Mario Davidowsky

Mario Davidowsky is an Argentine-American composer best known for his series of compositions called Synchronisms, which in live performance incorporate both acoustic instruments and electroacoustic sounds played from a tape.

In 1958 Davidowsky studied with Aaron Copland and Milton Babbitt at the Berkshire Music Center. Copland encouraged Davidovsky to emigrate to the United States, and in 1960, Davidovsky settled in New York City, where he was appointed associate director of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

Most of his published compositions since the 1970s have been nonelectronic. His only published electroacoustic compositions since that time are Synchronisms No. 9 (1988) and Synchronisms No. 10 (1992). However, Davidovsky received a commission by a group led by SEAMUS to compose two more electroacoustic works in the Synchronisms series. No. 11 and No. 12 premiered in 2007 at the SEAMUS National Conference in Ames, IA.

Davidovsky's association with the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center continued, and from 1981 to 1993 he was the lab's director as well as professor of music at Columbia. In 1994 he became professor of music at Harvard. During his career, Davidovsky has also taught at many other institutions: University of Michigan (1964), the Di Tella Institute of Buenos Aires (1965), the Manhattan School of Music (1968—69), Yale University (1969—70), and the City College of New York (1968—80). He serves on the composition faculty of Mannes College The New School for Music.

In 1982, Davidovsky was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.