Donald Swearingen (San Francisco, CA) Composer/Performer Donald Swearingen's professional career has been a garden of forking paths: to Memphis where he worked as a rock musician with legendary studios Stax and Hi Records; to California, where he designed software systems for LucasFilm/THX, Telenetworks/NLC, Fujitsu, NSC, Octel, NET, and numerous other Silicon Valley firms; to San Francisco, where he has established himself as an original and vital member of the Bay Area new music community; and to points beyond, touring, lecturing, and performing throughout the US and internationally. Along the way, he has picked up advanced degrees in music and mathematics, and pursues continuing interests in literature, physics, writing, cooking, and living, all of which feed his activities as a musician, composer, programmer, and designer of new instruments for the performance of expanded-music.

In addition to performances of his own work, Swearingen has premiered several live sound works employing light-activated musical controllers of his own design; since 1990, he has been a regular consultant to LucasFilm/THX; and he is the software architect and programmer of the THX R2 Acoustical Analyzer.