At the 135th Audio Engineering Society Convention in New York City’s Javits Center, George Massenburg (pictued) will present the Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture on Thursday, October 17, from 7:15 p.m. to 8 p.m., in Room 1E 15/16.
In his Heyser Lecture, entitled “4-44 & Me – Stagnation to Transformation: The Real Future of Music,” Massenburg will address the responsibility of pro audio educators to provide students with a truly comprehensive educational experience that includes, as he puts it, “the head, the heart and the guts” of producing recorded music. Massenburg will also touch on recent trends towards improved sonic quality, such as legislation and technology that takes on Loudness Normalization.
Massenburg will also tackle how new technology is empowering new recording artists and producers, and how they will lead the vanguard of higher-quality sound. “The supposedly ‘impossible’ is happening all around us, as many ‘unsigned’ artists top the sales charts of the digital music stores and sell millions of units of music,” Massenburg asserts. “It’s a great time to be in music. And, as many examples have demonstrated, people will pay if you give them a high-quality offering. ‘Good enough’ is no longer good enough. The job is to transform ourselves. Never before in history has there been an opportunity as we now have before us.”
The Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture series was established in May 1999 by the AES Technical Council, the Board of Governors and the Richard Heyser Scholarship Fund to honor the extensive contribution to the Society by Heyser, widely known for his ability to communicate new and complex technical ideas with great clarity and patience. The Heyser Series is an endowment for lectures that bring to AES conventions eminent individuals in audio engineering and related fields. Like George Massenburg, many previous lecturers were also exceptional across creative, technical and entrepreneurial roles, including Ray Dolby, Ray Kurzweil, Walter Murch and Phil Ramone.
Massenburg has moved fluidly between different sectors of professional audio, with time spent as a record producer (Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Lyle Lovett, Toto, Little Feat), recording engineer (Earth, Wind & Fire and many others), studio designer and builder (including the ITI Studios in Huntsville, Maryland, and The Complex in Los Angeles) and entrepreneurial inventor (his GML brand of audio processors is ubiquitous throughout the world).
Massenburg is currently an Associate Professor of Sound Recording at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; and a Visiting Lecturer at both the Berklee College Of Music (at campuses in Boston and Valencia, Spain) and the University of Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee.
Find more information on George Massenburg’s Heyser Lecture.
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