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BIOGRAPHY

DOUGLAS MCCAUSLAND
Composer // Performer // Designer

Douglas McCausland is a composer / performer, sound designer, and digital artist whose visceral and often chaotic works explore the extremes of sound, technology, and the digital medium.


Described as “Tremendously powerful, dark, and sometimes terrifying...” (SEAMUS), his works have been performed internationally at numerous festivals, including: Sonorities, SEAMUS, the San Francisco Tape Music Festival, MISE-EN Music Festival, Klingt Gut!, Sounds Like THIS!, NYCEMF, Sonicscape, and Ars Electronica. Recent collaborations include artists such as bassist Aleksander Gabrysˁ, cellist Seth Parker Woods, the Quasar Saxophone Quartet, the TAK Ensemble, and vocal ensemble Variant 6. His work is available through various online platforms, and on SEAMUS, Plyta Z Audiomatu, and Jikken Records.


Recent honors include an award of distinction in the 2021 Prix Ars Electronica for his piece “Convergence”, winning 1st-Prize in the 2021 ASCAP/SEAMUS commission competition, the gold- prize award for “contemporary computer music” in the Verband Deutscher Tonmeister Student 3D Audio Production Competition, and being awarded the runner-up nomination for the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music's 2019 CIME Prix.


As an artist, he researches and leverages the intersections of numerous technologies and creative practices, such as real-time electronic music performance with handmade interfaces, spatial audio, dynamic and interactive systems, intermedia art, the musical applications of machine- learning, experimental sound design, and hardware-hacking.


Douglas is currently a DMA candidate at Stanford University, working towards his doctorate in Composition while studying with Chris Chafe, Patricia Alessandrini, Jaroslaw Kapuscinski, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, and Mark Applebaum. He is also a Senior Sound Designer at Spatial Inc., located in Emeryville, CA. He also holds an MSc in Digital Composition and Performance from the University of Edinburgh, an MM in Music Composition from Michigan State University, and a BM in Music Theory and Composition, Saxophone Performance, and Music Education from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

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