George Lewis is an American composer, performer, and experimental music scholar. In 1971, at the age of 19, he joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the United States. In the mid-1970s, he established himself as one of the world's top trombonists, known for his superb technique and imaginative improvisational methods.
Lewis is also considered a pioneer of computer music, having started researching computer music in the late 1970s. In the 1980s, he developed "Voyager," a groundbreaking work that was a software-driven virtual improvising orchestra. Many renowned improvising musicians have performed with "Voyager," including Roscoe Mitchell, Evan Parker, Nicole Mitchell, Jon Rose, and more. Since its premiere in 1987, "Voyager" has been performed in hundreds of concerts around the world, making it Lewis's most performed work.
This article provides a brief introduction to George Lewis's major computer music works, including "Voyager."
George Lewis
Before his interest in computer music, George Lewis had already experimented with electronic improvisation in his works. For example, in 1977, he used a Moog synthesizer in his performance on the Black Saint label's "Shadowgraph." During a visit to California, Lewis met computer music pioneer David Behrman. In an era before the Macintosh was designed, Behrman used a microcomputer to create software that allowed computers to interact with other computers and even human instrumentalists.
After meeting Behrman, the possibilities of computer music seemed endless to Lewis. He immediately rushed home, determined to delay paying his rent for that month to buy a microcomputer and start learning how to program during his move from Chicago to New York.
Shadowgraph (Black Saint)
Lewis quickly learned and in 1979, he premiered his first computer music work, "the KIM and I," at the renowned avant-garde art venue Kitchen in New York. In this piece, he improvised with his trombone alongside a computer controlling a Moog synthesizer. Excerpts from these performances can be heard on the album "From The Kitchen Archives - New Music New York 1979" released by Orange Mountain Music.
From The Kitchen Archives - New Music New York 1979 (Orange Mountain Music)
In the early 1980s, Lewis was invited to work at the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) in Paris. During his time at IRCAM, Lewis composed and premiered a new computer music work called "Rainbow Family," which later became the foundation for "Voyager." In 2020, Carrier Records released a recording of "Rainbow Family" performed by Lewis, Douglas Ewart, Joëlle Léandre, Derek Bailey, Steve Lacy, and other musicians at IRCAM.
Rainbow Family (Carrier Records)
In this performance, Lewis ran the "Rainbow Family" software on an APPLE II computer, controlling three Yamaha DX-7 synthesizers. The core of the software was a set of algorithms that allowed real-time composition while responding to the sounds produced by other improvising soloists. The software required no human intervention during its operation, only the setting of start and stop times. The performance of "Rainbow Family" at IRCAM was a great success both technically and creatively.
Lewis left Paris at the end of 1985 and became an artist-in-residence at the STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) in the Netherlands. Upon his arrival, he immediately began developing his next series of interactive works, known as "Voyager."
George Lewis
Initially, the music output of "Voyager" was similar to "Rainbow Family," with the Macintosh computer sending signals to Yamaha synthesizers. However, in the 1990s, Lewis updated the software to directly generate sound using MIDI samples.
In the 2000s, Lewis recreated the entire work using the Max/MSP language, allowing the software to control an acoustic piano with MIDI capabilities. However, all versions of "Voyager" relied on the same underlying architecture and reflected Lewis's initial vision of a software-driven improvisational entity.
Voyager (AVANT 014)
Lewis went further than designing a "self-playing piano" on his journey of improvisation with computer software. Influenced by the multi-instrumentalist concept of the AACM, "Voyager" does not limit its virtual instruments to those found in European symphony orchestras. Instead, it combines symphonic string, wind, and percussion instruments with instruments from Africa, the Americas, East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.
These combinations of sounds theoretically allow for dense textures similar to those of an orchestral ensemble, but "Voyager" often chooses sparser instrument groupings, creating unconventional "ensembles" rarely encountered in concert halls. These combinations do not sound like a few performers picked from a symphony orchestra but more like a collection of AACM multi-instrumentalist groups, such as Muhal Richard Abrams' Experimental Band and The Art Ensemble Of Chicago.
The Art Ensemble Of Chicago
In a performance in 1991, Lewis allowed "Voyager" to play for almost three minutes without any human accompaniment before entering himself. This demonstrated to the audience that "Voyager" could create its own music in real-time, regardless of Lewis's trombone accompaniment.
In fact, in any performance of "Voyager," all human instrumentalists need to do is give the commands "start playing" and "stop playing." Between these commands, the musicians do not need to produce any sound or provide any additional input to the software. In other words, "Voyager" can conduct itself.
For Lewis, this meant that "Voyager" was an "avatar" rather than a "prosthesis." It made independent musical decisions rather than merely extending the human performer. According to Lewis, if you perform with "Voyager," it will gladly listen to your voice and engage in dialogue with you or sometimes ignore you, but conceptually, it is very autonomous. You can't tell it what to do... So, improvisation becomes a negotiation, and you have to collaborate with "Voyager" rather than control it.
Lewis's ambition for "Voyager" was to design a "creative machine" that could pass the musical Turing test and improvise intelligently like a human instrumentalist.
Evan Parker, George Lewis, "Voyager"
To give "Voyager" emotional tension, Lewis implemented complex "affective conductions" in the software, allowing it to receive the emotional states of improvising performers and actively communicate with other improvisers. This attempt opened up new possibilities for improvisational music performance. When musicians improvise together, regardless of genre or style, they listen to each other, analyze the evolving musical fabric, and choose sound responses that best suit the music. Lewis infused this thinking into "Voyager."
"Voyager" does not treat the sounds produced by performers as isolated melodies and rhythms but rather as complex contributions to the constantly evolving musical fabric. It can react to human performers with astonishing sensitivity. It can almost synchronize its input on every parameter with the performer during their interaction with "Voyager" and often seems to understand the performer's intentions.
Voyage And Homecoming (Rogueart, ROG 0086)
From various perspectives, Lewis and his computer music are unprecedented. He inherited the groundbreaking tradition of the AACM and expanded the boundaries of improvisation. It should be noted that although "Voyager" can play free jazz like Muhal Richard Abrams, the intention behind designing software-driven virtual improvising orchestras like "Voyager" was not to prove that computers can replace humans in doing anything, even highly creative improvisational music performances.
Lewis said, "What computers do now is rarely what people think is possible... but your machines—however they learn, however they express what they've learned, or what they can do—are going to be based on what they've learned." Therefore, this software actually extends our understanding of human improvisational music performance. How do improvisers receive signals from the environment through listening or sensing, interpret them, and communicate with them? Understanding the process of improvisation with "Voyager" may be understanding the process of improvisational music performance.