Butch Rovan

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Joseph Butch Rovan, the composer and performer of electronic music, is the co-director of the Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments at Brown University, where he is a faculty member of the Department of Music. At Brown, he also co-directs the the Ph.D. program in Computer Music and Multimedia. Prior to joining the faculty at Brown, he was director of the Center for [Experimental Music] and Intermedia at the University of North Texas, where he had moved after having established computer music studios at Florida State University. Prior to teaching at American universities, Rovan served two years as a "compositeur en recherche" with the Real-Time Systems Team at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris.

Prior to his stint at IRCAM, Rovan served as Product Manager for MAX, OMS and MIDI hardware. In 1992, he composed the music for the underground feature film Topsy and Bunker: The Cat Killers (1992). Prior to composing his first (and so far, only) movie soundtrack, Rovan was the lead singer in a rock 'n' roll band. During the 1980s, he toured extensively as a saxophone player before attending the University of California, Berkeley to study contemporary music. Rovan draws on his long experience as a performer to develop responsive electronic devices that brings the thrill of live performance to electronic music.

Rovan is the recipient of several awards, including a jury selection and second prize in the 1998 and 2001 Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competitions, and a first prize in the 2002 Berlin Transmediale International Media Arts Festival.

Rovan's research into gestural control and interactivity has been featured in IRCAM's journal "Resonance", "Electronic Musician", the Computer Music Journal, the Japanese magazine "SoundArts" and is featured on the CDROM "Trends in Gestural Control of Music", published by IRCAM (2000).

Rovan's compositions have been performed throughout Asia, Europe and the United States; he frequently performs his own work, including concerts for custom gestural controllers, clarinet and interactive electronics. His work "Continuities," for glove controller and interactive electronics, was performed at the 1999 International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) in Beijing, as well as at the 2000 SEAMUS national conference at UNT. Other recent concerts include the 1999 Seventh Biennial Symposium for Arts and Technology at Connecticut College and the 2000 University of Florida Computer Music conference. He performed in August with clarinet and interactive electronics at the ICMC in Berlin.

[edit] External links

Official Site [1]