The impetus for taking on the 50th Anniversary of the ICMC was, first and foremost, to honor the conference’s founder, David Wessel. Here we share our Festschrift, collection of writings in his honor. David organized the inaugural ICMC in 1974 at Michigan State University, where he was on the faculty at the time. Considering this, along with his research and creative interests, the 50th Anniversary of the ICMC is a fitting venue to celebrate and honor David’s life and work. 

Several of David’s collaborators, colleagues, and students and friends were invited to contribute to the Festschrift. Taking into account David’s immense level of activity across a wide range of disciplines, this call sought to capture the breadth of David’s lifelong interests and contributions at the intersection of music, science, and technology; to highlight and amplify some of the ideas that were David’s lifelong interests; to Illustrate some of David’s character and joie de vivre; and to share many case studies of David’s impact on those of us lucky enough to know and be mentored by him. May your viewing of this Festschrift provide us all a moment of reflection and inspiration as we engage in the 50th Anniversary of what David Wessel started in 1974.

The Wessel Festschrift Collective
ICMC BOSTON 2025

Richard Andrews
Marc Battier
Anthony Paul De Ritis
Adrian Freed
Psyche Loui
Miller Puckette
Ronald Bruce Smith, Chair
Matt Wright

Here we share some special audio content offered by Laetitia Sonami, which is also referenced in her Festschrift honoring David.

We did collaborate on two pieces in the nineties – Music Mobile for an interactive installation at the Exploratorium in San Francisco and Nga’i pa Yul for live performance. I am attaching here two excerpts I found on cassettes. Each could be easily realized now, but at the time they were ahead of the technology and required much analysis and computer power (I think both ran on SGIs). Each illustrated David’s relentless desire for boundaryless spaces, for exploring the in-betweens, the beyonds, and the discovery of new tastes.

Nga’i pa yul (excerpt) – David Wessel, Tsering Wangmo, Laetitia Sonami, 1996

Tsering Wangmo recorded this traditional Tibetan song which was then analyzed using CNMAT’s Additive Synthesis Tools (CAST). The sinusoidal models were controlled in performance with my lady’s glove, slowing, speeding, freezing the voice as I moved my hand. We performed it at the Kitchen in NYC in 1996 and also at IRCAM, Paris.

Music Mobile (examples) – David Wessel, Laetitia Sonami

An interactive music installation at the Exploratorium, SF (90’s). Families of rhythms and instrumentations were analyzed and multiple models created. The public could then choose a particular style and “drive” amongst rhythms, transforming and creating their own style using a pair of gamers’ joysticks (these were not samples…)

And lastly, for now, we share this short video of David Wessel speaking at the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) conference, held at NYU in June 2007, forwarded by Robert Rowe.

David Wessell speaking at NIME, June 2007. Video credit: Langdon Crawford and Laura Sinnott.