research and artistic work, from fixed-media
computer music to interactive performance to intermedia, the current
CEMI faculty bring Merrill Ellis's expansive vision of a center for
time-based art of all kinds, experimenting with (and creating) new
technological resource. Ellis, like all the CEMI faculty, would have
relished the 21st century world of 3-dimensional surround audio,
interactive and intermedia performance, real-time video, nanotechnology,
robotics, and all the myriad opportunities CEMI makes possible for its
students, guests, and faculty.
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