Carl
Stone
is one of the pioneers of live computer music, and has been hailed by
the Village Voice as “the king of sampling.” and “one
of the best composers living in (the USA) today.” He has used
computers in live performance since 1986. Stone was born in Los
Angeles and now divides his time between California and Japan. He
studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with
Morton Subotnick and James Tenney and has composed electro-acoustic
music almost exclusively since 1972. His works have been performed in
the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America and the Near
East. In addition to his schedule of performance, composition and
touring, he is on the faculty of the Information Media Department at
Chukyo University in Japan.
A
winner of numerous awards for his compositions, including the Freeman
Award for the work Hop Ken, Carl Stone is also the recipient of
grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller
Foundation and the Foundation for Performance Arts. In 1984 he was
commissioned to compose a new work premiered as part of the Olympic
Arts Festival in Los Angeles. His music was selected by the
dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones for the production 1-2-3. In that
same year. In 1989 he resided for 6 months in Japan under a grant
from the Asian Cultural Council and in that same year, The Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles commissioned a new work, Thonburi as
part of the radio series “Territory of Art”. In 1990 he was
commissioned to create music for a 60-minute program for ZDF
Television in West Germany entitled Made in Hollywood. In 1991 he
received separate commissions from Michiko Akao (She Gol Jib, for
traditional Japanese flute and electronics), Sumire Yoshihara (for
percussionist and electronics) and Sony PCL (Recurring Cosmos, for
High Definition video and electronics), which was awarded special
honors at the International Electric Cinema Festival in Switzerland
in 1991. In 1993, he was commissioned by the Paul Dresher Ensemble to
create a new work, Ruen Pair, with funds from the Meet the
Composer/Reader’s Digest Commissioning Program. In 1994 he was
commissioned by the Strings Plus Festival, Kobe to create Mae Ploy,
for string quartet and electronics. In that same year he also created
Banh Mi So, for ondes martenot and piano, at the request of Takashi
Harada and Aki Takahashi. In 1995, he was commissioned by NTT/Japan
to create a new work for the internet, Yam Vun Sen, as part of IC95.
In 1996, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, he created
music for The Noh Project, a collaboration with choreographer June
Watanabe and Noh master Anshin Uchida. In 1997 he was commissioned by
Bay Area Pianists and Cal Performances to create a new work, Sa Rit
Gol, for disklavier and pianist, as part of the Henry Cowell
Centennial Celebration at UC Berkeley. Other festival performances in
1997 included Other Minds (San Francisco) and TonArt (Bern). In 1999
he was invited as Scholar-in-Residence at the Rockefeller Foundation
Bellagio Study and Conference Center. In 2001 he served as
Artist-in-Residence at the International Academy of Media Arts and
Sciences (IAMAS) in Japan, and in that same year he joined the
faculty of Chukyo University’s School of Cognitive and Computer
Sciences.
Recordings
of Carl Stone’s music has been released on New Albion, CBS Sony,
Toshiba-EMI, EAM Discs, Wizard Records, Trigram, t:me recordings, New
Tone labels and various other labels.
Carl
Stone’s music has been used by numerous theater directors and
choreographers including Hiroshi Koike (Pappa Tarahumara), Akira
Kasai, Bill T. Jones, Setsuko Yamada, Ping Chong, June Watanabe,
Kuniko Kisanuki, Rudy Perez, Hae Kyung Lee, and Blondell Cummings.
Musical collaborations include those with Yuji Takahashi, Kazue
Sawai, Aki Takahashi, Sarah Cahill, Haco, Dorit Cypis, Samm Bennett,
Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Michiko Akao, Stelarc, z’ev, Bruce and Norman
Yonemoto, Tosha Meisho, Otomo Yoshihide, Kathleen Rogers, Min
Xiao-Fen and Mineko Grimmer.
Carl
Stone served as President of the American Music Center from 1992-95.
He was the Director of Meet the Composer/California from 1981-1997,
and Music Director of KPFK-fm in Los Angeles from 1978-1981. He
hosted a weekly program on KPFA-fm in the Bay Area from 1994 to
2001.. Other activities have included serving as a regular columnist
for Sound & Recording Magazine in Japan, serving as web editor
for Other Minds, a world wide web site devoted to New Music, and for
the official web site of the John Cage Trust. In 2007 he began
contributing a regular column to the American Musix Center’s New
Music Box website.