1997 SEAMUS Lifetime Acheivement Award

Louis (post.) and Bebe Barron

Louis and Bebe Barron are two of the early pioneers in electro-acoustic music. They began their work together shortly after getting married in 1948, experimenting with musique concrete as well as electronic sources. In 1949, they established one of the earliest electroacoustic music studios in New York. It contained both disc and tape equipment, with various oscillators, mixers, and filters. Influenced by Norbert Weiner and his work in cybernetics, the Barrons created their own circuitry and recorded the results on tape. Their first fully-realized work was "Heavenly Menagerie" (1951-52).

During 1952 and 1953 the Barrons' studio was used by John Cage for the preparation of his first tape work "Williams Mix"; the studio also served as the focal point for Cage's Project of Music for Magnetic Tape which involved several other composers, including Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, and David Tudor. The Barrons composed several film scores in the 1950s, including Ian Hugo's "Bells of Atlantis". In 1956 they composed the score for "Forbidden Planet"; it was the first electronic score for a commercial film and because of its wide dissemination it has had a considerable impact on the development of electronic music.

In 1962, the Barrons moved to Los Angeles, where, although divorced in 1970, they continued to collaborate on compositional projects until Louis Barrons' death in 1989. Bebe Barron continues to be active in new music, and she was the first Secretary of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States from 1985 to 1987.