IRCAM is a European institute for science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

 about music and sound and avant garde electro-acoustical art music

Electroacoustic music

Electroacoustic music originated in Western art music during its modern era following the incorporation of electric sound production into compositional practice. The initial developments in electroacoustic music composition during the mid-20th century are associated with the activities of composers...

. It is situated next to, and is organizationally linked with, the Centre Pompidou in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. The extension of the building was designed by Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano is an Italian architect. He is the recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, AIA Gold Medal, Kyoto Prize and the Sonning Prize...

 and Richard Rogers

Richard Rogers

Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside CH Kt FRIBA FCSD is a British architect noted for his modernist and functionalist designs....

.

A center for musical research

Several concepts for electronic music and audio processing have emerged at IRCAM. John Chowning

John Chowning

John M. Chowning is an American composer, musician, inventor, and professor best known for his work at Stanford University and his invention of FM synthesis while there.-Contribution:...

 pioneered work on FM synthesis at IRCAM, and the real-time audio processing graphical programming environment Max/MSP including many of its derivatives, such as jMax,which were developed there. Max/MSP has subsequently become a widely used tool in electroacoustic music. Many of the techniques associated with spectralism

Spectral music

Spectral music is a musical composition practice where compositional decisions are often informed by the analysis of sound spectra. Computer-based sound spectrum analysis using tools like DFT, FFT, and spectrograms...

, such as analyses based on fast Fourier transform

Fast Fourier transform

A fast Fourier transform is an efficient algorithm to compute the discrete Fourier transform and its inverse. "The FFT has been called the most important numerical algorithm of our lifetime ." There are many distinct FFT algorithms involving a wide range of mathematics, from simple...

s, were made practical by technological contributions at IRCAM. IRCAM has also developed a special microphone capable of isolating each of the cello's four strings for separate amplification or electronic treatment.

IRCAM provides classes to train composers in music technology. Composers who do not have programming experience to create the technology end of a piece for ensemble and electronics are provided with an assistant who helps them to realize technically intensive parts of the piece. The assistant will follow the conceptual advice of a composer with no technology experience to realize a computer part, or will help a composer who can program in Max/MSP to make their "patch" more efficient and elegant. Tristan Murail

Tristan Murail

Tristan Murail is a French composer. His father, Gérard Murail, is a poet and his mother, Marie-Thérèse Barrois, a journalist. One of his brothers, Lorris Murail, and his younger sister Elvire Murail, aka Moka, also write, and his younger sister Marie-Aude Murail is a French children's writer...

's Désintégrations is an example of a piece realized in this program by a composer with significant technological skill, whereas Harrison Birtwistle

Harrison Birtwistle

Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...

's Mask of Orpheus required an active and creative role for the technology assistants, such as Barry Anderson and Ian Dearden.

A cultural center for musical modernism

Apart from electroacoustic programs, IRCAM has programs in contemporary classical music. It has disseminated music of post World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 modernist musicians such as that of Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...

 or Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

, as well as younger performers and composers. Musical spectralism

Spectral music

Spectral music is a musical composition practice where compositional decisions are often informed by the analysis of sound spectra. Computer-based sound spectrum analysis using tools like DFT, FFT, and spectrograms...

 such as that of Tristan Murail, has also received support from IRCAM. Murail taught at IRCAM for a time. Kaija Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer.Kaija Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she has lived since 1982. Her studies and research at IRCAM have had a major influence on her music and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often created by...

, whose work has been influenced by spectralism, has also been supported by IRCAM.

IRCAM has also helped to develop various performance models. A resident ensemble of IRCAM, Ensemble InterContemporain

Ensemble InterContemporain

The Ensemble InterContemporain is a French chamber orchestra, based in Paris at the Cité de la musique and IRCAM, which specialises in contemporary classical music....

, specialized in contemporary classical music, where each performer could be called upon to perform solo literature or ensemble literature. The Ensemble InterContemporain has been a model for many large ensembles in Europe, for example the Ensemble Modern

Ensemble Modern

Ensemble Modern is a chamber ensemble dedicated to the music of modern composers. Formed in 1980, the group is based in Frankfurt, Germany and made up variously of about twenty members from numerous countries....

 and Klangforum Wien

Klangforum Wien

The Klangforum Wien is an Austrian chamber orchestra, based in Vienna at the Konzerthaus, which specialises in contemporary classical music.Founded by composer and conductor Beat Furrer in 1985, it is run on collective principles, having no official principal conductor. Sylvain Cambreling is...

. Many classical contemporary pieces have been written for the chamber orchestra dimensions of Ensemble InterContemporain

Ensemble InterContemporain

The Ensemble InterContemporain is a French chamber orchestra, based in Paris at the Cité de la musique and IRCAM, which specialises in contemporary classical music....

.

There are regular concerts at IRCAM.

History

In 1970 president Georges Pompidou

Georges Pompidou

Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.-Biography:...

 asked Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

 to found an institution for research in music. In 1973 the section of the building underneath Place Igor Stravinsky was finished, and the center opened in 1977. From the outset, Boulez was in charge of the center. The initial administrators included Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio

Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...

, Vinko Globokar

Vinko Globokar

Vinko Globokar is a French avant-garde composer and trombonist of Slovene descent.His work is noted for its use of unconventional and extended techniques, closely allying him to contemporaries Salvatore Sciarrino and Helmut Lachenmann...

, Jean-Claude Risset

Jean-Claude Risset

Jean-Claude Risset is a French composer, best known for his pioneering contributions to computer music. He is a former student of André Jolivet and former co-worker of Max Mathews at Bell Labs....

, and Max Mathews

Max Mathews

Max Vernon Mathews was a pioneer in the world of computer music.-Biography:...

. In 1992 Boulez, who then became honorary director, was succeeded by Laurent Bayle. In 2002 the philosopher Bernard Stiegler

Bernard Stiegler

Bernard Stiegler is a French philosopher at Goldsmiths, University of London and at the Université de Technologie de Compiègne. In addition, he is Director of the , founder in 2005 of the political and cultural group, , and founder in 2010 of the philosophy school,...

 became the new head of the institute. On January 1, 2006, Stiegler became Director of Cultural Development at the Centre Pompidou and was replaced by Frank Madlener.

The creation of IRCAM coincided with the rise of the debates about modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

 and postmodernism

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...

 in culture and the arts.

Its multimedia library was established in 1996. It is one of the very first music hybrid libraries

Hybrid library

Hybrid library is a term used by librarians to describe libraries containing a mix of traditional print library resources and the growing number of electronic resources.-Overview:...

 to have been created with close to 1000 hours of recorded music and over 2,000 scientific articles available online, in addition to its physical collections of sheet music

Sheet music

Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...

 and books on music and related domains.

Several international conferences have been held at IRCAM:

• ICMC, the yearly International Computer Music Conference
  International Computer Music Conference
  The International Computer Music Conference is a yearly international conference for computer music researchers and composers. It is the annual conference of the International Computer Music Association ....
  
  , in 1984.
• ISMIR 2002, the 3rd international conference on music information retrieval
  Music information retrieval
  Music information retrieval is the interdisciplinary science of retrieving information from music. MIR is a small but growing field of research with many real-world applications...
  
  , in October 2002.
• NIME-06, the 6th International Conference on new interfaces for musical expression
  New Interfaces for Musical Expression
  New Interfaces for Musical Expression, also known as NIME, is an international conference dedicated to scientific research on the development of new technologies for musical expression and artistic performance...
  
  , in June 2006.

Research and development teams

• Instrumental acoustics
• Room acoustics
  Room acoustics
  Room acoustics describes how sound behaves in an enclosed space.The way that sound behaves in a room can be broken up into roughly four different frequency zones:...
  
  
• Music Therapy
  Music therapy
  Music therapy is an allied health profession and one of the expressive therapies, consisting of an interpersonal process in which a trained music therapist uses music and all of its facets—physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic, and spiritual—to help clients to improve or maintain their...
  
  
• Musical perception
  Music Perception
  Music Perception is a music journal published by University of California Press, in Berkeley, California. Published five times a year, Music Perception publishes empirical and theoretical papers on such topics as psychology, psychophysics, linguistics, neurology, neurophysiology, artificial...
  
   and cognition
  Music cognition
  Music cognition is an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the mental processes that support musical behaviors, including perception, comprehension, memory, attention, and performance...
  
  
• Analysis/synthesis
• Music representations
• Free software
  Free software
  Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
  
   and software engineering
  Software engineering
  Software Engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software, and the study of these approaches; that is, the application of engineering to software...
  
  
• Sound design
  Sound design
  Sound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including filmmaking, television production, theatre, sound recording and reproduction, live performance, sound art, post-production and video game software...
  
  
• Online services

Software developed at IRCAM

Some software is being developed at IRCAM, such as
OpenMusic

OpenMusic

OpenMusic is an object-oriented visual programming environment for musical composition based on Common Lisp.It may also be used as an all-purpose visual interface to Lisp programming.-History:...

, AudioSculpt, OMax, Spat, Modalys, Antescofo

Antescofo

Antescofo is a program developed by Arshia Cont at IRCAM to aid with the synchronization of electronics in live performances. It is a is a modular polyphonic Score Following system as well as a Synchronous Programming language for musical composition. A common problem in electroacoustic is the...

 and Orchidée

Orchidée (software)

Orchidée is software developed by IRCAM as a computer-aided orchestration tool. It is a MATLAB-based application that communicates with traditional computer-aided composition environments through Open Sound Control messages. This means that it can be effectively controlled from programs like...

.

Orchidée is developed as a tool to aid in orchestral composition in which musical scores using traditional instruments are generated by imitating a target input sound. It is used in Jonathan Harvey

Jonathan Harvey (composer)

Jonathan Harvey is a British composer. He has held teaching positions at universities and music conservatories in Europe and the USA and is frequently invited to teach in summer schools around the world.-Life:...

's 2008 piece, "Speakings", a composition based on emulating speech patterns and inflections. Orchidée is capable of computing the complex combinatorial possibilities of an orchestra based on musical attributes such as dynamics and instruments, perceptual attributes such as brightness, and timbre models.

There are also partnerships with companies such as Cycling 74 (Max/MSP) and Flux:: (Ircam Tools) for the development of proprietary software.

Notable works composed at IRCAM

• Georges Aperghis
  Georges Aperghis
  Georges Aperghis is a Greek composer working primarily in the field of experimental music theater but has also composed a large amount of non-programmatic chamber music...
  
  : Machinations, musical spectacle for four women and computer (2000)
• Clarence Barlow
  Clarence Barlow
  Clarence Barlow is a composer of classical and electroacoustic works.-Biography:Barlow was born in Calcutta, a member of the anglophone minority, of British and Portuguese descent...
  
  : Çogluotobüsisletmesi, versions for piano (1978), magnetic tape (1980), and piano with tape (1980)
• George Benjamin
  George Benjamin (composer)
  George William John Benjamin, CBE is a British composer of classical music. He is also a conductor, pianist and teacher....
  
  : Antara for ensemble and electronics (1986–87)
• Luciano Berio
  Luciano Berio
  Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
  
  : Chemins ex V, for clarinet and 4C computer (1980)
• Luciano Berio: Orpheo II, opera for voice, orchestras, and tapes (1984)
• Luciano Berio: La Voix des voies, spectacle-exposition for tape and diaporama
  Diaporama
  A Diaporama is a photographic slideshow, sometimes with accompanying audio. The word shares etymological roots with the English words diorama and panorama, both of which come from the Greek root horama, meaning "a view." Salon columnist Camille Paglia used the term as early as March 2008 when she...
  
   (1977)
• Harrison Birtwistle
  Harrison Birtwistle
  Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...
  
  : The Mask of Orpheus
  The Mask of Orpheus
  The Mask of Orpheus is an opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle and a libretto by Peter Zinovieff. It was premiered in London at the English National Opera on May 21, 1986 to great critical acclaim. A recorded version conducted by Andrew Davis and Martyn Brabbins has also received good reviews...
  
  (1986)
• Pierre Boulez
  Pierre Boulez
  Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...
  
  : Anthèmes II, for violin and electronics (1997)
• Pierre Boulez: Dialogue de l'ombre double, for clarinet and tape (1985); version for bassoon and electronics (1995)
• Pierre Boulez: ...explosante-fixe..., version for two flutes, midi-flute, electronics, and orchestra (1993)
• Pierre Boulez: Répons, for six soloists, chamber ensemble, electronic sounds, and live electronics (1981–84)
• John Cage
  John Cage
  John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
  
  : Roaratorio, an Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake
  Finnegans Wake
  Finnegans Wake is a novel by Irish author James Joyce, significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's...
  
  (1980)
• Unsuk Chin
  Unsuk Chin
  Unsuk Chin , is a South Korean composer of classical music, based in Berlin, Germany. She was awarded the Grawemeyer Award in 2004 and the Arnold Schönberg Prize in 2005.- Biography :...
  
  : Double Bind? for violin and electronics (2006)
• John Chowning
  John Chowning
  John M. Chowning is an American composer, musician, inventor, and professor best known for his work at Stanford University and his invention of FM synthesis while there.-Contribution:...
  
  : Stria, for magnetic tape (1977)
• Edison Denisov
  Edison Denisov
  Edison Vasilievich Denisov was a Russian composer of so called "Underground" — "Anti-Collectivist", "alternative" or "nonconformist" division in the Soviet music.-Biography:...
  
  : Sur la Nappe d'un étang glacé, for nine instruments and tape (1991)
• Luis de Pablo
  Luís de Pablo
  Luis de Pablo is a Spanish composer.He was born in Bilbao, living in Madrid from age six and starting to compose aged 12. Although he received composition lessons from Maurice Ohana and Max Deutsch, he was essentially an autodidact in composition...
  
  : Tornasol (1980–81)
• Michel Decoust
  Michel Decoust
  Michel Decoust is a French composer and conductor.Decoust studied from 1956 to 1965 with Jean Rivier and Darius Milhaud at the Paris Conservatoire, as well as at the Cologne Courses for New Music in 1964–65, with Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen...
  
  : Interphone, for soprano and tape (1977)
• Jacob Druckman
  Jacob Druckman
  Jacob Druckman was an American composer born in Philadelphia. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Druckman studied with Vincent Persichetti, Peter Mennin, and Bernard Wagenaar. In 1949 and 1950 he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood and later continued his studies at the École Normale de...
  
  : Animus IV (1977)
• Pascal Dusapin
  Pascal Dusapin
  Pascal Dusapin , is a French composer born in Nancy. He is one of France's best-known living composers; his works have been performed worldwide....
  
  : To Be Sung, chamber opera in 43 numbers (1992–93)
• Karlheinz Essl
  Karlheinz Essl
  Karlheinz Essl is an Austrian composer, performer, sound artist, improviser and composition teacher.- Biography :Essl was born in Vienna. His studies at the University of Music in Vienna included: composition , electro-acoustic music and double bass...
  
  : Entsagung (1993) for ensemble and electronics
• Lorenzo Ferrero
  Lorenzo Ferrero
  Lorenzo Ferrero is a contemporary Italian composer with a predilection for opera, a librettist, author, and book editor. He started composing at an early age and wrote over a hundred compositions thus far, including twelve operas, three ballets, and numerous orchestral, chamber music, solo...
  
  : Ombres (1984) for ensemble and live electronics
• Luca Francesconi: Etymo (1994)
• Rolf Gehlhaar
  Rolf Gehlhaar
  Rolf Gehlhaar in Breslau , is an American composer.Gehlhaar is the son of a German rocket scientist, who emigrated to the United States in 1953 to work at a rocket-development research centre in New Mexico...
  
  : Pas à pas, for tape and spatialization equipment (1981)
• Gérard Grisey
  Gérard Grisey
  Gérard Grisey was a French composer of contemporary music.-Biography:Gérard Grisey was born in Belfort, France on 17 June 1946. He studied at the Trossingen Conservatory in Germany from 1963 to 1965 before entering the Conservatoire de Paris...
  
  : Les Chants de l'Amour, for twelve mixed voices and magnétic tape (1982–84)
• Jonathan Harvey
  Jonathan Harvey (composer)
  Jonathan Harvey is a British composer. He has held teaching positions at universities and music conservatories in Europe and the USA and is frequently invited to teach in summer schools around the world.-Life:...
  
  : Advaya, for cello and electronics (1994)
• Jonathan Harvey: Bhakti (1982)
• Jonathan Harvey: Mortuos plango, vivos voco, for concrete sounds treated by computer (1980)
• Jonathan Harvey: Ritual Melodies, for magnetic tape (1990)
• Jonathan Harvey: String Quartet No. 4 with live electronics (2003)
• Jonathan Harvey: Speakings, for orchestra and live electronics (2008)
• York Höller
  York Höller
  York Höller is a German composer and Professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln.-Biography:Between 1963 and 1970 Höller studied at the Cologne Musikhochschule: composition with Joachim Blume and Bernd Alois Zimmermann, piano with Else Schmitz-Gohrand Alfons Kontarsky, and orchestral...
  
  : Antiphon, for string quartet and tape (1977)
• York Höller: Arcus (1978)
• York Höller: The Master and Margarita
  The Master and Margarita
  The Master and Margarita is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, woven around the premise of a visit by the Devil to the fervently atheistic Soviet Union. Many critics consider the book to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, and one of the foremost Soviet satires, directed against a...
  
  , opera in two acts after the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov
  Mikhail Bulgakov
  Mikhaíl Afanásyevich Bulgákov was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.-Biography:Mikhail Bulgakov was born on...
  
   (1989)
• York Höller: Résonance (1982)
• Barbara Kolb
  Barbara Kolb
  Barbara Kolb is an American composer. Her music uses sound masses and often creates vertical structures through simultaneous rhythmic or melodic units . She was the first American woman composer to win the Prix de Rome. She received her B.M. and M.M...
  
  : Millefoglie (1985)
• Philippe Leroux: M for ensemble and electronics
• Michaël Lévinas: Rebonds (1993)
• Magnus Lindberg
  Magnus Lindberg
  Magnus Lindberg is a Finnish composer and pianist. He is currently the composer-in-residence at the New York Philharmonic.-Education:...
  
  : Joy for orchestra and electronics
• Magnus Lindberg: Related Rocks for two pianos, two percussionists, and electronics (1997)
• Magnus Lindberg: Ur (1986)
• Luca Lombardi
  Luca Lombardi
  -Biography:Lombardi studied composition initially with Armando Renzi and Roberto Lupi, later enrolling at the Pesaro Conservatory where he studied with Boris Porena, receiving his diploma in 1970. He then studied musicology at the University of Rome, graduating with a thesis on Hanns Eisler...
  
  : Hasta que caigan las puertas del odio, for choir (1977)
• Tod Machover
  Tod Machover
  Tod Machover , is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist....
  
  : Soft Morning, City!, for soprano, contrabass and tape (1980)
• Tod Machover: VALIS
  VALIS
  VALIS is a 1981 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. The title is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence System, Dick's gnostic vision of one aspect of God....
  
  , opera for six voices, 4X computer, and images (1986–87/1988)
• Mesías Maiguashca
  Mesías Maiguashca
  Mesías Maiguashca , is an Ecuadorian composer, an advocate of the new music, especially electroacoustic music.-Biography:...
  
  : Fmélodies, for ensemble and tape (1982)
• Philippe Manoury
  Philippe Manoury
  Philippe Manoury is a French composer.-Biography:Philippe Manoury was born in Tulle. His first composition studies were at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, with Gérard Condé and Max Deutsch. He continued his studies from 1974 to 1978 at the Conservatoire de Paris with Michel Philippot, Ivo...
  
  : Jupiter for flute and live electronics
• Philippe Manoury: Pluton for piano and live electronics
• Philippe Manoury: En Echo for soprano voice and live electronics
• Yan Maresz: Sul Segno, for harp, guitar, cymbalon, contrabass and electronic equipment (2004)
• Tristan Murail
  Tristan Murail
  Tristan Murail is a French composer. His father, Gérard Murail, is a poet and his mother, Marie-Thérèse Barrois, a journalist. One of his brothers, Lorris Murail, and his younger sister Elvire Murail, aka Moka, also write, and his younger sister Marie-Aude Murail is a French children's writer...
  
  : L'Esprit des dunes, for chamber eensemble (1993-1994)
• Emmanuel Nunes
  Emmanuel Nunes
  -Biography:Nunes was born in Lisbon, where he studied composition, first from 1959 to 1963 at the Academia de Amadores de Música with Francine Benoit, and then with Fernando Lopes Graça at the University . He then attended courses at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse , and in 1964 moved to Paris...
  
  : Lichtung I (1988/1991)
• Emmanuel Nunes: Lichtung II, for chamber ensemble and electronics (1996)
• Michael Obst: Kristallwelt, for Ensemble and Electronics (1983)
• Robert H. P. Platz: Pièce noire, for thirteen musicians and tape (1990)
• Henri Pousseur
  Henri Pousseur
  Henri Pousseur was a Belgian composer.-Biography:Pousseur studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 1947 to 1953. He was closely associated with Pierre Froidebise and André Souris...
  
  : Liège à Paris (1977)
• Horaţiu Rădulescu
  Horatiu Radulescu
  Horaţiu Rădulescu was a Romanian-French composer, best known for the spectral technique of composition.-Biography:Rădulescu was born in Bucharest, where he studied the violin privately with Nina Alexandrescu, a pupil of Enescu, and later studied composition at the Bucharest Academy of Music ,...
  
  : Incandescent Serene, for contrabass and tape (1982)
• Roger Reynolds
  Roger Reynolds
  Roger Reynolds is an American composer born July 18, 1934 in Detroit, Michigan. He is a professor at the University of California at San Diego. He received an undergraduate degree in engineering physics from the University of Michigan where he later studied composition with Ross Lee Finney...
  
  : The Angel of Death, for solo piano, chamber orchestra, and six-channel computer-processed sound (2001)
• Roger Reynolds: Archipelago, for orchestra and magnetic tape (1983)
• Terry Riley
  Terry Riley
  Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
  
  : Salome Dances for Peace, for string quartet (1986)
• Jean-Claude Risset
  Jean-Claude Risset
  Jean-Claude Risset is a French composer, best known for his pioneering contributions to computer music. He is a former student of André Jolivet and former co-worker of Max Mathews at Bell Labs....
  
  : Inharmonique, for soprano and tape (1977)
• Jean-Claude Risset: Mirages, for six musicians and tape (1978)
• Jean-Claude Risset: Songes (1979)
• Manuel Rocha Iturbide
  Manuel Rocha Iturbide
  Manuel Rocha Iturbide is a Mexican composer and sound artist.-Biography:Manuel Rocha Iturbide was born in 1963 in Mexico City, he started musical studies when he was 13 years old. In 1983, after studying musical pedagogy in Lyon France for one year, he decided to start a career as composer at the...
  
  : Transiciones de Fase, for brass quartet and electronics (1994)
• Frederic Rzewski
  Frederic Rzewski
  Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...
  
  : Instrumental Studies (1977)
• Kaija Saariaho
  Kaija Saariaho
  Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer.Kaija Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she has lived since 1982. Her studies and research at IRCAM have had a major influence on her music and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often created by...
  
  : Lonh (1995–96)
• Karlheinz Stockhausen
  Karlheinz Stockhausen
  Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
  
  : Kathinkas Gesang als Luzifers Requiem, version for flute and 6-channel tape (1985)
• Marco Stroppa
  Marco Stroppa
  Marco Stroppa is an Italian composer who writes computer music as well as music for instruments with live electronics.-Biography:...
  
  : In cielo, in terra, in mare, radiophonic opera on texts by Adolfo Moriconi (1992)
• Jukka Tiensuu
  Jukka Tiensuu
  Jukka Tiensuu is a Finnish contemporary classical composer, harpsichordist, pianist and conductor.His repertoire as musician ranges from baroque music to John Cage and free improvisation and he has given master classes in baroque performance practice and free improvisation.He has written as well...
  
  : Nemo for ensemble (1992)
• Alejandro Viñao
  Alejandro Viñao
  Alejandro Viñao is an Argentinian composer currently living in the United Kingdom.Viñao studied musical composition in Buenos Aires with the composer Jacobo Fischer . In 1976 he was awarded a British Council scholarship to study in London at the Royal College of Music and later on at the City...
  
  : Epitafios, for mixed choir and electronics (1999)
• David Wessel: Antony (1977)
• David Wessel: Contacts Turbulents, for saxophone and electronics (1986)
• Trevor Wishart
  Trevor Wishart
  Trevor Wishart is an English composer, based in York. Wishart has contributed to composing with digital audio media, both fixed and interactive...
  
  : VOX-5, an electroacoustic piece based around extended vocal techniques (1986)
• James Wood
  James Wood (composer)
  James Wood is a British composer, percussionist and conductor -Life:James Wood studied organ in Cambridge. He also studied at the Royal Academy of Music...
  
  : Mountain Language, for alphorn
  Alphorn
  The alphorn or alpenhorn or alpine horn is a labrophone, consisting of a natural wooden horn of conical bore, having a wooden cup-shaped mouthpiece, used by mountain dwellers in Switzerland and elsewhere...
  
  , cow bells, MIDI
  Musical Instrument Digital Interface
  MIDI is an industry-standard protocol, first defined in 1982 by Gordon Hall, that enables electronic musical instruments , computers and other electronic equipment to communicate and synchronize with each other...
  
   keyboard and electronics (1998)
• Iannis Xenakis
  Iannis Xenakis
  Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...
  
  : Psappha, electronic version (1976/1996)
• Frank Zappa
  Frank Zappa
  Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
  
  : Perfect Stranger (1984)
• Hans Zender
  Hans Zender
  Johannes Wolfgang Zender is a German conductor and composer.-Life:From 1956 to 1959 Zender studied piano, conducting, and composition at the Hochschule für Musik Frankfurt and at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg.From 1959 to 1963 he was Kapellmeister of the Municipal Theatres in Freiburg im...
  
  : Lo Shu III, for flute and twenty-four instrumentalists (1979)

External links

• The official site of IRCAM.fr
• Chronological history of IRCAM.fr
• Brahms.IRCAM.fr — a full list of works composed at IRCAM from 1976 until 2006