George Lewis

George Lewis (b. 1952, Chicago) joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in 1971 at 19, establishing himself as an improvising trombonist before turning to computer music in the late 1970s. He created Voyager, interactive software that listens to and improvises alongside live performers in real time rather than merely processing or looping their input — an early and influential model for machine listening in improvised music. He has recorded and performed widely with figures including Derek Bailey and Richard Teitelbaum, served as music director of The Kitchen in the 1980s, and holds the Edwin H. Case Professorship at Columbia University. His book A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (2008) won an American Book Award; he received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2002.