(January, 2025)

Edmund Campion, Professor of Music Composition at the University of California, Berkeley since 1996, served as Director of the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) from 2014 to 2024 and now Co-Director since 2024. A composer and performing artist for over 30 years, he continues to create new music that expands the boundaries of music and culture, integrating emerging technologies with acoustic instruments and electronic sounds.

Recent highlights include the 2023 premiere of The Velvet Algorithm by David Milnes and the ECO Ensemble at Cal Performances, and a new work featuring cellist Danielle DeGruttola at Festival Electrocution in Brest, France, performed by Ensemble Sillages. In 2022, the Emprientes Festival in Lyon premiered These Things Happen (or not), and in 2019, Tom Buckner’s Interpretations Series at Roulette presented a portrait concert of his work.

Throughout his career, Edmund Campion has collaborated with innovative artists who share with him their desire to innovate. His long-standing partnership with digital artist Claudia Hart has produced the Alice Series and Recumulations, the latter acquired by the Whitney Museum in 2020. Their collaborative projects continue to be showcased in major museums, galleries, online platforms, and AR/VR environments worldwide.

Campion has worked extensively with his brother, John Campion, blending language and sound through John’s poetry and philosophical insights. In 2015, the Ensemble Intercontemporain co-commissioned Campion and audiovisual artist Kurt Hentschläger to create Cluster X, a 25-minute multimedia work premiered at the Philharmonie de Paris and later toured in the United States. As a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, Campion composed for the Contemporary Gugak Orchestra, an ensemble of 50 musicians performing on traditional Korean instruments.

Campion has composed several orchestral works. In 2012, as Composer in Residence with the Santa Rosa Symphony under maestro Bruno Farrandis, he was commissioned to create The Last Internal Combustion Engine, a piece for orchestra, Kronos Quartet, and electronics. The Berkeley Symphony later commissioned Ossicles, a three-movement orchestral work uniquely scored without winds.

Campion has received numerous accolades, including the American Rome Prize (1994), the Lili Boulanger Prize (1993), the Paul Fromm Award at Tanglewood (1992), and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship (2012) from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Past commissions include Wavelike and Diverse (2011), written for Les Percussions de Strasbourg and featured on the ensemble's 50th-anniversary Universal CD collection; Auditory Fiction (2011), commissioned by Société Générale for Radio France; Small Wonder (The Butterfly Effect) (2012), commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky Foundation for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players; and Auditory Fiction II (2014), composed for the ECO Ensemble and premiered at the Venice Music Biennale.Campion’s works are performed worldwide, with recent commissions for Ensemble Sillages in France, the Drumming Ensemble in Portugal, and premieres by soloist Marilyn Nonken and the Nonken/Laufer piano duo.

___________________ Short biography:

Edmund Campion’s music explores the interplay between sound and space, blending acoustic instruments with cutting-edge computer technologies. Born in Dallas, Texas, in 1957, he studied composition at the University of Texas and Columbia University, later continuing his education in France with Gérard Grisey. In 1993, he was selected to work at IRCAM, where he composed Losing Touch, now a staple in the repertoire and most recently performed by percussionist Sae Hashimoto at The Stone in New York City in 2022.Campion has received commissions from major institutions such as IRCAM, Radio France, the French Ministry of Culture, the Fromm Foundation, and the Koussevitzky Music Foundation. His works are performed worldwide, with highlights including a monograph CD by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players on Albany Records and a recording of Wavelike and Diverse by Les Percussions de Strasbourg on their 50th Anniversary CD collection.