S3E4: Steel City Outsiders and the Institutional Avant-Garde | “A New New Music”

The Buchla synthesizer experienced a cultural reemergence through new records from composers Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Suzanne Ciani, but for Pittsburgh, the Buchla first arrived in 1969 when composer Morton Subotnick founded the University of Pittsburgh’s Electronic Music Studio. This episode charts the studio’s history from analog to digital. We hear stories about complications with CBS Musical Instruments, a lost George Romero film, and computers that could play synthesizers. This is the story of the University of Pittsburgh’s Electronic Music Studio.