Page 57 - January 2006

National News
Elaine Moran
Acoustical Society of America Melville, NY 11747
Joseph Curtain (Photo courtesy of the MacArthur Foundation)
Emily Thompson (Photo courtesy of the MacArthur Foundation)
MacArthur Foundation announces 2005 MacArthur Fellows
Joseph Curtin, a violinmaker from Ann Arbor, Michigan and Emily Thompson, author of the book Soundscape of Modernity from San Diego, California, were among the 25 individuals named 2005 MacArthur Fellows.
The MacArthur Fellows Program awards unrestricted fellowships to tal- ented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. There are three criteria for selection of Fellows: exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on sig- nificant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subse- quent creative work. Each fellowship includes a stipend of $500,000 to the recipient. Typically 20 to 30 Fellows are selected each year. There are no restric- tions on becoming a Fellow, except that nominees must be either residents or citizens of the United States.
Joseph Curtin is a master violin- maker who crafts original, world-class violins for the twenty-first century. A luthier with research interests in non- traditional materials, nontraditional structures, and violin acoustics, Curtin weds acoustic science to the art of vio- linmaking and merges time-honored techniques with new materials and design. Having first excelled in the tra-
ditional practice of creating replicas of the great Italian instruments of Stradivari and Guarneri, Curtin is now confronting the dilemma of the evolu- tion of the violin, creating entirely new instruments that incorporate contem- porary materials and aesthetics.
Joseph Curtin studied violin at the University of Western Ontario (1971–73), and music and philosophy (1974–77) at the University of Toronto. He came under the tutelage of violin- maker, Otto Erdesz, in 1977. In 1985, he established a workshop with Gregg Alf, with whom he built instruments for twelve years under the name Curtin & Alf. He founded his independent work- shop, Joseph Curtin Studios, in 1997. He also co-directs the Violin Society of America’s acoustic workshop at Oberlin College, is a trustee and contributing editor for the Catgut Acoustical Society, and is a regular contributor to The Strad magazine.
Joseph Curtin has participated in ASA meetings including the Spring 1994 meeting held in Cambridge, Massachusetts where Curtin & Alf instruments were demonstrated during the concert by the Tokyo String Quartet. He also presented an invited paper at the Spring 2005 meeting held in Vancouver, Canada and was a participant in the musical instrument builders workshop held at that same meeting (See Acoustics Today 1, 40 [October 2005]).
Emily Thompson is an interdisci-
plinary scholar, whose work focuses on the subject of sound and fills an important gap in contemporary American history, reaching into domains as diverse as urban design and cinema studies. In her book, The Soundscape of Modernity, she integrates the histories of the United States, tech- nology, science, sound production, and acoustics to examine the transfor- mation of the American soundscape from the turn of the century to the opening of Radio City Music Hall in 1933. Thompson organizes her work around developments in twentieth- century architecture, such as new con- cert halls and new building materials, and explores innovations in the sci- ence of acoustics, the emergence of excessive noise, and the efforts of sci- entists and designers to create new spaces and a new, “modern” sound. Thompson’s most recent project, on the role of engineers, projectionists, and other industry technicians in the transition to synchronized sound in cinema, promises to provide a similar- ly penetrating analysis of another important moment in the history of sound and technology. By charting the transformation of the elusive and ephemeral phenomenon of sound, Thompson has recovered an important history of our time.
Emily Thompson received a B.S. (1984) from the Rochester Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. (1992) from
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