The IRCAM, Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, was founded in the 1970s by Pierre Boulez. This Paris-based institute is one of the most important European institutes for both science about music and sound and avant garde electro-acoustical art music. It is situated next to and organizationally linked with the Centre Pompidou.

In 1970 president Georges Pompidou asked Boulez to found an institution for the research of music. In 1973 the part underneath place Igor Stravinsky was finished.

Georgina Born wrote her Ph.D. thesis in anthropology about the IRCAM, which was later published under the title Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde.

In 1992 Boulez, who then became honorary director, was succeded by Laurent Bayle . In 2002 the philosopher Bernard Stiegler became the new head of the institute.

Research and development teams

• Instrumental acoustics
• Room acoustics
• Musical perception and cognition
• Sound analysis /Sound synthesis
• Music representations
• Real-time applications
• Free software and software engineering
• Sound design
• Online services

External links

• the official site of the IRCAM
• the history of the IRCAM (in French)