[ 12. Juli 2017 ]

NEWS – David Keane – 1943-2017

Von: Kevin Austin
Datum: Fri, 7 Jul 2017
Betreff: [cec-c] David Keane – 1943-2017

David Keane, an active composer and early pioneer in formalizing the recognition of electroacoustic music in Canada died on June 20, 2017. The obituary in The Toronto Globe and Mail http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/Deaths.20170701.93390414/BDAStory/BDA/deaths contains much information about his life. [Also attached]

His 1984 article, Electroacoustic Music in Canada: 1950-1984 republished in eContact! in 2000, http://econtact.ca/3_4/EaMusicCanada.htm, provides glimpses of the breadth and depth of his knowledge and commitment to this discipline.

I met David in the early 1970s before his extremely serious car accident in 1977, and we spoke at length about the problems of ‘recognition’ of electronic music by the Canada Council, the Canadian Music Centre [CMC], the League of Composers, the CBC, and within academic institutions. He maintained connections with international ea associations from the 1970s onwards at a time when canadian ea composers were trying to find a path to the articulation of a national association.

Partly because of his background in the western music tradition and having worked as an orchestral bass player, he felt that the future of the canadian electroacoustics organization was to be from within existing bodies. This he promoted with others and the support of the Canada Council and the CMC, in the founding of the The Association Canadienne de Musique Electroacoustique / Canadian Association of Electroacoustic Music (CAEM) in February 1983.

Keane, along with about one hundred others, was a founding member of the CEC in 1986.. He remained active in composition, presentation, research and support of electroacoustics in Canada. When the first BBS [bulletin board systems] became available to those with desktop computers, he immediately set up a ‘MIDI-FAQ’, aimed at the emerging electronic/electroacoustic communities in Canada.