- Hugh Le Caine
Hugh Le Caine (
May 27 ,1914 -July 3 ,1977 ) was a Canadianphysicist ,composer and instrument builder.Le Caine was brought up in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) in northwestern
Ontario . After completing his Master of Science degree from Queen's University in 1939, Le Caine was awarded aNational Research Council of Canada (NRC) fellowship to continue his work onatomic physics measuring devices at Queen's, and worked with the NRC inOttawa from 1940 to 1974. DuringWorld War II , he assisted in the development of the firstradar systems. On an NRC grant he studiednuclear physics from 1948 to 1952 in England.At home he pursued a life-long interest in
electronic music and sound generation. In 1937, Le Caine designed an electronic free reed organ and in the mid 1940s, built theElectronic Sackbut , now recognised to be one of the firstsynthesizer s. After the success of public demonstrations of his instruments, he was permitted to move his musical activities to NRC and to work on them full time in 1954. Over the next twenty years, he built over 22 different new instruments. Le Caine also collaborated in the development of pioneering electronic music studios at theUniversity of Toronto in 1959 and atMcGill University in 1964.He was married to
Trudi Le Caine , a notable supporter of the arts in Ottawa.Though his composition output was small, Le Caine is remembered as one of the great pioneer composers of
Musique concrète . His best known work being "Dripsody" (1955), a piece of "Musique concrète" based on the sound of a single drop of water that is permuted and contorted into a chorus of sounds.References
*" [http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0002014 Le Caine, Hugh] ." "Encyclopedia of Music in Canada". Historica Foundation of Canada. Accessed on
July 20 ,2005 .
*Gayle Young (1999). [http://www.hughlecaine.com/en/index.html Le Caine: An Inventor’s Notebook] . Accessed onJuly 20 ,2005 .External links
* [http://www.hughlecaine.com Hugh Le Caine website]
* [http://db.archives.queensu.ca/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll?AC=MENU_QUERY&XC=/dbtw-wpd/exec/dbtwpub.dll&BU=http%3A//archives.queensu.ca/dbtw-wpd/fondsdb/wiki.htm&TN=fonds&SN=LeCaine&RF=HTML+-+Fonds+Display&EF=&DF=HTML+-+Fonds+Display&MR=20&RL=1&EL=1&DL=1&NP=0 Hugh and Trudi Le Caine fonds] at [http://archives.queensu.ca/ Queen’s University Archives]
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