BEAM Foundation Launches Capital Campaign for the Future of New Music

BEAM Foundation Launches Capital Campaign for the Future of New Music

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- BEAM Foundation, the leading entity for the "NuRoque" aesthetic, announced today it is launching a major capital campaign in order to showcase this new music movement in the US and worldwide.

NuRoque is based on the concept of enhanced instruments coupled through an intelligent computer network. According to BEAM founder Keith McMillen, the name NuRoque was inspired by the Baroque movement of the 1600s, where original technology and instruments created a new musical style. "Just as networked computers changed how we work and interact, networked instruments will define the music of the 21st century," says McMillen.

McMillen has created many firsts in the music industry, including the first MIDI mixing board, the best selling iTunes audio plugin, and the Zeta Violin, which has defined the modern stringed instrument family. McMillen's inventions have been used by thousands of professional musicians including Laurie Anderson, Jean-Luc Ponty and the Kronos Quartet.

Entertainment thought leader Will Wright, creator of Sim City and Spore says, "NuRoque is at the forefront of music and technology. Unlike many other cutting edge endeavors, they are guided by their sense of art rather than by the tools involved." Futurist Jaron Lanier, the inventor of "Virtual Reality," says, "NuRoque is the start of a new musical culture. The importance of this development cannot be overstated." Max Mathews, the father of computer music, who in 1962 at Bell Laboratories first taught a computer to sing (the song was "Daisy," memorialized in "2001: A Space Odyssey"), calls NuRoque "the future of new music."

BEAM's board reads like a who's who of innovation in computers and new media: along with Max Mathews and Jaron Lanier the board includes: David Wessel, Professor of Music at UC Berkeley and founder of the International Computer Music Conference; Dave Smith, inventor of MIDI; Don Buchla and Tom Oberheim, both synthesizer pioneers; and John Chowning, inventor of FM synthesis.

BEAM plans to raise $17 million from technology companies and supporters of the Arts to create an endowment for the advancement of 21st century music. The money will be used to craft a consistent and unified approach to the rapidly evolving landscape of music now being created through a convergence of computers, highly integrated networks, new instruments, and composers. Mr. McMillen has personally seeded the fund by contributing over half a million dollars in cash and equipment.

Says BEAM's McMillen, "With the loss of government support and little educational focus, there is no infrastructure in place to nurture and guide new music. I believe it is the responsibility of all of us who have benefited so much from technology to embrace this evolution as our contribution to the unique possibilities of 21st century art."

The first real incarnation of a technology for this new musical style is now complete, representing over forty years of development from leading researchers, technologists, musicians and composers. The result is a successful re-forging of the musical chain -- where instruments, structure, composition, notation, conducting -- even the way musicians interact with one another during a performance -- are all moderated and enhanced by a highly responsive and intelligent computer network.

The fundraising campaign marks a new era of innovation in the musical landscape, which has been relatively unchanged for over a hundred years. Modern music is rarely played with modern instruments. BEAM is redefining the potential for creative musical expression and is pushing the boundaries of computer enhanced instruments and human/computer/music interaction. The campaign also signals BEAM's commitment to bringing NuRoque to the forefront in order to encourage further research, new instruments, interfaces and collaborations among musicians, composers and research institutions worldwide.

BEAM is rapidly becoming known for its visionary and novel approach to how music can be created, played and enjoyed. Using advanced instruments unified by an intelligent computer network, this new form of music is highly reactive, compellingly fluid, and is at once both introspective and engaging, achieving a surprising complexity and intimacy. Max Mathews concludes, "NuRoque is the leading edge of an entirely new musical movement, it is really the birth of something never before heard. Quite possibly it's as important to the world of music as the Renaissance was to the world of visual arts."

About BEAM Foundation

BEAM Foundation is a 501c3 non profit organization dedicated to creating optimal conditions to spark a new music revolution, one in which composers, musicians and instruments react instantaneously via a powerful and highly intelligent computerized network yielding a new complexity and intimacy in music. The word "NuRoque" signifies the sophisticated integration of live instruments that go beyond their traditional boundaries thanks to an advanced musical program and interface system called MACIAS. The foundation is based in Berkeley, CA. More information is available on the website: http://www.beamfoundation.org/.

Source: BEAM Foundation

CONTACT: Mark Russo of BEAM Foundation, +1-415-883-1095, or
mark@beamfoundation.org

Web site: http://www.beamfoundation.org/

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