New Adventures in Hi-Fi

In 1998, when Richard Guthman, IE 56, established a music competition at Georgia Tech, he likely never expected that one April night, 15 years later, he would sit in on the finals of the contest that bears his name and watch a man coax otherworldly sounds out of a gleaming brass trumpet connected to an iPhone interface.

iPhones, of course, had not been invented in 1998. And therefore neither had the Electrumpet, the old school/new technology hybrid that took top honors at the 2013 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.

The contest was originally founded by Mr. Guthman in honor of his wife, Margaret, Hon 12, an accomplished pianist and music lover. For its first decade, it existed as the Guthman Keyboard Competition, hosting high school and college jazz and classical pianists. But the piano competition field was a crowded one, and Tech lacked the funds or the venue to take Guthman to the next level. (The School of Music was, and still is, housed in the Couch Building, a semi-converted 1929 elementary school.)

Meanwhile, Tech was earning a reputation as a hotbed of boundary-pushing, forward thinkers: The research-focused Center for Music Technology and the School of Music’s master’s degree program had launched, and the programs were seeing some success with National Science Foundation funding for music and technology projects. And so, with its founder’s blessing, in 2009 the event was relaunched as the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.

“The driving question of creating the new competition was, ‘Do we want to be like someone else, or do we want to do something that nobody else is doing?’” says Frank Clark, professor and chair of the School of Music.

The new contest, hosted by the Center for Music Technology with support from the School of Music, started out big and has stayed steady over the years. In its first year, there were 50 applicants and 30 competitors; the 2013 event, held April 11 in the atrium of the Klaus Advanced Computing building, saw 59 entrants (a record) and 20 participants.

On the day of the finals, the competitors were each allotted 20 minutes before the judges and public audience, time that could be used to share their instrument’s technical specifics, to discuss its development process, or to just play. The judges (this year’s panel included sound designer Richard Devine, composer David Wessel and experimental music pioneer Laurie Anderson) then narrowed the field to seven finalists, each allotted a final showcase of eight minutes.

The performances ranged from traditionally structured pieces to abstract freestyles, and the inventors’ stage presences ran the gamut from demure to flamboyant.

Merche Blasco, from Brazil, took third place for her Espongina water controller, the only performance of the night that required a rain poncho; Onyx Ashanti, wrapped in tattoos and snug leather pants, won second place overall and the People’s Choice Award for Best Performance with his BeatJazz, a wearable system of controllers and sensors that can be used to manipulate and craft beats from the performer’s movement, breath and voice. And the Electrumpet, designed by Hans Leeuw, one of Holland’s top jazz and improvisational musicians, took home top honors.

Like the piano competition of yore, the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition awards cash prizes, $10,000 in total. It’s often enough to offset the cost of international flights—and, increasingly, many entrants do travel great distances just to compete at Tech. Of course, Clark notes, bestowing glory isn’t Guthman’s only goal.

“It’s made clear: Yeah, you’re here to compete, but what we want to do is provide an environment in which you can find real value and where you have an opportunity for this to be a really positive learning experience,” he says. “Because everyone here is incredibly gifted, creative and driven. And I can’t help but believe we’re going to learn a lot from one another.”

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