KEN NEWBY
composer


Kenneth Newby is a Canadian composer-performer, educator, recording artist, software designer, and audio producer. His compositions have been widely presented in concerts, festivals, and radio broadcasts throughout Canada, Asia, Europe, and the USA. His works include tape compositions of electro-acoustic and acoustic music; interactive computer music systems for live performance and installation; new composition for Javanese and Balinese gamelan ensembles; interdisciplinary collaborations with composers and artists in various disciplines (film, video, dance, theatre, poetry) and participation in improvisational ensembles.

Since 1984 he has received a number of arts awards and commissions from the Canada Council for the Arts in support of travel to present his computer music work at IRCAM Paris France, creation of music for dance, interactive music sculpture, and composition for spoken word.

His discography includes two solo CDs: Ecology of Souls (Fathom, San Francisco), and Sirens (City of Tribes, San Francisco). As well he has made three recordings with the San Francisco based ensemble Trance Mission, and a collaborative recording entitled Halcyon Days with Steve Roach and Stephen Kent. His latest recording project is Seasonal Round, a CD of spoken word by San Francisco bay area poet Robert Anthony with sound design and music by Kenneth.

In addition to the above Kenneth has been a broadcaster on community radio in Vancouver, assistant editor of Mondo 2000 magazine, a contributor to Wired magazine's HotWired ezine, an interactivity consultant for Pixar Animation Studios, and an interactive audio software engineer at Electronic Arts. In the area of software design, his Macintosh tool for designing microtonal intonations for MetaSynth was recently published.

Kenneth currently lives with his partner and their five year old son in Vancouver and teaches interactivity techniques and audio for media in the School of Media Arts at the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design in Vancouver.

 


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