October 5, 1949 - April 17, 2026
Richard James “Rico” Felciano, composer, pioneer in electronic music, Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of California, Berkeley, and founder of the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies, died peacefully in San Francisco on February 21, 2026, at the age of 95.
Born on December 7, 1930, in Santa Rosa, he grew up in Sebastopol and fell asleep looking out at the stars in the dark Sonoma sky from his top bunk. That sense of wonder — of possibility on an expansive scale — never left him.
Join us on Friday, March 6, for a unique day to explore memory and human rights in Peru through sound and sight at CNMAT.
Event Name: Counter-Pedagogies of Forgetting
Date: Fri March 6, 2026
Location: 1750 Arch St. (CNMAT), UC Berkeley
10am – 4pm: Photo Exhibition & Sound Installation Experience Percy Rojas’s "Ausencias Presentes" paired with an immersive sound installation by Brian Cruz (PhD candidate Mathematics/CNMAT). A dialogue between the captured image and the resonance of the past.
CNMAT is pleased to invite you to our upcoming OpenLab, an afternoon of talks and discussions at the intersection of music, technology, and research, bringing together leading figures from academia and industry.
Thursday, January 29
2:00 – 6:30pm
CNMAT, 1750 Arch St.
RSVP required.
Schedule
2:00 – 2:15pm
Welcome – Carmine Cella
CNMAT welcomes musicians from the National Gugak Center in Seoul, along with the Del Sol String Quartet, for a festival that blends traditional Korean instrumentalists with emerging technologies. Don’t miss these concerts of new works shaped by deep intercultural dialogue and inspired by the enduring legacy of traditional Korean music.
The College of Letters & Science at UC Berkeley recently reported on CNMAT. Read the article here.
https://ls.berkeley.edu/news/music-professors-campion-and-cella-steer-cnmat-through-ai-era
CNMAT OpenLab, focused on generative AI in audio. Space is limited to 30 attendees. Fill out this quick form to register.
What: A full-day event with talks on the latest research in audio generation, sound design, and AI-assisted composition.
The Voices of Silicon Valley in collaboration with the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) has released performances of the American premiere of Gerard Grisey's "Les Chants de l'amour" ("Songs of Love"). The recording of the first of two US performances of this work was on March 9, 2025, at Wu Hall at the UC Berkeley Department of Music.
CNMAT welcomes composer Olivier Pasquet for a special visit and presentation in the main room at CNMAT for Thursday, June 19, from 11:30-12:30. Free and open to the pubic.