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Don Buchla & the Electric Symphony Orchestra: An Evening of Stories and Performances with Howard Moscovitz and Friends
Join us as Howard Moscovitz shares first-hand stories from his time working with Don Buchla in the early 1970s. In 1972, Howard had just received his masters degree in electronic music from Mills College, which had become the new home of the San Francisco Tape Music Center where Buchla developed his new modular synthesizer in the late 1960s. That same year, Don Buchla was hired as the “Technical Wizard” for the Electronic Symphony Orchestra, a pioneering and highly experimental effort to combine custom modular synthesizers with traditional orchestral instruments. Howard joined Don’s team as an electronics technician to help with the project.
The Electric Symphony Orchestra was essentially an attempt to electronically amplify and distort all of the traditional acoustic instruments in an orchestra. Howard will present his own very amusing firsthand accounts of Don’s efforts to “electrify” a traditional symphony orchestra and the somewhat disastrous outcome of those efforts, which culminated in a single infamous performance in Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall later that year.
As part of his presentation, Howard will also present and discuss several historical artifacts from his own collection that he has generously placed on loan at EMEAPP. One of these is "The Buchla Machine," a simple yet fascinating distortion amplifier made with the first commercially available transistor. Don told Howard that The Buchla Machine was the first circuit he ever built, which of course makes it a very interesting object. But the way Howard came to possess it is even more interesting — and he will share that story as well.
Howard's tales offer a unique first-hand perspective on Buchla’s way of inventing and interacting with people during what is a very little-known time in Don's career (actual factual information on the Electric Symphony Orchestra and Buchla's work with it is very hard to come by). This presentation offers a rare chance to hear firsthand about a very special time in the history of electronic music.
Throughout the evening, Howard's stories will be interspersed with performances of new music played on some Buchla instruments, including new and vintage Music Easels as well as a software version of the Buchla 700. Howard will introduce his new Balsam synthesizer, a contemporary homage to Buchla’s instruments made in Durham, North Carolina. The musicians that will join Howard for the performances include Jil Christensen, Bill Fox, Joel Izquierdo, Doug Llewellyn, and Jared Stack.
There is no admission fee but donations are encouraged. Seating is limited, so please contact us if you have signed up and can no longer attend so we can make your seats available to others.
HOWARD MOSCOVITZ
Howard Moscovitz has been involved in electronic music since 1966 when he started making tape music using a short wave radio as a sound source. He received his Bachelors of Music degree with a major in Theory and Composition in 1970 at Jacksonville University. Howard went on to study with Robert Ashley at The Mills College Center of Contemporary Music in Oakland, California where he received his Masters degree in electronic music. After working with Don Buchla on the Electric Symphony Orchestra, Moscovitz designed several unique electronic instruments, including signal processors and sequencers, that were manufactured by Electronic Music Associates in the 1970’s. Howard earned a Masters in Electrical Engineering degree at the University of California at Berkeley in 1981 and moved to Pennsylvania to work at Bell Laboratories. There, he was on the design team which developed the first Digital Signal Processor (DSP) chip. These chips are now found at the heart of virtually every electronic musical instrument or signal processor in use today. He retired from corporate America in 2002 and is now devoting his time to composing and music performance. In 2003 he founded electro-music.com, a website dedicated to furthering the art of electronic music that currently holds the record as the oldest electronic music site on the internet. In 2005 he organized the first of 12 annual international electro-music festivals which are still running today. Today Moscovitz lives in Durham, North Carolina and performs regularly with Twyndyllyngs, a duo with Bill Fox, and Waste, Fraud and Abuse, a trio with Doug Llewellyn and Jil Christensen.
BILL FOX
Bill Fox hosts radio shows Galactic TravelsTM on WDIY-FM since 1997 and Thought RadioTM on WMUH-FM since 2002. He is in Twyndyllyngs (synths, sax, guitar), the Municipal Band of Allentown (alto sax), the Really Terrible Orchestra - PA and the Bullpen Brass (trombone), and Pinnacle (bass). Twyndyllyngs (a duo with Howard Moscovitz) plays Chez Mosc on http://electro-music.com nearly weekly, first in person and now remotely on-line. Bill has played throughout Europe and North America as part of Ricochet Gathering, Different Skies, Twyndyllyngs, and the various bands Bill has been in throughout the years. Degreed as an Electrical Engineer from the Ohio State University, Bill has studied Music Theory and Audio Recording at the university level.
JOEL IZQUIERDO
Joel Izquierdo began playing synthesizers around 1980 when his brother Jose F. Izquierdo brought home an ARP Solus, and the two quickly began jamming together, forming a band called Euphoria. They wrote over a hundred songs together, won Battle of the Bands in their hometown, and performed on several occasions. Together they collected synthesizers from Korg and Roland. When his brother stepped away from electronic music, Joel continued on his own, creating rave music through the 1990s and building a collection of synthesizers and drum machines. After growing tired of playing in cover bands, he turned his focus to original music and began sharing videos of live performances on social media, where he found an audience spanning the globe. His online presence led to invitations to perform on programs including Nick's International Virtual Garage Concert Series and Morphic Resonance, and he performed at NEEMFEST in 2024. Joel's acquisition of a Buchla Music Easel marked a turning point. He recorded an album, Buchla Music Easel & Lyra 8, and was invited to perform at the first annual Philadelphia Modular Festival in 2025. He is thrilled to be performing at EMEAPP in celebration of Don Buchla's birthday in 2026, and continues to explore the Easel's possibilities — an instrument he considers his favorite to date.
DOUG LLEWELLYN
Doug Llewellyn is a Raleigh based multi-instrumentalist whose main interests lie in electronic and experimental music. Doug has been involved in music in one form or another since the late 70s. In 2018, he started Triangle Synth Party, a loose collection of area synthesizer enthusiasts.
He now performs electronic music live as 80 lb. Test (his main project). Material that is too weird or noisy to pass off as 80 lb. Test is performed under the SumbGlitch or Joe the Monkey names. His guitar-based experimental project is Fields of Toe.
JARED STACK
Jared Stack is an electronic music technology enthusiast from Charlotte NC. While assembling miniature music set-ups, he adopted the moniker “MrTeaTray”, which is how you can find him on Instagram. Frustrated with strict performance rules in the modular genre, he began playing live at various synth meetings with non-eurorack gear. When the 0-Coast came out, Jared quickly realized how much the oscillators were similar to a Buchla Music Easel. Subsequently he transcribed many performances along the way before finally acquiring a Music Easel. He discovered a knack for reverse engineering many performed works, which were a way of not only learning melodies but also the various Easel patching methods that integrated the oscillators and their control sources.
This event is part of EMEAPP/MMT's special exhibition Instruments That Talk Back: Celebrating the Legacy of Don Buchla. Funding for this exhibition has been provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. We are deeply grateful for their support.