Guy E. Garnett

Associate Professor of Composition-Theory

B.A. (music), C. W. Post College; B.M. and M.M. (composition), Manhattan School of Music; D.M.A. (composition), Columbia University; additional studies at CCRMA, Stanford University

Prior to his appointment at UIUC, Garnett held research appointments at Stanford University's CCRMA and the Yamaha Corporation. He taught electronic music at the University of California-Berkeley, where he also served as director of music and technology at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT). In addition to writing for conventional instruments and ensembles, Garnett writes for technologically extended or augmented instrumental performance and has composed a number of works in this medium that have been performed in Europe, Asia, North and South America.

Among his most recently completed works are Partita for Solo Violin, a piece for saxophone and ensemble, commissioned by the Fromm Foundation and Ensemble 21, and a work for bass recorder and electronics, entitled Lyric Spaces, commissioned by the ERTA Congress in Vienna and premiered in that city and in Berlin, Germany.

During the 1998-1999 concert season, his Piece 21 was performed in New York by  Ensemble 21, and his Divertimento for Chamber Ensemble was performed by the New York New Music Ensemble. In May of 1999, his orchestral Overture was performed by the Riverside Symphony in New York. During the Spring of 2000, his Partita for Solo Violin was premiered in New York, and his Piece 21 received its California premiere by the Empyrean Ensemble. His work for solo cello and electronics, InteractionsIII, was released on a CD which is available from the Electronic Music Foundation. This latter work was commissioned for the Strings and Machines project at the University of California, and was premiered by Hugh Livingston. In July of 2000, Lyric Spaces received its South American premiere in Curitiba, Brazil.

Continuing his previous work in the aesthetics of music technology, Professor Garnett gave a lecture in the CyberArts program sponsored by the Center for Advanced Study at UIUC. He served as guest editor of the Computer Music Journal (MIT Press), bringing out an issue devoted to the aesthetics of computer music. This issue includes his own article on the aesthetics of interactive electronics as well as an international selection of current writing in the field. 

In the Spring of 2000, Professor Garnett, along with Dr. Fred Stoltzfus, Chair of the UIUC Choral Division, and co-workers in Computer Science, the School of Library and Information Science, and the Beckman Institute, was awarded a $200,000 grant from the Critical Research Initiative for the Interactive Virtual Ensemble. This project seeks to develop computer systems that can follow and interpret the gestures of a human conductor. This is a complex problem not only musically, but in computer technology and interface design. The work draws on experts in gesture tracking, user interface design, conducting, and computer music to solve it.

In 2001, along with colleagues in Architecture and the School of Art and Design, Professor Garnett was awarded a second CRI grant. This one will support development of new artworks using advanced, immersive technology. It will result in a new artwork using NCSA's virtual reality environment, the CAVE.

Professor Garnett continues to actively present his work, in both music composition and research, around the globe. In 1999/2000 he presented works in Beijing, Belgium, New York, California, and Brazil, as well as locally in Urbana. In the 2001/2002 season he will present his work in Cuba and Vienna, among other places. The next big project is a CyberOpera, The Death of Virgil. This will incorporate singers and instrumentalists along with technology in a meditation on life, art, and love based on the novel by Hermann Broch.