OKSMM: So overall, you're pretty positive about pop music?

MB: One really sad point about pop music is punk. Punk is dead; at least in its rock and roll form. What we hear called punk now appropriates the image of punk but it's squeaky clean and produced. I'm thinking of bands like the Foo Fighters and the Ataris, both groups I like a lot with good energy, but neither of them really punk.

OKSMM: One of the perks of your career is traveling all over the world to perform your music. That's got to be awesome.

MB: I always feel free in airports and on planes. I love long layovers because I can think clearly. I'll just sit down in a spot and start composing, writing or programming. When I was a kid in Anchorage, there was nothing for people under 21 to do because Anchorage was just bars and it was too cold outside. So we would go to the international airport and meet people or just watch the arrivals and departures. Airports remain a kind of retreat for me. I've been lucky to give concerts recently in Italy, Germany, Slovakia, Cuba, Norway and Sweden. Later this week I will be back in Germany, then in Paris and San Sebastian, Spain. Europe has been especially good to my music and I will probably have to immigrate some day to the EU.

OKSMM: And you lived in several different places while growing up, right?

MB: I can't say enough good things about the time I spent at Xenakis' studios in Paris, the IUA in Barcelona, and the Banff Centre in Canada. These experiences deeply shaped me at a time when I was young and absorbing many ideas for the first time. Each in its own way was special and is still impacting my life. The most important thing for young composers is to spend time abroad. Recipe for a young composer: write music every day, read and listen a lot, and travel in a country other than your own.

OKSMM: Do any concerts stand out as your best?

MB: There are many actually. I always try to look for the magic in a concert. There was the time in northern Norway for example when we did the premiere of Sikuigvik (the time of ice melting) 400 miles above the Arctic Circle in January. I spent a week there rehearsing with the orchestra. When I arrived it was about 20 below zero but by the time of the concert it was 40 above and all the snow had melted. The media in this little town went crazy with that, and they joked that next time they would commission a piece called "the time of good skiing"!

The Cuba concert was fantastic too. I worked with the Havana sax quartet, one of the members of which is the sax player in Buena Vista Social Club. At the dress rehearsal the alto player showed up late, in dismay because he didn't have a horn. They just don't really have instruments there. One of the other players found him this broken student sax and he and the other players got out tools and banged this instrument into working condition. It was a wonderful spirit of music making without resources. And these guys could really play! they teach classical in the conservatory, then play in jazz clubs, then later they play in Cuban clubs.

In November I was married in Kansas City to Aniseh Khan, and by some botched coincidence on my part, I had a concert there on the same night. So after the wedding, we all went down to the concert hall, in wedding dress. My friends stuck a 'just married' sign on my back when I went on stage. That was at the EMM Festival and I'm a little embarrassed to say it may be the first computer music wedding.

OKSMM:How did you get your current job at the University of Virginia?

MB: I was hired at UVa right out of a doctoral program at Stanford. The job came up, my instinct was that it would be a good fit, and I was right. It was the only job I applied for because at the time I was planning to go to Berlin for the year and wasn't really looking for an academic position. But I jumped at the chance to be Assistant Professor and Associate Director of the VCCM at UVa. It's been a great position and I am pleased with the level of growth we have accomplished in the area of computer music in the three years I've been here. We now have six PhD students from all over the world in the new CCT PhD, and the undergrad computer music classes are more popular than ever.

OKSMM: Do you enjoy teaching?

MB: Without a doubt, the best thing about teaching at UVa is the student body. I am continually impressed by the level of creativity and curiosity, and the wide variety of talent present in each class. It is truly a source of inspiration for me. I try to turn that inspiration back into the class by bringing my own interests and research directly into class projects. For example, next semester I'm teaching this "Making Musical Things" class which is an outgrowth of my Interactive Media class that you took, Dave. At the moment I am working on new instruments for multimedia performance and the class will learn to do that too. The students will learn to build things like the metasax for themselves. Last semester I taught a seminar called "New Media Opera" that looked at recent multimedia compositions. This was also directly related to my own current interest in multimedia for a new project I am working on for Spain next year.

One never knows what the future will hold, but as long as the music department and Arts and Sciences continues to support the VCCM such that we can maintain the studios and continue to offer cutting edge technology classes and concerts, it will remain a vibrant and unique program in computer music on the east coast. For me this is the most important thing in a job: to be involved in a growing program with energy, vision and mobility.

OKSMM: How do you feel that the internet has helped in promoting your music?

MB: When I was doing my doctorate at Stanford I also worked for a Paul Allen startup called harmony-central.com. This is where I acquired my modest web skills, which have been employed mainly in creating colorful websites for my classes at UVa. I've had a personal website since 1994 and it's hard to really say what effect it has had. No one has ever just randomly called me based on my website for a major commission or performance. Mostly people see the site and want information or send a note to say hi. For this reason I am skeptical of the internet as a business model, but I believe it remains a very strong community model. For example, I google everyone. Web presence is a big factor in my deciding if someone is serious or not. How many and what type of hits they get may be a factor in whether or not the collaboration will be successful, if the merger in data space will bring a significant positive presence.

Also, I hardly need to point out that this interview is being conducted virtually. I'm in Castellina in Chianti, Italy presently, and who knows what your physical location is, Dave. But I am quite comfortable responding in this freely conversational format virtually. The only problem is that they charge 6 Euro an hour here at the "Internet Point" and I have to use this slow Windows PC. Traveling is the measure of technology because you feel exactly how far we have come. Italy is pretty tough for the kind of virtual attachment I need. I do grades on line, communicate with students and retrieve assignments, do administrative work. The technology is not quite transparent enough yet for that everywhere.

OKSMM: What's next?

MB: With the metasax project at a stable point, I'm facing a number of interesting projects. Plans are in the works for a new large-scale multimedia work, a follow-up to my Winter Raven piece. Last summer I took an extended research trip in Alaska, recording audio and video of a river system. This will be the basis for this work which is a kind of new media opera. It involves creating new technologies for interactive sound and video. One such creation are the Shaman Hands, a huge pair of wooden hands worn by a dancer and used to throw video around. I'll probably work on these hands and some other "shamanic" controllers next year.

I'll also be performing a lot to support the new album, in the US between September and December, then from January until June in Europe. During this period I'll be in residence at the Cite des Arts in Paris and will be Composer-in-Residence at the Musikene: Centro Superior de Musica del Pais Vasco in Spain. I'll be working with European performers as well on some new chamber music.

The larger question of what's next is harder. Like Technology, life changes fast and it's good to be adaptable. I'm looking out over the Chianti hills today, in Italy, and thinking that the next thing I want to do is go on a long walk in the grape vine fields and then drink some of that Chianti!

(OKSMM thanks Matthew for the interview. Return to okaysamurai.com or check out Matthew's work at Burtner.net and Innova.)