Edmund J. Campion

Edmund J. Campion (born July 9, 1957) is an American composer whose work includes acoustic, electronic, electroacoustic, and mixed-media music.[1][2] He is Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has been on the faculty since 1996.[3][4]

Biography

Campion was born in Dallas, Texas. He studied composition at the University of Texas at Austin with Donald Grantham and Russell Pinkston.[5][6] He completed master's and doctoral studies in composition at Columbia University, where he worked with Mario Davidovsky[7] and Chou Wen-chung.[8]

Campion participated in IRCAM's Cursus program, where Losing Touch was premiered in 1995. IRCAM subsequently commissioned works including Natural Selection, Play-Back, and Corail.[2] He served as Director of the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) from 2014 to 2024 and as Co-Director from 2024 to 2026.[3] He also co-founded the ECO Ensemble with conductor David Milnes at UC Berkeley.[9]

Career

In 2008, Albany Records released Outside Music: Music of Edmund Campion, a recording by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players devoted to Campion's music.[10]

In 2012, Kronos Quartet joined the Santa Rosa Symphony for the world premiere of Campion's Concerto for String Quartet, Orchestra and Electronics (The Last Internal Combustion Engine), presented during his residency as composer-in-residence with the orchestra.[11] That year, a Bay Citizen preview published by The New York Times discussed Campion's piano concerto Flow, Debris, Fall, noting its use of a computer-driven piano within a 17-member acoustic ensemble.[9]

Campion's orchestral work Practice, for orchestra and computer, was included on the American Composers Orchestra digital album Orchestra Underground: Tech & Techno. In a 2014 Second Inversion review, Maggie Stapleton described the work as combining orchestral forces with an electronic, computer-generated conclusion.[12]

In 2013, Campion's Ossicles (Tiny Bones) received its world premiere at the Berkeley Symphony's season opener; the work was co-commissioned by the Berkeley Symphony and Cal Performances.[13][14]

Campion's multimedia work Cluster.X, created with video and sound artist Kurt Hentschläger, was presented at the Philharmonie de Paris in October 2015 and performed by the Ensemble intercontemporain during its 2015 Cal Performances residency at UC Berkeley.[15][16] In San Francisco Classical Voice, Giacomo Fiore described Cluster.X as an intermedia work combining Hentschläger's video and electronic soundtrack with Campion's live instrumental accompaniment, calling the piece "eminently memorable".[16]

In 2019, Campion created Berkeley Rain, a site-specific outdoor sound installation for the Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza. The work followed a public sound-art commission series announced in 2018.[17][18]

In 2020, Ars Electronica's In Kepler's Gardens festival featured the long-term collaborative project ALICE, ALICES UNCHAINED, and THE FLOWER MATRIX by Campion and digital artist Claudia Hart. The project included works developed through their Alices collaboration since 2013.[19]

Campion's published scores include works issued by Éditions Billaudot and Éditions Henry Lemoine in Paris.[20][21]

Music and reception

Campion's music has been discussed in scholarship on spectral music. In The Spectral Piano: From Liszt, Scriabin, and Debussy to the Digital Age, Marilyn Nonken discusses Campion's A Complete Wealth of Time in relation to technology, piano writing, and philosophical aesthetics.[22] Campion has also written about the influence of spectral music on his work, especially his time in Paris, study with Gérard Grisey, and engagement with IRCAM.[23]

Honors and awards

Campion's honors include the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1991;[24] the Paul Fromm Award at Tanglewood in 1992;[2] the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Composition Award in 1993;[25] the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome in 1995;[26] the Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999;[27] a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2012;[28] and a Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition in 2016.[29]

References

  1. ↑ "Northern California Composers". San Francisco Public Library. Retrieved 16 June 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 "Biographie - Edmund Campion". Ressources IRCAM. IRCAM-Centre Pompidou. Retrieved 16 June 2026.
  3. 1 2 "Edmund Campion". University of California, Berkeley Department of Music. Retrieved 16 June 2026.
  4. ↑ "Edmund Joseph Campion". Columbia University Department of Music. Retrieved 16 June 2026.
  5. ↑ Makan, Keeril (2004). "An Interview with Edmund Campion". Computer Music Journal. 28 (4): 16–24. doi:10.1162/0148926042728430.
  6. ↑ "Meet the EEMS Team". Butler School of Music. The University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  7. ↑ "Outside Music". Albany Records. Albany Records. Retrieved 18 June 2026.
  8. ↑ "Tribute to Chou Wen-Chung: music by his teacher, his colleagues, and his distinguished disciples". Brandeis ScholarWorks. Brandeis University. 2008. Retrieved 18 June 2026. CD 2: Chou Wen-chung's distinguished disciples. Melt me so with thy delicious numbers : for viola solo and electronics / Edmund Campion
  9. 1 2 Berger, Kevin (20 January 2012). "A Digital Touch in Eco Ensemble's New Season". The Bay Citizen. Retrieved 16 June 2026 – via The New York Times.
  10. ↑ "Outside Music: Music of Edmund Campion". San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. 2008. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  11. ↑ "Kronos Quartet Announces New 2012–13 Tour Dates, Including Laurie Anderson Collaboration Premiere". Nonesuch Records. Nonesuch Records. 3 August 2012. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  12. ↑ Stapleton, Maggie (2 September 2014). "Album of the Week: Orchestra Underground: Tech & Techno". Second Inversion. Classical KING FM. Retrieved 16 June 2026.
  13. ↑ McMillan, Jeffery S. (7 October 2013). "New conductor saves Berkeley Symphony season opener". Bachtrack. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  14. ↑ "For Berkeley Symphony in 2013-14, two world premieres". Symphony. League of American Orchestras. 29 March 2013. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  15. ↑ Schellaert, Jérémie (21 December 2015). "Cluster.X – Reportage vidéo". Ensemble intercontemporain (in French). Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  16. 1 2 Fiore, Giacomo (10 November 2015). "Ensemble Intercontemporain Tackles 'Difficult' Music". San Francisco Classical Voice. Retrieved 16 June 2026.
  17. ↑ Lefebvre, Sam (17 October 2018). "What Are Those Strange Sounds in the Air at the New Berkeley BART Plaza?". KQED. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  18. ↑ "Berkeley Rain at Berkeley BART Plaza Downtown Berkeley". Center for New Music and Audio Technologies. University of California, Berkeley. 1 June 2019. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  19. ↑ "ALICE, ALICES UNCHAINED, and THE FLOWER MATRIX". Ars Electronica: In Kepler's Gardens. Ars Electronica Linz GmbH & Co KG. 13 September 2020. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  20. ↑ "Résultats de recherche pour "Edmund Campion"". Billaudot (in French). Éditions Billaudot. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  21. ↑ "Edmund Campion". Éditions Henry Lemoine. Éditions Henry Lemoine. Retrieved 17 June 2026.
  22. ↑ Nonken, Marilyn (5 March 2014). The Spectral Piano: From Liszt, Scriabin, and Debussy to the Digital Age. Music since 1900. Cambridge University Press. pp. 133–138. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139088152. ISBN 9781139088152. Retrieved 25 June 2026.
  23. ↑ Campion, Edmund (2025). "Spectral Moments: Edmund Campion's Musical Influences from the Paris Years". In Bauer, Amy; Cagney, Liam; Mason, William (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Spectral Music. Oxford University Press. pp. 838–846. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190633547.013.42.
  24. ↑ "Academy Award Composer". Deseret News. 21 May 1991. Retrieved 16 June 2026.
  25. ↑ "Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund". University of Massachusetts Boston. Retrieved 16 June 2026.
  26. ↑ "All Fellows". American Academy in Rome. American Academy in Rome. 1995, Edmund J. Campion, FAAR. Retrieved 18 June 2026.
  27. ↑ Ganley, Susan (24 May 1999). "American Academy of Arts and Letters Recognizes 57 People". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 16 June 2026.
  28. ↑ Swanson, Abbie Fentress (16 May 2012). "Historian David McCullough, Composer Steve Reich to be Honored at Awards Luncheon". WNYC. Retrieved 16 June 2026.
  29. ↑ "Five School of the Arts Alumni Receive 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship". Columbia University School of the Arts. 7 April 2016. Retrieved 16 June 2026.
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