The Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia is an interdisciplinary center focused on music and arts technologies, housed within UNT's Division of Composition Studies. CEMI fosters integration of electroacoustic music, live performance, video/film, plastic arts, and theater. Since its 1963 inception as the NTSU Electronic Music Center, CEMI has evolved into an unique creative environment, world-renowned for innovative works and musicians.
CEMI provides an environment for research, education, and public performance. CEMI's four studios and Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater provide state-of-the-art support for research, creative work, performance and teaching with computer music and intermedia tools.
CEMI studios are open to students taking classes and private lessons with faculty in the Division of Composition Studies, which offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees. CEMI's staff of Graduate Assistants prepare themselves for professional work as teachers and technologists as they help CEMI students and guests to make optimal use of CEMI resources. CEMI hosts courses ranging from an undergraduate Introduction to Electroacoustic Music through graduate seminars on advanced Topics in Electroacoustic Music and an annual Intermedia Performance Art class open to students from across the campus, including Visual Arts and Design, Media Arts, and Dance and Theater.
Students, faculty, and guests create dozens of new works in a wide variety of styles, forms, and media every year, including live interactive computer music, multichannel surround audio compositions, film and video works, dance pieces with live video, and intermedia theatrical performances. Many of these are specifically designed for performance in the MEIT.
CEMI and the Division of Composition Studies showcase the latest experimental music and intermedia from UNT and around the world in a busy annual series of concerts. CEMI regularly hosts internationally renowned artists and researchers in residencies that include public lectures, masterclasses, and concerts; visiting composers-in-residence have studio access and technical assistance. CEMI has hosted the International Computer Music Conference, the SEAMUS National Conference, and the Electric LaTex Festival, and most recently our own CEMIcircles Festival.
CEMI nurtures collaborative and interdisciplinary projects, including those of the Initiative for Advanced Research in Intermedia and the Arts (iARTA). Recent research directions include data sonification, DSP techniques for physical modeling, sensor and instrument design, audio diffusion control systems, data analysis for interactive computer music, and video tracking. CEMI researchers also collaborate with their counterparts in the media industry to develop new technologies; current projects include networked performance, 3-D sound diffusion, and wireless controller development.
Works created at CEMI push the envelope of existing technologies and point the way to new research opportunities. In 2005, CEMI was noted in Schools that Rock: The Rolling Stone College Guide, which named the UNT College of Music as one of the nation's best music programs.
