Material is unprocessed. Please contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
This collection is located on-site.
This collection has access restrictions. Please contact the Rare Book and Manuscript Library for more information.
Working files and tapes.
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
Material is unprocessed. Please contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
This collection is located on-site.
This collection has access restrictions. Please contact the Rare Book and Manuscript Library for more information.
Reproductions may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center Records; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Source of acquisition--Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Method of acquisition--Gift; Date of acquisition--5/30/2014. Accession number--2013.2014.M199.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Collection-level record describing unprocessed material made public in summer 2018 as part of the Hidden Collections initiative.
Originally the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, the CMC is the oldest center for Electroacoustic music in the United States. Following several years of experiments with electronic music composition at Columbia, the center was founded by Vladimir Ussachevsky (1911-1990) and Otto Luening (1900-1996) with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1958. Ussachevsky served as director of the center from its inception until 1980, followed by Mario Davidovsky, who served as director from 1980 to 1994. Fred Lerdahl and Brad Garton became co-directors on the center in 1994; the center's name was changed to the Columbia University Computer Music Center under the directorship of Brad Garton in 1996.
When the center was founded in 1958, the CPEMC featured four well-equipped tape studios for electronic composition, as well as the famed RCA Mark II Synthesizer, which is still housed at the CMC. Over the years, the center aquired other state-of-the art equipment of the time, including Buchlas, Serge synthesizers, as well as customized electronic equipment. Computer technology was also in use at the center through the 1970s and 80s, and its ever increasing importance was reflected in the center's name change in the mid-1990s. For anecdotal insight into early computer-use at the center, refer to the recollections of Peter Mauzey, Virgil deCarvalho and Howard Eskin compiled by AcIS.
Milton Babbitt began working at the center shortly after its inception (hence the early Princeton connection). Other composers affiliated with the center during the first 20 years include Jon Appleton, Bülent Arel, Luciano Berio, Wendy Carlos, Charles Dodge, Halim El-Dabh, Daria Semegen, Alice Shields, Pril Smiley, Edgard Varèse and Charles Wuorinen.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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