Joseph Byrd

Joseph Byrd was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He is a descendant of the famous Byrd family of Virginia and he grew up in Tucson, Arizona. During high school years, he played in country-and-western and pop music bands, but by the time he entered the University of Arizona he had begun playing vibes with a jazz group. After graduation, Byrd received Stanford University's Sollnit Fellowship for graduate study in composition. But Byrd chose to split for New York, where he had already begun listening to electronic music and meeting young, far-out Berkeley experimental composers. During his years on the New York modern music scene, Byrd worked as conductor, arranger, teacher, Associate Producer for a record company, and assistant to critic-composer Virgil Thomson. He was also gaining recognition as one of the leading young experimentalists, and his works were being performed from Paris to Tokyo. Then Joe Byrd came out to U.C.L.A. and ended up living in one of the early Ocean Park beachfront communes with a group of Indian musicians, artists and graduate students. While serving as a teaching assistant at U.C.L.A., he studied acoustics, psychology and Indian music, but his interest inevitably returned to experimental and environmental music. By the summer of 1967, Byrd had dropped out of U.C.L.A. to become once more a full-time experimental composer and happening-producer. Today, Joe is a recognized composer and arranger who plays electronic music, organ, electric harpsichord and, occasionally, calliope.