Christopher Yavelow the son of a film professor and visual artist, is a composer and proponent of computer assisted composition.

He studied composition and theory at Boston University

Boston University College of Fine Arts

The Boston University College of Fine Arts is unit of Boston University. The College consists of the School of Music, the School of Theatre, and the School of Visual Arts. Each of the individual schools offer degrees in the performing and visual arts at the undergraduate and graduate level...

 (BM 1972, MM 1974), Harvard University

Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is the academic unit responsible for many post-baccalaureate degree programs offered through the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University...

 (MFA 1977), the Franz Liszt Academy in Hungary (1977-78), the Darmstadt Ferienkurse in Germany, the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud in Aix-en-Provence, and L'ecole Normale de Musique in Paris where he also studied with Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...

 (1978-1979).

Yavelow has taught music composition and theory at Harvard (teaching fellow, 1975-77), the Paris-American Academy (1978-79), the University of Texas (at Dallas, 1983-84), and Claremont Graduate University (1988-93). He was Chairman of the Department of Music at Schiller International University

Schiller International University

Schiller International University is a private American university with its main campus and administrative headquarters in Largo, Florida. It has campuses on two continents in five countries, each offering its own unique experiences to students: Largo; Paris, France; Madrid, Spain; Heidelberg,...

 from 1979-80. Currently, he teaches at the University of Maryland University College

University of Maryland University College

The University of Maryland University College is located in the unincorporated community of Adelphi in Prince George's County, Maryland in the United States. Serving over 90,000 students worldwide, UMUC is the largest 4-year public university in Maryland and one of the largest distance learning...

 (2008-).

Major works include his grand opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

, The Passion of Vincent van Gogh

The Passion of Vincent van Gogh

The Passion of Vincent van Gogh is an opera in three acts and eighteen scenes by composer Christopher Yavelow. The opera was commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts and composed at the Camargo Foundation in 1983 during a Camargo Fellowship in Cassis, France...

commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

 in 1981 and performed by the University of Texas in 1984. The National Institute of Music Theater sponsored his chamber opera

Chamber opera

Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra.The term and form were invented by Benjamin Britten in the 1940s, when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small...

, Countdown (1987), as part of their “Opera in the Eighties and Beyond” program on behalf of the Boston Lyric Opera. Countdown is the first computer-assisted opera, the first opera performance accompanied by a virtual orchestra

Virtual Orchestra

Virtual Orchestra is a term used to identify a variety of different types of technology and art forms. Most commonly used to refer to orchestral simulation, either for pre-recorded or live environments, it also has been used to describe other activities, such as IRCAM’s Virtual Orchestra...

 (February 12, 1987, by the Boston Lyric Opera

Boston Lyric Opera

Boston Lyric Opera is an American opera company based in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1976.Each season, BLO produces three mainstage productions at the Citi Performing Arts Center Shubert Theatre in Boston and a fully staged, one-hour English language version of a popular opera for school...

), and the first opera in cyberspace (1994).

Throughout the 1980s, Yavelow published many articles on computer music for Byte Magazine, Computer Music Journal

Computer Music Journal

Computer Music Journal is an American academic journal that covers a wide range of topics related to digital audio signal processing and electroacoustic music. It is published on-line and in hard copy by MIT Press. The magazine is accompanied by an annual CD/DVD that collects audio and video work...

, Electronic Musician

Electronic Musician

Electronic Musician is a monthly magazine published by Penton Media featuring articles on synthesizers, music production and electronic musicians....

, Macromedia Journal, Macworld

Macworld

Macworld is a web site and monthly computer magazine dedicated to Apple Macintosh products. It is published by Mac Publishing, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California...

, and New Media Magazine. His Macworld Music and Sound Bible was IDG

IDG

International Data Group is a technology media, research, event management, and venture capital organization.IDG evolved from International Data Corporation which was formed in 1964 in Newtonville, Massachusetts, by Patrick Joseph McGovern and a friend, Fred Kirch...

's first "Bible" book (1992), and also won the Computer Press Association

Computer Press Association

Founded in 1983, the Computer Press Association was established to promote excellence in the field of computer journalism. The association was composed of working editors, writers, producers, and freelancers who covered issues related to computers and technology...

Award (1992). The book and its Japanese translation were well received by music educators and the entertainment industry. Yavelow went on to author or co-author nearly a dozen books, mainly on music and multimedia. From 1995 through 1999, he was the editor of A-R Editions' Computer Music and Digital Audio book series.

Selected publications

• Christopher Yavelow, "Personal Computers and Music: The State of the Art", Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, Volume 35, Issue 3, March 1987, pp. 160-193.
• Christopher Yavelow, "Music and Microprocessors: MIDI and the State of the Art" in Curtis Roads (ed.), The Music Machine: Selected Readings from Computer Music Journal, MIT Press, 1989. ISBN 0262680785.
• Christopher Yavelow, Macworld Music and Sound Bible, IDG Books, 1992. ISBN 1878058185.

External links

• Official web site including a page devoted to Countdown: An opera for the nuclear age with libretto and online streaming of the opera.