Barry Schrader

Barry Schrader (born June 26, 1945, Johnstown, Pennsylvania) is an American composer specializing in electro-acoustic (primarily electronic) music. His compositions for electronics, dance, film, video, mixed media, live/electro-acoustic music combinations, and real-time computer performance have been presented throughout the world. Schrader has been acclaimed by the Los Angeles Times as "a composer born to the electronic medium", named "a seminal composer of electro-acoustic music" by Journal SEAMUS, and described by Gramophone as a composer of "approachable electronic music with a distinctive individual voice to reward the adventurous". "There's a great sweep to Schrader's work that puts it more in line with ambitious large-scale electronic works by the likes of Stockhausen (Hymnen), Eloy (Shanti) and Henry (take your pick), a line that can be traced backwards to Mahler, Bruckner and Beethoven." writes Dan Warburton of the Paris Transatlantic Magazine. Computer Music Journal states that Schrader’s “music withstands the test of time and stands uniquely in the American electronic music genre.”

Schrader began composing electronic music in 1969 while a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, where he was also organist for Sunday high mass at Heinz Chapel. He graduated with an MA degree in musicology and then went to the newly-formed California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, where he received an MFA in composition in 1971. He was appointed to the School of Music faculty of CalArts in 1971, and has been on the composition faculty ever since. He has also taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the California State University at Los Angeles.

Active in the promotion of electro-acoustic music, Schrader is the founder and the first president of SEAMUS (Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States). He has been involved with the inauguration and operation of several performance series such as SCREAM (Southern California Resource for Electro-Acoustic Music), the Currents concert series at Theatre Vanguard (the first ongoing series of electro-acoustic music concerts in the U.S.), and the CalArts Electro-Acoustic Music Marathon. He has written for several publications including The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Grolier’s Encyclopedia, Contemporary Music Review, and Journal SEAMUS, and is the author of the book Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music.