An Interview with James Dashow

Abstract

Computer Music Journal, 27:2, pp. 14–29, Summer 2003 q 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A pioneering composer of computer music, James Dashow (see Figure 1) was a co-founder of the Centro di Sonologia Computazionale at the University of Padova. He has taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Princeton University, and the Centro para la Difusion di Musica Contemporanea in Madrid. For many years he was coproducer of a contemporary music radio program for Italian National Radio and Television (RAI). He lives north of Rome but lectures extensively in the U.S. and Europe. Mr. Dashow has received commissions, awards, and grants from numerous organizations. Most recently, he was awarded the prestigious Prix Magistere at the 30th Festival International de Musique et d’Art Sonore Electroacoustiques in Bourges, France. His music has been recorded on Capstone, Wergo, BMG-RCA, Neuma, ProViva, CRI and other labels. Complete lists of the composer’s works, recordings, and awards are available on his Web site, www.jamesdashow.net. His oeuvre includes works for tape (used here in the general sense to refer to Ž xed electronic media), live instruments plus tape, and instruments without electronics; but he uses the computer in composing even his purely instrumental music. James Dashow visited the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media at the University of Washington in early March 2002 for a concert of his recent works and to conduct a master class. During the three days of his stay, we managed to have an extended interview-like conversation in front of a microphone on one of the islands just off the coast of Seattle. Several of the little restaurants on the island have their own pier nudging out into Puget Sound for customers (like us) who prefer to take their coffee or wine outdoors in the early spring sunshine. As we say in Seattle, ‘‘The mountain was out’’: Mt. Rainier rose majestically in all its splendor between the two mountain ranges (the Olympics to the west and the Cascades to the east) that surround the city. These were the perfect conditions for an interview.