Bruce Christian Bennett is currently a lecturer in music at San Francisco State University, teaching courses in 18th century counterpoint, 20th century music theory, and orchestration. In fall 2005 and spring 2006, he was a visiting scholar at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he lectured on contemporary composition techniques, electronic and computer music, and produced concerts of electroacoustic music.
He was a visiting assistant professor of music at Tulane University from 2003 to 2005 where he taught courses in 18th through 20th century Western art music (including harmony, counterpoint, form and analysis, and 20th century music), music composition, and electronicand computer music. Dr. Bennett is the recipient of several honors, including a 2003 commission from the Fromm Foundation for from the ashes for septet, which was premiered by Earplay in San Francisco in 2005. He was awarded the Prix Maurice Ravel for his work for wind quintet composed at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau in 1993. His works have been performed throughout the United States and abroad by such groups as the Arditti String Quartet, Earplay, the Ensemble InterContemporain, Sirius, and members of the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players; his electroacoustic music has been presented at events such as the Electric Rainbow Coalition Festival at Dartmouth, the Pulse Field exhibition in Atlanta, Sonic Circuits II, Cultural Labyrinth in San Francisco, EX-STATIC and Sonic Residues in Melbourne, Australia, and CMS, ICMC, SEAMUS, and SCI conferences. Dr. Bennett received his Ph.D. in music composition from the University of California, Berkeley in 1999 where he studied composition with Richard Felciano and computer music with David Wessel. He received hisM.M. in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1993, where he studied composition with Andrew Imbrie, David Conte, and Elinor Armer, and electronic music with Alden Jenks; he received his B.A. in music from Reed College in 1990 where he was a student of David Schiff. His dissertation, Canciones de amor y la noche for voice, ensemble, and electronics (1998) is representative of his interest in electroacoustic music and compositional models based on naturally occuring acoustic and artificially generated (frequency modulation) spectra. Other works using frequency modulation generated spectra as models for their harmonic material include Schematic Nocturne for solo piano (1997) and the demon in checkered pants for brass quintet (1997). Sketches for cello andelectronics (1999/2000) was composed for cellist Hugh Livingston as an exploration of extended instrumental techniques magnified by real-time digital signal processing using MAX/MSP. He was on the board of directors for Earplay, a San Francisco–based new music ensemble, from 2000 to 2003, serving as president of the board in 2001–2002 and chair of the program committee in 2002–2003. He has been the editor of the Society of Composers, Inc. Newsletter since 2001. He conducted research and composition at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) in the 90s and has worked in the music technologyindustry for companies such as BIAS and Digidesign. He was a foundingmember of both the Berkeley New Music Project (a Berkeley-basedcomposers' coalition) and the CNMAT Users Group (a coalition ofcomposers and engineers whose interests are in the interaction of musicand technology).
His interests and activities include compositions, performances, andimprovisations for live, interactive, electroacoustic music; conducting;the free-atonal music of the Second Viennese School; the music of thepost-World War II European avant-garde; contemporary American andEuropean avant-garde music; and the Frankfurt School, particularlyAdorno's writings on aesthetics and mass culture.
Education
- Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
- M.M., San Francisco Conservatory of Music
- B.A., Reed College
