Charles Dodge (composer)

For the American Civil War General of the same name, see Charles C. Dodge.

Charles Dodge (b. Ames, Iowa, June 5, 1942) is an American composer best known for his electronic music, specifically his computer music. He is a former student of Darius Milhaud and Gunther Schuller.

Education and teaching career

Dodge received his undergraduate education (BA) at the University of Iowa, and earned his MA and doctorate (DMA) at Columbia University. While at Columbia, Dodge was very active at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. In particular, Dodge was one of the leading innovators in the emerging field of computer music composition (as opposed to analog electronic composition, the norm in the field through the 1970s).

In the 1970s he taught at Columbia and subsequently founded the Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music (BC-CCM) at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York where he was Professor of Music. He also taught at the City University Graduate Center. During Dodge’s years as Professor of Composition and Director of the BC-CCM, Dodge not only had the BC-CCM designated as an official Center within Brooklyn College in 1978 but more importantly brought it to a world-class standing in the field of computer music.

In the early 1990s Dodge left Brooklyn College for Dartmouth College. In May 2009 he retired from the position of Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College, a post he held for 18 years. In addition to his work as a composer, Dodge is noted for co-authoring the highly praised book Computer Music: Synthesis, Composition, and Performance, ISBN 0-02-864682-7

Best known in recent years as the owner, with his wife Katharine, of the Putney Mountain Winery in Putney, Vermont. The company has experienced growth every year since its founding in 1998.

Music

Dodge created some of the first meritorious works in the field of computer music, including Earth’s Magnetic Field (1970), which mapped magnetic field data to musical sounds, Speech Songs, a 1974 work that used analysis and resynthesis of human voices, The Waves (voice and computer music), Profile, and Any Resemblance is Purely Coincidental (1978), which combines live piano performance with a digitally-manipulated recording of Enrico Caruso singing the aria "Vesti la giubba."

Discography

"Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center 1961-1973" New York: New World Records, 1998.

• Earth's Magnetic Field

"Synthesized Voices" CRI SD 348, 1976.

• In Celebration
• Speech Songs
• The Story Of Our Lives

"Electro Acoustic Music 1" Cambridge, MA: Neuma, 1990.

• Profile

"Any Resemblance is Purely Coincidental" San Francisco: New Albion, 1994.

• Any Resemblance is Purely Coincidental
• Speech Songs
• The Waves
• Viola Elegy

"The Composer in the Computer Age III, CDCM Series Volume 18" Baton Rouge: Centaur, 2006?.

• In Celebration

External links

• Charles Dodge page at Dartmouth College Department of Music site
• Charles Dodge papers at the Wayback Machine (archived July 12, 2007) in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
• Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music

Listening

• Epitonic.com: Charles Dodge two works from Any Resemblance is Purely Coincidental
• Art of the States: Charles Dodge Any Resemblance is Purely Coincidental (1980)
• Charles Dodge interview from American Mavericks site
• Charles Dodge interviewed by Charles Amirkhanian, 1975