Digits and Sounds: Celebrating Clarence Barlow - Symposium and Concert on the Life and Legacy of a Pioneer in Computer Music
Barlow passed away in June 2023 at age 77. He was noted for his pioneering work in computer music and computational music theory. He also laid the ground for musical conceptionalism and his own direction of spectralism. His exceptional humor (which included countless variations of his own name) was deeply rooted in his heightened sense for language and semantic ambiguity. Born in Calcutta on December 27, 1945, into a Catholic and English-speaking enclave, he was educated in Western classical music, and didn’t have any exposure to Indian classical music traditions before age 18. Trained as a pianist, Barlow started composing at age 11, discovering contemporary music at age 15 through the offerings of the local Goethe institute. With a knack for mathematics and astrophysics, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in natural science but also taught music theory at the Calcutta Conservatory until, in 1968, he moved to Cologne, Germany to study with Bernd Alois Zimmermann and, after his teacher’s death in 1970, with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Clarence Barlow taught at the Darmstadt Summer Courses from 1982. He also taught computer music at the Cologne University of Music from 1984 and, from 1990, held several positions at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. From 2006 to 2019, he was Corwin Professor and Head of Composition at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Barlow began composing with computers in 1971 and developed complex software for algorithmic composition and music analysis. He has created around 70 instrumental and vocal works and around 35 electronic, electro-acoustic and multimedia works. His artistic work is accompanied by numerous text and book publications as author and editor. Barlow was a member of the Cologne-based Feedback Studio Verlag and co-founder of the Initiative Musik und Informatik Köln – GIMIK e.V.