Christopher Yavelow

Christopher Yavelow (born 14 June 1950, Cambridge, Massachusetts), the son of a film professor and visual artist, is a composer
and proponent of computer assisted composition.

He studied composition and theory at Boston University (BM 1972, MM 1974), Harvard University (MFA 1977), the Franz Liszt
Academy in Hungary (1977–78), the Darmstadt Ferienkurse in Germany, the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud in Aix-en-Provence, and
L'ecole Normale de Musique in Paris where he also studied withNadia Boulanger (1978–1979).

Yavelow has taught music composition and theory at Harvard (teaching fellow, 1975–77), the Paris-American Academy (1978–79),
the University of Texas (at Dallas, 1983–84), and Claremont Graduate University(1988-93). He was Chairman of the Department of
Music at Schiller International Universityfrom 1979 to 1980. Currently, he teaches at the University of Maryland University College
(from 2008).

Major works include his grand opera, The Passion of Vincent van Gogh commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts in
1981[1] and performed by the University of Texas in 1984. The National Institute of Music Theater sponsored his chamber opera,
Countdown (1987), as part of their “Opera in the Eighties and Beyond” program on behalf of the Boston Lyric Opera.[2] Countdown
is the first computer-assisted opera, the first operaperformance accompanied by avirtual orchestra (February 12, 1987, by the Boston
Lyric Opera), and the first opera in cyberspace (1994).[3]

Throughout the 1980s, Yavelow published many articles on computer music for Byte Magazine, Computer Music Journal, Electronic
Musician, Macromedia Journal,Macworld, and New Media Magazine. HisMacworld Music and Sound Bible was IDG's first "Bible"
book (1992), and also won the Computer Press Association Award (1992).[4] The book and its Japanese translation were well
received by music educators[5] and the entertainment industry.[6] Yavelow went on to author or co-author nearly a dozen books,
mainly on music and multimedia. From 1995 through 1999, he was the editor of A-R Editions' Computer Music and Digital Audio
book series.

Selected publications
Christopher Yavelow, "Personal Computers and Music: The State of the Art",Journal of the Audio Engineering
Society, Volume 35, Issue 3, March 1987, pp. 160–193.
Christopher Yavelow, "Music and Microprocessors: MIDI and the State of the Art" in CurtisRoads (ed.), The Music
Machine: Selected Readings from Computer Music Journal , MIT Press, 1989. ISBN 0-262-68078-5.
Christopher Yavelow, Macworld Music and Sound Bible, IDG Books, 1992. ISBN 1-878058-18-5.

References
1. Central Opera Service Bulletin(http://www.cpanda.org/pdfs/csob/2403.pdf), Spring/Summer, 1983, p.6.
2. Central Opera Service Bulletin(http://www.cpanda.org/pdfs/csob/2901-2.pdf), Fall/Winter, 1988-89, p. 5.
3. PC/Computing 8.n12 (Dec 1995): pp121(14)
4. Newsbytes April 21, 1993, pNEW04210027
5. Music Educators Journal Feb93, Vol. 79 Issue 6, p62
6. Keyboard Magazine, March 1983

External links
Official web site including a page devoted toCountdown: An opera for the nuclear agewith libretto and online
streaming of the opera.
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