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Modulisme: 20250526 The McLean Mix (Audio)
https://modular-station.com/modulisme/session/111/
Welcome to our new program offering a retrospective of The McLean Mix, pioneer duo of Priscilla and Barton Mc Lean who started playing back in 1974.
This is our Modulisme Session 111.
Priscilla McLean (born Taylor) is an American composer, performer, video artist, writer, and music reviewer.
In 1969, at Indiana University, Bloomington (MM), she was greatly influenced by the music of Xenakis, who was teaching there.
She sings with extended vocal techniques and plays the piano, synthesizer, violin, percussion, and Amerindian wooden flutes, as well as newly created instruments.
Barton McLean graduated from State University of New York (SUNY) Potsdam (BS 1960), Eastman School of Music (MM 1965), where he was a student of Henry Cowell, and secured a Doctorate in Composition from Indiana University (1972). In 1967 he married fellow composer Priscilla Taylor. From 1969–76 he directed the Electronic Music Center at IUSB-South Bend where he pioneered the first large-scale commercially-available digital/sequencer synthesizer in the USA (Synthi 100 – from EMS), and pioneered the first sampler while directing the Univ of Texas Electronic Music center (Fairlight CMI -1981 -1983).
In 1974 Priscilla and Barton McLean began to perform together as The McLean Mix, presenting their electro-acoustic music.
The McLeans worked from 1971-6 with the Synthi 100 and Arp 2600 Synthesizers, Scully tape recorders, spring reverbs, the ElectroComp 101 Synthesizer, and many small devices in the Indiana University at South Bend Electronic Music Center.
The equipment, large and cumbersome, filled the four walls of the studio, and the composers would often run, back and forth between stations, spending as many as twenty-two hours at a time to develop one complex sound…
They performed from 1974 to 2013, presenting their separate works and collaborations across the USA and internationally.
"Modulisme," formerly "Early ElectroMIX," is a platform that aims to support original composing for analog modular systems but not only… A radio program airing music made using modular systems… Each program lasts one hour and is especially dedicated to one composer and features some exclusive music made for us.