Chafe is a composer, improvisor, cellist, and music researcher with an interest in computer music composition and interactive performance. He has been a long-term denizen of the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics where he directs the center and teaches computer music courses. Three earlier year-long research periods were spent at IRCAM, Paris, and The Banff Center, composing and developing methods for computer sound synthesis. He is continuing the SoundWIRE experiments for musical collaboration over the Internet. An active performer, he has performed in Europe, the Americas and Asia. Discs of his works are available from Centaur Records. In the past year he has performed with Roberto Morales, Simon Rose, Pauline Oliveros, Roscoe Mitchell, Mark Dresser, and Dave Douglas, among others. A sound installation, The End of Winter, was recently featured at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. His doctorate in music composition was completed at Stanford in 1983.

CONFERENCE – BRIEF ABSTRACT:

Network audio technology transforms advanced networks into a new kind of sound propagation medium, with its own properties compared to air, water, or solids. Three areas of research are described: 1) methods for using your ears for monitoring quality-of-service (QoS) of networks supporting high-quality, real-time, interactive, bidirectional flows 2) new musical practices being made in the medium, and 3) a discussion of human factors affected by some unique acoustical properties of the medium.