Georgia Tech Competition Cultivates Invention of New Musical Instruments

Second Annual Guthman Competition Planned for February 27

ATLANTA, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Georgia Tech's second annual Guthman Musical Instrument Competition will conclude with a final public performance at 1:00 PM on Saturday, February 27, 2010 in Atlanta. The competition, supported by the philanthropy of alumnus Richard Guthman, is the only one of its kind in showcasing artists, musicians and entrepreneurs with radical new ideas for music performance and technology.

An expert panel of judges will review entries based on musicality, design and engineering, for prizes of $5,000 for first place, $3,000 for second place and $2,000 for third place.

Judges include:

• Gil Weinberg, Director, Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology
• Eliot Van Buskirk, Music Reporter for Wired.com
• Johannes Goebel, Founding Director of Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• Tod Machover, Professor and Director of Hyperinstruments/Opera of the Future Group at MIT Media Lab

The event will be held in the J. Allen Couch Building, 840 McMillan Street, on the Georgia Tech campus. Admission is free and doors open at noon for a panel discussion with the judges. Performances by the competition finalists will begin at 1 PM and prizes will be awarded at the end of the final performances.

Preliminary performances will be held on Friday, February 26, from 10 AM to 4 PM in both the J. Allen Couch Building and the West Architecture Building at 247 Fourth Street NW.  Immediately following the preliminary performances, there will be an open house showcase of unique music-making projects, research, and experiences from faculty and students in the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology. The Open House will be in the J. Allen Couch Building and all are invited to attend.

Last year, 30 inventors from seven countries performed on Georgia Tech's campus in the Guthman Competition. "We were thrilled by the diversity and quality of the competitors. "It was absolutely inspiring to see such a range and diversity of ideas from commercial firms, academicians and creative young musicians," said Frank Clark, Chair of Georgia Tech's School of Music. "Thanks to the Guthmans, this competition will expose new paradigms of expression year after year."

See highlights from the 2009 competition at Wired.com.

The Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology is an international center for creative and technological research in music that is redefining the way we create, perform, listen to and consume music. It is a unit of the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech, and jointly funded by the Office of the Provost and the Colleges of Architecture, Computing and Engineering. Please visit the online map for building locations. Suggested parking in the State Street Visitor Lot on Ferst Drive, between Hemphill and State Street. For more information, contact Leslie Bennett at 404-385-7642 or [email protected].

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's premier research universities. Ranked seventh among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities, Georgia Tech's more than 20,000 students are enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech is among the nation's top producers of women and minority engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.

SOURCE Georgia Institute of Technology