There are many fine organizations that offer student discounts to join. The price usually ranges from $10-25/ year. There are many benefits to joining such groups. Many of the organizations have yearly national or international conferences at which art works are displayed or compositions are performed. This is an excellent way to meet other composers and artists and to hear and see some wonderful artwork. Also, several of these groups offer special student concerts or shows, as well as student prizes for especially prominent student works.
American Music Center, Available: http://www.amc.net
Audio Engineering Society, AES, is an organization that specializes in the research and development of new and improved pro audio devices. There are two conferences yearly, one in the Fall and the other in the Spring. This is a highly technical group, as a matter of fact, you have to apply to be a member. Web address:http://www.aes.org/.
Australian Computer Music Association is an organization for computer programmers and composers living in Australia and New Zealand. Contact the web site for more information about membership. http://www.acma.asn.au/.
Communauté électroacoustique canadienne (CEC) Canadian Electroacoustic Community
c/o Dept. de Musique, Université Concordia RF-302
7141 rue Sherbrooke ouest, Montréal QC CANADA H4B 1R6
tel: none
fax: +1 514 848 2808
email: cec@vax2.concordia.ca.
http://cec.concordia.ca.
Center for Women and Information Technology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), in the U.S. . The Center's mission is to encourage women's and girls' involvement with information technology (IT), both as users and as IT professionals, and to encourage and support research concerning the relationship between gender and IT. The Center's web site (http://www.umbc.edu/cwit/) provides information about the Center and offers a variety of resources related to women and IT: web sites focusing on women and technology, e-mail lists with a similar focus, news coverage of women and IT, announcements of conferences and calls for papers, a collection of more than 500 web-based syllabi for women- and gender-related courses (syllabi making substantial use of the Internet are marked), and more. The site is in a constant state of development. I welcome suggestions, corrections, additional information that should appear, etc.
Electronic Music Foundation, EMF, is a new organization dedicated to the preservation of electro-acoustic music. This fledgling group distributes recordings, videos, and books. EMF may be accessed at: http://www.emf.com.
Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges, http://www.gmeb.fr/.
International Alliance of Women in Music, IAWM, is an organization that specializes in music by women composers. The groups consists of composers, performers and historians. http://www.iawm.org.
International Computer Music Association, ICMA, is a technically-based group of musicians and programmers. There is annual conference where performances, papers and tutoring sessions take place. While there is a lot of music-making that takes place, this group is very focused on the research end of music. http://www.computermusic.org/.
International Society for Electronic Art, ISEA, is an international group of artists working in digital media. The group has annual conferences where there are installations, performances, and papers on new developments. The 1997 conference will take place in Chicago, IL, USA. The ISEA on-line newsletter may be found at: http://www.isea.qc.ca/.
New York Women Composers The address of their new site is http://sunsite.unc.edu/nywc/. The New York Women Composers site has a catalogue of members' works and biographies of each of the composers, along with contact information for publishers.
SIGGRAPH is a group interested in digital visual art. This is a highly-technical group, with conferences throughout the year in various venues. SIGGRAPH On-Line is at: http://www.siggraph.org/
Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, SEAMUS, is a national organization in the US. There is an annual conference where performances and paper are presented. This group is quite focused on the performance of new music, many of the members are performers on electronic devices. There is a listserv and a web site, http://seamus.lsu.edu.
Sonic Arts Network, London House 271-273 King Street, London W6 9LZ. Tel: +44 (0) 181 741 7422; Fax +44 (0) 181 741 7433. For educators especially, please see the new, updated education pages of the Sonic Arts Network site. http://www.sonicartsnetwork.org/