DADAVID ROSENBOOM (b. 1947) has been widely acclaimed as a pioneer in American experimental music since the 1960's. He is a composer, performer, conductor, interdisciplinary artist, author and educator having explored ideas in his work about the spontaneous evolution of musical forms, languages for improvisation, new techniques in scoring for ensembles, cross-cultural collaborations, performance art, computer music systems, interactive multi­media, compositional algorithms and extended musical interface with the human nervous system. He has composed extensively for both instrumental and technological media and plays piano, violin, viola, percussion, trumpet and live electronic systems.

He assumed his current position in 1990 as Dean of the School of Music at the California Institute of the Arts where he holds the Richard Seaver Distinguished Chair in Music and has also served as Co­director of the Center for Experiments in Art, Information and Technology and Conductor of the New Century Players. At Mills College, Rosenboom was the Darius Milhaud Professor of Music, Head of the Music Department and Director of the Center for Contemporary Music during the 1980's. He taught interdisciplinary subjects at the San Francisco Art Institute and the California College of Arts and Crafts and has been a guest faculty member at many institutions including the University of Illinois, where he was awarded the prestigious George A. Miller Visiting Professorship in 1995, the Banff Centre for the Arts, Simon Fraser University, Bard College, Center for Advanced Musical Studies at Chosen Vale, and Ionian University in Greece. In the 1970's, he was a professor and founder of the Department of Music and Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Programme at York University in Toronto. He taught music and fine arts courses there, directed performing groups, was Coordinator of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Faculty of Fine Arts and founding director of the Electronic Media Studios and Laboratory of Experimental Aesthetics. He also co-directed the innovative Aesthetic Research Centre of Canada during the same period. In the 1960's, he was a Creative Associate in the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at the State University of NY in Buffalo, Artistic Coordinator of New York's Electric Circus, Co­founder of a research and development company in the electronic arts, Neurona Co., worked in commercial broadcast media and was an active, independent performer, composer and producer. Prior to that, he studied at the University of Illinois with such composers and musicians as Salvatore Martirano, Lejaren Hiller, Kenneth Gaburo, Gordon Binkerd, Bernard Goodman, Paul Rolland, Jack McKenzie, Soulima Stravinsky and John Garvey. He also engaged in special studies in physics, computer science, experimental psychology and multi­media there, at New York University and independently.

He has a particular interest in interdisciplinary work, combining the arts, science and humanities. He has served as an advisor, board member and professional affiliate with national arts organizations in the U.S. and Canada, has consulted to industry, operated several independent music and arts publishing and recording organizations and worked in television, film and video. He has served for many years on the editorial advisory board for Leonardo (Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology) and the Leonardo Music Journal.

He has organized numerous performing groups including the performance art collective, Maple Sugar, in Toronto (with Jacqueline Humbert and George Manupelli) and the open instrumental ensemble, Challenge, in Oakland (with Anthony Braxton and William Winant) and has collaborated with many leading composers and musicians of our time. His own work has been presented extensively in Europe, North and South America and in Japan. He is a conductor emphasizing 20th century literature, was for many years a regular on the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Green Umbrella new music series, has been a frequent guest with numerous ensembles in performances and recordings and has collaborated extensively with non­Western musicians. He has developed computer software for music, was co­designer with Donald Buchla of an early, innovative, computerized keyboard instrument, the Touché, and is co­author (with Larry Polansky and Phil Burk) of HMSL (Hierarchical Music Specification Language), a software environment for experimental music widely used by individuals and educational institutions around the world.

Rosenboom has conducted extensive research into information processing modes of the brain as they relate to aesthetic experience and has published two books on the subject, Biofeedback and the Arts (1976) and Extended Musical Interface with the Human Nervous System (1990, revised 1997), along with various articles. His well-known recordings, Brainwave Music (1976), On Being Invisible (1977), On Being Invisible II (Hypatia Speaks to Jefferson in a Dream) (2000) and Invisible Gold (2000), feature the musical results of this research. His work is regularly disseminated through publications in books and professional journals, such as Perspectives of New Music, Leonardo, Leonardo Music Journal, Musicworks, Computer Music Journal, Performing Arts Journal, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and others. He has received awards and commissions and has carried out research and creative projects with support from agencies like National Endowment for the Arts, National Science Foundation, Canada Council, the Mellon and Irvine Foundations, York University, Mills College, California Institute of the Arts, the AT&T Foundation, the Norton Family Foundation, Yamaha Corporation of America, the Inter­University Consortium for Educational Computing, the George and MaryLou Boone Fund for Artistic Advancement and others.

Rosenboom's music, performances, and productions have been recorded on various labels, most recently New World Records, Mutable Music, Lovely Music Ltd., Pogus Productions, Tzadik, Black Saint, West Wind, Elektra Nonesuch, Frog Peak Music, Composers Recordings Inc., Cold Blue and others. Some of his other well-known, recordings include The Seduction of Sapientia (1974) for viola da gamba and electronics, Suitable for Framing (1975 and 2004) (with J.B. Floyd and Trichy Sankaran) for two pianos and South Indian mrdangam, Collaboration in Performance (1978) (with Donald Buchla) for piano and electronic systems, In The Beginning (1978­81) series of works for soloists, chamber ensembles, orchestra and electronics, Future Travel (1981) computer and acoustic instruments, Roundup (1987) anthology of live electro­acoustic works, Systems of Judgment (1988) for computer music systems and various instruments, A Precipice In Time (1966) instrumental quintet with spatialized sound; Extended Trio (1992) for instruments and HMSL, Two Lines (1995) (with Anthony Braxton), J. Jasmine—My New Music (1978), Daytime Viewing (1983) and Chanteuse (2004) for voices instruments and electronic soundscapes (last three with Jacqueline Humbert) and And Come Up Dripping (1969 and 2004) for oboe and interactive analog and digital computer systems. He has performed on many important recordings of other composers' works, including the original landmark sessions of Terry Riley's In C and Lejaren Hiller's Illiac Suite for String Quartet, as pianist with the Anthony Braxton Quartet, the music of Michael Byron, Anne LeBaron, La Monte Young, Wadada Leo Smith, Robert Ashley, and many others.

In 1993, he was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles to design It is About to . . . Sound (realized in collaboration with Mark Coniglio and Stephen "Lucky" Mosko) and It is About . . . Vexations, two interactive media installations as part of Rolywholyover    A Circus, celebrating the life and work of John Cage. Both pieces were shown at various galleries and museums in the United States and Japan during a two-year tour. In 2001 he collaborated with the Getty Research Institute and colleagues, Vicki Ray, Mark Trayle, and Ron Kuivila on a major international project involving performances of little known music from the archives of David Tudor.

Rosenboom has written extensively for instrumental ensembles, from solo and chamber to orchestral in scope. His most recent instrumental works include Seeing the Small In the Large (Six Movements for Orchestra) written for the Colburn Orchestra da Camera and Idyllwild Symphony and Bell Solaris (Twelve Movements for Piano) written for Katrina Krimsky, both exploring new ideas about counterpoint and musical transformation, Four Lines for two to four instruments and electronic tracks written for CalArts New Century Players, Naked Curvature, a modular score on mystical writings by Yeats and others for instruments, whispering voices, and interactive computer music system composed for the California EAR Unit and two works exploring a new scoring technique involving notational configuration spaces, Zones of Coherence for solo or multiple trumpets written for Daniel Rosenboom and recently released on a CD of new trumpet works and Twilight Language for solo piano referring to a mystical language of Tibetan Siddahs and written for Vicki Ray. New CD recordings are in process for Naked Curvature with the Enthauptung Ensemble and Zones of Influence with William Winant. A new version of The Seduction of Sapientia was created by Dirk Moelants with a concert recording available via the Internet, Champ Vital (Life Field) for violin, piano and percussion was recently performed in Germany by Ensemble Mosaik and Pocket Pieces for flute, saxophone, viola, and percussion, In the Beginning: Etude III for piano and two oranges and Four Lines were recently performed by Ensemble Green in Los Angeles. During 2005 Rosenboom collaborated with theater director, Travis Preston, to create Bell Solaris—Twelve Metamorphoses in Piano Theater, a ground-breaking, visual theatrical expansion of this earlier solo piano work into a full-evening production with a live video ensemble. This work will soon tour Europe and other places.

Rosenboom is working on a book about compositional models, entitled Propositional Music, and other writings in interdisciplinary topics combining neuroscience, music, cognition, self-organizing systems, evolution, theoretical physics and interstellar communication.