Finding Aid for Sever Tipei Music and Papers, 1961-2015 | The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music

By Kelli McQueen

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Collection Overview

Title: Sever Tipei Music and Papers, 1961-2015

ID: 12/5/78

Extent: 15.15 cubic feet

Arrangement: Organized in five series: Series 1: Computer Music Project Administrative Records; Series 2: Sever Tipei Personal Papers; Series 3: Coursework and Instructional Materials; Series 4: Performance Recordings and Digital Audio Tapes (DAT); Series 5: Computer Music Project Technology. Series 2 constists of two subseries: Subseries 1: Adiministrative Papers, including grant applications, conference presentations, and faculty appointments, organized chronologically; Subseries 2: Sheet Music, Scores, and Concert Programs, organized alphabetically by title. Series 3 consists of two subseries: Subseries 1: Sever Tipei's Course Materials, organized by course number; Subseries 2: James Beauchamp's course materials and articles.

Date Acquired: 06/28/2021

Scope and Contents of the Materials

Consists of the music and papers of Sever Tipei and James W. Beauchamp. Sever Tipei is an emeritus professor of music composition theory and the director of the University of Illinois' Computer Music Project. James Beauchamp is an emeritus professor of electrical engineering and music. Beauchamp was the director the Experimental Music Studios from 1969-1972, and co-founder of the Computer Music Project.

Biographical Note

Sever Tipei was born in Bucharest, Romania, immigrated to the United States in 1972 and became a U.S. citizen in 1978. He holds degrees in composition from the University of Michigan and in piano performance from the Bucharest Conservatory (now National University of Music at Bucharest). Sever Tipei has been teaching since 1978 at the University of Illinois School of Music where he directs the Computer Music Project. MP1, his program for computer-assisted composition in use between 1973 and 1998, was the first such program to be implemented on a supercomputer ( NCSA 's CRAY X-MP), in 1986. Sever Tipei also had a Faculty Appointment (visiting scientist) at the Argonne National Laboratory between 1994 and 2003. In collaboration with Hans Kaper, Senior Mathematician (now retired), at Argonne Tipei worked on developing an Environment for Music Composition (EMC), that included software for composition, sound synthesis, automatic music notation, and visualization of music in a virtual environment. Tipei and Kaper have also pursued the sonification of complex scientific data. A more recent project, DISSCO, a Digital Instrument for Sound Synthesis and Composition, available on Github.com represents a unified approach to composition and sound synthesis.

Administrative Information

Repository: The Sousa Archives and Center for American Music

Acquisition Source: Sever Tipei

Acquisition Method: Gift

Box and Folder Listing

Browse by Series:

[Series 1: Computer Music Project Administrative Records],
[Series 2: Sever Tipei Personal Papers],
[Series 3: Coursework and Instructional Materials],
[Series 4: Performance Recordings and data discs],
[Series 5: Computer Music Project Technology],
[All]

Series 1: Computer Music Project Administrative Records

Box 1

Folder 1: Computer Music Project Research, 1944-2001
Folder 2: Correspondence with Jack McKenzie and Iannis Xenakis, 1966-1990
Folder 3: "A User's Manual for the Stochastic Music Propgram" by Bruce Rogers, June 1972
Folder 4: Experimental Music Studio budget, letters, newspaper clipping, 1976-1984
Folder 5: National Endowment of the Arts grant application, 1980-1984
Folder 6: Computer Music Project letters and Research Board Application, 1981-1987
Folder 7: Research Board Application for RA in Computer Music-Printing System, 1983-1989
Folder 8: Grant Applications, 1983-1990
Folder 9: Experimental Music Studios 25th Anniversary records, 1984
Folder 10: First Annual Composition Competition (FACC), 1984
Folder 11: Directory of Scholars in Artificial Intelligence Applications on Supercomputers, 1985
Folder 12: User Manuals: Computer Music Project and G-RAPH, 1985-1986
Folder 13: Visiting Scholar Aureliu G. Stroe letters and documents, 1985-1986
Folder 14: Proposal "A Digital Instrument for Additive Synthesis on Supercomputers", 1985-1992
Folder 15: Excel Project, 1885
Folder 16: Excel Project, 1986
Folder 17: Applicant letters for Excel RA-ship, 1986
Folder 18: Computer Music Workshop administrative documents, 1986
Folder 19: University of Illinois Foundation funding applications and letters, 1987
Folder 20: Computer Music Workshop, August 13-22, 1987
Folder 21: International Computer Music Conference, 1987
Folder 22: International Computer Music Conference, 1987
Folder 23: International Computer Music Conference Exhibitors and Sponsers, 1987
Folder 24: Meet the Composer-Arts Midwest: Hiller and Albright, 1987

Box 2

Folder 1: International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), 1987: letters, notes, documents
Folder 2: Illinois Arts Council Application for ICMC, 1987
Folder 3: ICMC application and budget proposal, 1987
Folder 4: ICMC - AT&T Reception, 1987
Folder 5: ICMC conference multimedia notes, 1987
Folder 6: ICMC Publicity, 1987
Folder 7: ICMC - Concerts Selection Process, 1987
Folder 8: Brochure Correspondence, 1987
Folder 9: Consortium to Distribute Computer Music - Larry Austin correspondence, 1987-1991
Folder 10: Brunswick Foundation funding application and letters, 1988
Folder 11: National Center for Supercomputing Applications: Summer Workshop at U of I, 1989
Folder 12: National Center for Supercomputing Applications, 1989
Folder 13: National Endowment for the Arts: Equipment Grant, 1986-1987
Folder 14: National Endowment for the Arts: application and letters, 1984-1987: IBM equipment grant
Folder 15: Beckmam Institute Newsletters and correspondence, 1988-1992
Folder 16: Advanced Scientific Computing and Technical Education Research applications, 1989-1993
Folder 17: Wiring Diagrams, 1991
Folder 18: Research Board Proposals: "Digital Instrument for Additive Synthesis", 1991-1992
Folder 19: Request for Equipment: IBM Ultimate Audio Adapter RS/6000 375, 1993
Folder 20: Computer Music Project user manuals, 1993-1994
Folder 21: Research Board Proposal and graduate student applications, 1993-1995
Folder 22: Educational Technologies Board Grant application materials, 1994
Folder 23: Research Board Proposals and letters, 1995-1998
Folder 24: Individual Investigation LDRD Program application, 1996
Folder 25: UIUC Campus Research Board application and letters, 1997-1999
Folder 26: Education Technologies Board grant letters and application, 1998
Folder 27: FAA Computing for the Arts, 1998
Folder 28: RA Jobs letters and applications, 1998-1999
Folder 29: Research Board applications and letters, 1997-2000
Folder 30: Historical Marker for Computer Music, 2000
Folder 31: Research Board grant application, 2000-2001
Folder 32: CFAC computing policy committee, November 5, 2007
Folder 33: NSF: Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation, 2007-2010
Folder 34: NCSA: UIUC Fellowship application, 2008
Folder 35: Research Board Application and IMCN: McGill and FAA Creative Research Award, 2009
Folder 36: Campus Research Board: CMP CD, 2014-2015
Folder 37: Computer Music Project upgrade, 2015
Folder 38: Computer Music Project 35th Anniversary funding letters, 2018
Folder 39: Computer Music Project policies, undated

Box 16

Folder 1: Lejaren Hiller and Robert Barker at the music typewriter, 1961
Folder 2: Salvatore Martirano and the SAL-MAR Construction, 1970s
Folder 3: James Beauchamp at the PDP5 computer, 1974
Folder 4: Herbert Brun and pipe, undated
Folder 5: Sever Tipei compiling MP1 data, undated

Oversize Portfolio Case 1

Folder 1: Event posters, 1983-1988

Item 1: Two Concerts in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Experimental Music Studios, December 7, 1983
Item 2: Soundshapes Combined Media in Composition, May 8, 1987
Item 3: Changes: New Music in Recognition of John Cage's 75th Birthday, 1987-1988
Item 4: International Computer Music Conference, August 23-26, 1987

Folder 2: Event Posters, 1990-1997

Item 1: Information Art: Diagramming Microchips, September 6-October 30, 1990
Item 2: National Conference of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the US, October 24-26, 1991
Item 3: 19th Annual Internation Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, July 1992
Item 4: Music, Media, and Movement: The 1993 Seamus Music Conference, March 31-April 3, 1993
Item 5: +522 Composers and Computers: An On-Going Collaboration, March 12, 1997

Folder 3: Event Posteres and Photograph, undated

Item 1: Indy Silicon Graphics, undated
Item 2: Iannis Xenakis, undated: poster of photograph
Item 3: High Performance Computing and Music Composition, undated