Barry Lloyd Vercoe (24 July 1937 – 15 June 2025) was an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

. Born in New Zealand, he is best known as the inventor of

Csound Csound is a domain-specific computer programming language for audio programming. It is named Csound because it is written in the language C, in contrast to some of its predecessors. It is free and open-source software, released under the GNU Les ...

, a music

synthesis Synthesis or synthesize may refer to: Science Chemistry and biochemistry *Chemical synthesis, the execution of chemical reactions to form a more complex molecule from chemical precursors **Organic synthesis, the chemical synthesis of organi ...

language with wide usage among computer music composers. SAOL, the underlying language for the MPEG-4 Structured Audio standard, is also historically derived from Csound.

Biography

Born in

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

, New Zealand, Vercoe received undergraduate degrees in

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

(1959) and

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

(1962) from the

University of Auckland The University of Auckland (; Māori: ''Waipapa Taumata Rau'') is a public research university based in Auckland, New Zealand. The institution was established in 1883 as a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. Initially loc ...

before emigrating to the United States. While employed as an

assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1965–1967) and as the

Contemporary Music Project In 1957, the Ford Foundation began to explore the relationship between arts and American society. Resulting from a suggestion by Norman Dello Joio, the Young Composers Project (YCP) was founded in 1959. Funded by the Ford Foundation and administere ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

/ Tacoma composer-in-residence (1967–1968), he earned his AMusD in composition from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

(where he studied with Ross Lee Finney) in 1968. Prior to taking these positions, Vercoe supported his doctoral studies by working as a staff statistician at Michigan; it was in this capacity that first acquired an aptitude for computer programming by learning MAD. In 1965, he married fellow composer and Michigan graduate student Elizabeth Vercoe; they had two children before divorcing in the early 1990s. He married Kathryn Veda Vaughn in 1993. During a summer respite from his doctoral studies and a subsequent two-year

postdoctoral fellowship A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary academ ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

under Godfrey Winham, his research in digital audio processing paved the way for the subsequent evolution of digital musical composition. From 1970 to 1971, he served as a visiting lecturer at the Yale School of Music. In 1971, Vercoe became an assistant professor of humanities at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. As one of the epoch's few specialists in digital synthesis, he speculated that he had indirectly been recruited by president Jerome Wiesner through colleagues John Harbison and David Epstein because Wiesner harboured musical inclinations (having previously collaborated with

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music during the 20th century. He was a musician, folklorist, archivist, writer, scholar, political activ ...

) and sought to establish an

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

laboratory as an inevitable extension of the institution's mandate. After a two-year period in which Vercoe designed a real-time digital synthesizer, Wiesner and

Edward Fredkin Edward Fredkin (October 2, 1934 – June 13, 2023) was an American computer scientist, physicist and businessman who was an early pioneer of digital physics. Fredkin's primary contributions included work on reversible computing and cellular au ...

personally procured a

PDP-11 The PDP–11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers originally sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the late 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of a ...

for the fledgling research programme from

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until ...

in the summer of 1973, enabling him to abandon his previous methodology in favour of a streamlined, software-based approach. Shortly thereafter, the Experimental Music Studio was formed in laboratory space vacated by Amar Bose. Following promotion to

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position ...

in 1974, he joined the Lab for Computer Science as an associate member in 1977. He became a founding member of the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

upon promotion to

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

in 1984 and continued as

professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

of music and media arts. For many years, he directed research in machine listening and digital audio synthesis as head of the Lab's Music, Mind, and Machine group and served as associate academic head of its graduate programme in media arts and sciences from 2000 until his retirement in 2010. His notable students include Susan Frykberg, Miller Puckette and Paris Smaragdis. Vercoe served as a consultant for the Boston Composers Project bibliography of Boston-area composers and compositions, first edition published in 1983. As of 2015, Vercoe resided in

Tauranga Tauranga (, Māori language for "resting place," or "safe anchorage") is a coastal city in the Bay of Plenty Region and the List of cities in New Zealand, fifth-most populous city of New Zealand, with an urban population of or roughly 3% of t ...

, New Zealand, where he co-founded and directed One Education, an offshoot of the One Laptop per Child initiative. He was also an accomplished jazz musician. Vercoe died in Tauranga on 15 June 2025, at the age of 87.

References

External links

Barry Vercoe homepage
* *

Appearance on WMBR's

'' radio show, 10 November 2004 {{DEFAULTSORT:Vercoe, Barry 1937 births 2025 deaths Scientists from Wellington City University of Auckland alumni University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance alumni MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty New Zealand emigrants to the United States New Zealand computer scientists American computer scientists American jazz musicians MIT Media Lab people American male jazz composers American jazz composers

Biography

See also

References

External links