Music Professor’s piece selected
for international
concert series
Dr. Akins’ 60- second composition to be featured at computer music conference
By Whitney Cox
STAFF WRITER
Dr. John Akins, professor of music composed a 60-second computer music piece entitled, “You’ve Got…60 Seconds.” This music piece will be featured at the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC).
Akins is a professor of music theory, composition and piano at Evangel, where he has taught since 1977 and has been a recognized composer for many associations. The ICMC is the annual international conference of the International Computer Music Association (ICMA) for computer music researchers and composers.
Dr. Akins wrote a piece between 2006 and 2008 entitled “Computerondo—You’ve Got…to Be Kidding.” The 60 second piece that was selected for the conference, “You’ve Got….60 Seconds,” is a condensed adaptation of Computerondo.
Both of these electronic compositions use computer processed .wav files, such as the AOL ‘Welcome, you’ve got mail’ audio clip and other familiar sounds heard when using everyday computer programs.
The music piece that Akins composed betwee 2006 and 2008 was a two and a half minute piece. It was selected for inclusion in a concert at the Region VI Society of Composers, Inc., an annual conference in Huntsville, Tex. in April 2008. That same year, Akins received word from an organization called Vox Novus, which organizes specialized concerts in the U.S. and abroad. The concerts last precisely one hour and contain 60 pieces exactly 60 seconds each, representing a total of 360 different composers.
This called for any composer to submit 60 second works for consideration for their concerts.
Akins made a condensed version of the two and a half minute piece, which was then selected for a particular group of concerts called the Midwest Mix.
This concert series was presented at several locations in the Midwestern U.S. that year. Akins resubmitted it at the beginning of this year and got invited to the 2010 ICMC event.
“I like to compose both serious and fun musical expressions,” Akins said.
“This piece was a sequel of sorts to an earlier electronic piece I did in the 1970s entitled ‘Electrondo’,” Akins said of composing “You’ve Got...60 Seconds.” He went on to say that he thought it would be fun to take common computer sounds and process them with an audio processing program until they are at times hardly recognizable.
The International Computer Music Conference will be held in New York City and Stony Brook, N.Y. June 1-5 this year.