LASER Santa Fe Gary Lee Nelson At the Crossroads of Art and Mathematics

Gary Lee Nelson is a classically-trained composer, therefore he approaches his work from that direction with math crashing in from the other side. When math and music collide, he asks himself, “Is this art?” During his talk, Nelson will present examples of some of his experimental techniques from nearly six decades, and will focus on recent art, film, and music works many of which he describes as evolutionary or generative, terms which stem from the "creative misunderstanding" of DNA – the structure and function of the human genome.

Nelson first tasted digital synthesis on a disk distributed to schools by Bell Labs. It contained the iconic Daisy song heard later in Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” That seed laid dormant until the mid-1960s when Nelson was playing tuba and bass with an orchestra in Amsterdam. He took courses at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht where he composed pieces by recording and splicing tape.

Returning to the USA, Nelson completed graduate studies and took up a position at Purdue. With help from engineering colleagues, he acquired skills to begin composing with computers. Later, he joined the Oberlin Conservatory of Music faculty where he chaired the Technology in music and Related Arts (TIMARA) department until retirement in 2008. During summers, Nelson taught at the Allegheny Music Festival, New England Music Camp, and Interlochen where he chaired the composition program, and introduced electronic music.

Nelson enjoyed teaching and consulting internationally in Melbourne, Paris, London, Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Kunming. His music has been recorded and broadcast worldwide receiving international prizes. His films were screened in festivals worldwide, including in the New York Independent Film Festival. Over four decades, he toured performing his own music on the MidiHorn, an electronic wind instrument of his own design. He received grants from the Ohio Arts Council and Powers Foundation. At the International Computer Music Conference in 1978, Nelson was honored as a pioneer in the field.