John Supko, Associate Professor of Music

Called “spellbindingly beautiful” (Steve Smith, Time Out New York), "hypnotic...eerily beautiful" (Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times), and "fascinating" (Philip Clark, The Guardian), the work of composer John Supko (b. 1980, NY) explores intersections: chance and intention; traditional music notation and real-time score generation; sound and spoken text; installation and performance; human and computer creativity. In recent years, Supko has been developing generative software to navigate his vast archives of field recordings, sampled acoustic and digital instruments, noise, and voice recordings. He uses this software to find unexpected compositional possibilities as well as to create dynamic sonic environments that are integrated into live performance with human musicians. Supko has also been experimenting with new forms of documentation for his music. Works such as A Free Invention for George Pitcher exist solely as software that ‘performs’ a new version of itself each time it is activated. He is a recipient of the Fulbright (2002) and Georges Lurcy (2007) fellowships, both for Paris, France, where he studied at the Ecole Normale de Musique. He has won numerous prizes and grants, among them the BMI Student Composer Award, two ASCAP/Morton Gould Young Composers Awards (including the 2008 Leo Kaplan Award), the Grand Prize of the National Young Composers Competition, the Perkins Prize of the Princeton University Music Department and a Commissioning Music/USA Meet the Composer commission. His work has been published in collaborative editions with the poet Philippe Denis by Collection Mémoires (Paris) and by Harpo & (Marseille), and has been released on the New Amsterdam and Cotton Goods labels. His 2014 collaborative album s_traits (with Bill Seaman) was named in "Best of 2014" recording lists in The New York Times and The Boston Globe. Currently Associate Professor of Music at Duke University, where he co-directs The Emergence Lab with Bill Seaman, Supko holds degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (BM) and Princeton University (PhD).

Contact Info:

Office Location:	059 Mary Duke Biddle Building, Box 90665, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://www.johnsupko.com

Teaching (Spring 2025):

• MUSIC 273S.01, INTRO TO ELECTRONIC MUSIC Synopsis

  Smith Wrhs A228, Tu 04:40 PM-07:10 PM

• VMS 575S.01, GENERATIVE MEDIA AUTHORSHIP Synopsis

  Smith Wrhs A268, Th 01:25 PM-03:55 PM

  (also cross-listed as ARTSVIS 575S.01, CMAC 575S.01, ISS 575S.01, MUSIC 575S.01)

Education:

Ph.D.	Princeton University	2009
M.F.A.	Princeton University	2005
B.Mus.	Indiana University at Bloomington	2002

Specialties:

Composition

Keywords:

Artificial Intelligence • Arts--Experimental methods • Cybernetics • Electronic music • Generative art • Music

Current Ph.D. Students  

• Timothy R. Hambourger  

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Supko, JP, How I Taught My Computer to Write Its Own Music, Nautilus no. 21 (February, 2015) [how-i-taught-my-computer-to-write-its-own-music]  [abs]
2. Church, M; Burt, TP; Galay, VJ; Kondolf, GM, Rivers (January, 2015), pp. 98-129, ISBN 9780521878128 (percussion soloist & electronics; commissioned by Andrew Bliss & the University of Kentucky, Lexington.) [doi]  [abs]
3. Supko, JP, divine the rest (December, 2013)  [author's comments]
4. Supko, JP, A Free Invention for George Pitcher (May, 2013) [A-FREE-INVENTION-FOR-GEORGE-PITCHER]  [author's comments]
5. Supko, JP, FLESH (March, 2013) [FLESH]  [author's comments]