Chris Chafe is a composer, improvisor, and cellist, developing much of his music alongside computer-based research. He is Director of Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). In 2019, he was International Visiting Research Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies The University of British Columbia, Visiting Professor at the Politecnico di Torino, and Edgard-Varèse Guest Professor at the Technical University of Berlin. At IRCAM (Paris) and The Banff Centre (Alberta), he has pursued methods for digital synthesis and network music performance. CCRMA’s jacktrip project involves live concertizing with musicians the world over.
Online collaboration software and research into latency factors continue to evolve. An active performer either on the net or physically present, his music reaches audiences in sometimes novel venues, for example, Sun Shot played by the horns of large ships in the port of St. Johns, Newfoundland.. An early network project was a simultaneous five-country concert was hosted at the United Nations (2009). Chafe’s works include gallery and museum music installations which are now into their third decade with “musifications” resulting from collaborations with artists, scientists and MD’s. Recent work includes the Heavy Metal Suite, the Earth Symphony, Ensemble Means, Gnosisong, Chopper and Tomato Music, variously involving brass quintet, chamber quintet, loudspeaker dome, Wurlitzer theater organ and computer synthesis.