At one of the conference’s 13 concerts, children from the Atala Montessori School in Homestead jumped on miniature trampolines to trigger interactive electronics for the composition “The Water Moves,” written by Kristine H. Burns, president of SEAMUS and co-chair of this year’s conference with her husband, Colby Leider, of the Frost School of Music. A line from The Everglades: River of Grass, by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, inspired this original work.

Nearly 300 students, composers, performers, and multimedia artists converged on the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus from January 20 to 22, when the Frost School of Music hosted the 26th Annual Festival and Conference of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS). Concerts, sound installations, paper sessions, and multimedia listening room environments were among the highlights.

“It was very exciting for all of us to witness the thriving culture of electronic music during the conference,” says associate professor Colby Leider, director of the Music Engineering Program at the Frost School of Music. “The Frost School has the best people anywhere in the United States for pulling off so many concerts and events with such complicated technical requirements. Our recording services team, concert hall staff, faculty, students, and administrative team made it possible to bring SEAMUS to the UM campus.”

Computer-music pioneers in attendance included Laurie Anderson, who performed at an awards banquet in her honor Friday night, as well as Max Mathews and Jon Appleton, who were interviewed on WVUM 90.5 (click here to download the interview).