ABSTRACT
Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky began a long-standing partnership as collaborators and caretakers of what was initially called the Columbia Tape Music Center. In 1952, around the same time that Cage was getting acquainted with the Barrons, composers Luening and Ussachevsky were both music instructors at Columbia University in New York City. The Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center was the first notable university-based electronic music studio in North America. As an educational institution, it presented an alternative to the commercial studios or broadcasting establishments for learning electronic music. The RCA synthesizer did not compose music but was managed by a composer who pre-programmed the machine’s operation using a punched paper input device. The reaction of musicians and music unions to such an idea has been a recurring issue in the history of electronic music. In 1957, Luening and Ussachevsky completed a 155-page report on their findings in the electronic music field to fulfill their initial Rockefeller Foundation grant.
