Harry Castle

Harry Castle (1962–2009) was an American composer, pianist, computer musician, and researcher. He built computer-controlled percussion instruments and created many hardware/software performance systems, such as the Arc, a wooden sculpture fitted with an array of photoelectric cells and a processor that calculated the position of a figure moving in front of it. Castle also developed a sophisticated software system called Pengstrument that could capture and hold several different sets of MIDI and audio data, manipulating and transforming their pitch, loudness, duration and performing them in looped time structures. This meta-instrument can play elements from other people's performances, allowing a more complex form of real-time collaboration. The musician got first introduced to a recording studio in 1981 at Cornell University, where he was getting his majors in physics. After returning to Illinois, he joined a multi-media ensemble The Potato Engineers. Castle earned his master's degrees in music and computer science from Northern Illinois University and taught both disciplines there. From time to time he performed with The Beat Merchants band. Harry then moved to Southern California to enter the Ph.D. program with George Lewis and Miller Puckette at the music department of the University of California, San Diego. In 1996, Castle improvised with flutist and composer Janet Parish-Whittaker and together they recorded an album called Apparatus. Janet played on piccolo and flute and processed her output on Silicon Graphics computer running MAX, while Harry used his Pengstrument on Amiga 3000, triggering notes and voices on Yamaha TX802 synthesizer and also played prepared Disklavier. Harry composed and performed Cloning Dolly composition with Elizabeth McNutt (flute) and Andrew May (violin) in 1999.