Warren Burt attended the State University of New York, Albany (BA, 1971) and the University of California, San Diego (MA, 1975) before moving to Australia in 1975. In Australia he has worked in academia (La Trobe University, NSW Conservatorium, Victorian College of the Arts, Australian National University, Victoria University of Technology), education, and radio (freelance and commissioned productions for ABC and PBAA), and as a composer, film maker, video artist, and community arts organiser. His works have been performed and shown in the USA, Australia, Europe and Japan and he has received grants from the Australia Council, the Victorian Ministry for the Arts and the McKnight Foundation (USA). Warren Burt has also been artist-in-residence with a number of organisations, such as the Australian Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation, the Los Angeles based art-science think-tank International Synergy, the Broadcast Music Department of ABC Radio, the Monash University Music Department, the RMIT Department of Fine Arts, the American Composers Forum, Art-Science Laboratory, Santa Fe, and the Djerassi Artists Program.
Since the 1970s, Burt has toured and performed his electronic and computer music internationally, and has been especially active in the fields of interactive technology (especially with dancers and actors) and microtonality. Two books are currently available: Writings from a Scarlet Aardvark: 15 Articles on Music and Art, 1981-93 (Frog Peak Music, 1993) and Critical Vices: The Myths of Post-Modern Theory (in collaboration with Nicholas Zurbrugg) (Gordon and Breach, 1999). Recent recordings include A Book of Symmetries on the CD Zygotones: Loretta Goldberg (Centaur, USA, 2000), Poems of Rewi Alley (Sonic Gallery, Melbourne, 2006), and The Animation of Lists and the Archytan Transpositions (XI Records, New York, 2009). From 1992 until 2003, he was involved with Al Wunder’s ‘Theatre of the Ordinary’ in Melbourne, working improvisationally with dancers, actors and musicians. His Elegy (2013) for choir was performed by the Astra Choir in 2013 and 2015 and is currently awaiting release on New World Records from New York.
From 1998-2000, Burt held an Australia Council Composers’ Fellowship. In 2001 & 2002, he was Visiting Professor of Composition at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. In 2003 he was involved in the reconstruction of Percy Grainger’s 1961 Electric Eye Tone Tool, the first light-controlled synthesiser. From 2005-2010, he was a research fellow at the University of Wollongong, the last three of those as an ARC Research Fellow. Since 2011, he has lived in Daylesford, Victoria, and taught at Box Hill Institute, Melbourne.
| Location | Australia |
|---|---|
| Genres | Drone Experimental Soundscapes |
| Instruments | Serge |