Position
Professor Emeritus
Contact
Credentials
Area of expertise
Brief Biography
Michael Longton originally studied to become a pianist. Among his teachers were Ira Swartz, Boris Roubakine, and Dale Reubart. While a student at UBC, his interests turned increasingly to composition. Before 1985 the majority of his compositional work was electroacoustic, either for tape (Frederick) or for interactive systems of his own design (Chez Bernoulli). He returned to writing for traditional instruments and his works have been performed by new music groups such as ArrayMusic, Arcana, Les Cucus Benevoles, The Burdocks, Vancouver New Music, and by Toronto pianist Eve Egoyan, and have been heard several times on CBC radio. His work is often both intuitive and extremely discontinuous, but it also makes use of formal processes (Markovian and other finite state automata) — a debt to his earlier work with computers. Michael Longton taught at the School of Music from 1976-2004 and served as Director from 1992-1998 and again from 1999-2004.
