Portraits Polychromes: John Chowning (review)

This slim volume on John Chowning is the seventh in the Portraits polychromes series published by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales/Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (GRM/INA) in cooperation with the Centre de Documentation de Musique Contemporaine (CDMC). Other volumes in the series have highlighted Jean-Claude Risset, Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Gilles Racot, François Bayle, and Ivo Malec.

John Chowning's work is central to the field of computer music, but his publications and compositional output have been relatively sparse. For all his work on digital frequency modulation and spatialization, his efforts to establish and maintain the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University, and his mentoring of generations of computer musicians, this is the first volume entirely devoted to Mr. Chowning's life and work. One can only wonder at the state of things in America that such an important publication would arise only in France, and in French. Regardless, Daniel Teruggi, Pierre Albert Castanet, and Évelyne Gayou are to be lauded for their efforts in spearheading not only this volume but the whole series. If you do not read French yet, now would be a good time to start, as the Portraits polychromes series is an extremely valuable addition to scholarly resources on computer and electroacoustic music. In particular, I would note the innovative and highly informative Web sites connected to each volume (consult www.ina.fr/grm/acousmaline/polychromes and follow the links to the individual sites), which include, among other things, graphic analyses of selected pieces presented in conjunction with audio playback of the music. (It was on this site, for example, that I discovered that Mr. Chowning has just recently completed a new composition, Voices, his first since Phoné from 1981.)

This volume on John Chowning opens with an extensive interview with Évelyne Gayou, a composer associated with GRM/INA, serving there as Director of Publications. Over 18 pages, this interview covers much of his career, from his early studies with Nadia Boulanger, to his work at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at Stanford University, to the establishment of CCRMA, and so on. I was rather surprised to learn that Mr. Chowning had been turned down for tenure by Stanford in 1973. This was after he had published his work on FM synthesis! Luckily for the university, the decision was eventually overturned, and the millions of dollars in royalties from Yamaha thereafter accrued to the school's coffers, turning out, apparently, to be one of the most lucrative licenses in the university's history. In this interview, we are also reminded of the close connection between the work in computer music at Stanford and the establishment of the Insitut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM). Mr. Chowning served as a consultant to Pierre Boulez and others during the planning stages of IRCAM, and spent time at IRCAM pursuing research on voice synthesis later. Indeed, IRCAM was in certain respects modeled on CCRMA, and the strong relationship established in the 1970s has continued. Notably, both Stria and Phoné were produced as a result of commissions awarded to Mr. Chowning by IRCAM.

After the interview, there is a short article by Mr. Chowning himself, dating from 2004, titled "Composer le son lui-même" [Composing the Sound Itself]. In six pages, the composer-researcher outlines his interest in creating sounds on the computer, making reference to the seminal work of Jean-Claude Risset. Rather than discussing particular synthesis methods, such as FM, he notes the possibilities for creating transformations of timbre by applying dynamic envelopes and vibrato to sinusoidal components of a sound.

Mr. Risset, who has known Mr. Chowning...