Barry Truax


Barry Douglas Truax is a Canadian composer of electroacoustic music, a writer, and a teacher. He is best known for his association with the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University and his development of granular synthesis using sampled sounds to create multi-channel soundscape compositions, such as Riverrun and Wings of Nike. He is also known for his books Acoustic Communication and the Handbook for Acoustic Ecology. He is the only Canadian recipient of the Magisterium award at the International Competition of Electroacoustic Music, Bourges, France, in 1991. He is a professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University. In June 2025, SFU awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts.

Biography

Barry Truax was born in Chatham, Ontario. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and mathematics from Queen's University in 1969, and a Master of Music degree from the University of British Columbia in 1971. His academic path further led him to the Institute of Sonology at Utrecht University from 1971 to 1973, where he studied electronic and computer composition under the guidance of Gottfried Michael Koenig and Otto Laske. During this period, he created the POD system of interactive composition with digital synthesis, including FM synthesis that he learned from its initial creator John Chowning. In 1977 his Sonic Landscape No. 3 won first prize in the computer music category of the Fifth International Competition of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges.
His career encompasses a wide spectrum of activities, including musical composition, the study of acoustic ecology, academic publications and advancements in sound technology. For most of his career, Truax was associated with Simon Fraser University, where he now holds the title of Professor Emeritus.
In 1973, R. Murray Schafer invited Truax to join the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University. The WSP, initiated by Schafer, focused on the emerging field of acoustic ecology, aiming to increase public awareness about the sonic environment and address the growing issue of noise pollution. Truax initially served as a research assistant and later took on the role of director for the project following Schafer’s departure from SFU in 1975. During this period, he edited the Handbook for Acoustic Ecology, first published in 1978. This reference work compiled essential terminology from the fields of acoustics, psychoacoustics, electroacoustics and soundscape studies, providing a scientific foundation for the developing discipline. The Handbook was later released in various formats, including a CD-ROM edition in 1999 and an online version, making it widely accessible to researchers and students.
Truax and Schafer defined the term soundscape as how that environment is perceived and understood by those living within it. Truax’s broader contributions to acoustic ecology include the development of theoretical frameworks for understanding the relationship between humans and their sonic environments. The project provided a framework for him to integrate his scientific and musical backgrounds to explore the complexities of the sonic environment.

Compositional Work

Truax is known for his development of real-time granular synthesis, a technique that involves the creation and manipulation of up to thousands of extremely short sound grains, typically lasting between 10 and 50 milliseconds. In 1986, he developed the GSX computer music system at SFU, which enabled the first real-time implementation of this technique as used in his composition Riverrun. Inspired by the opening word of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, Riverrun utilizes thousands of minute sound droplets to construct a dense and constantly evolving sonic texture, metaphorically representing the flow of a river. It was awarded the Magisterium prize at the International Competition of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges in 1991 and was included as one of 10 significant works in the Oxford publication Inside Computer Music. Other compositions by Truax that feature granular synthesis include Wings of Nike and Tongues of Angels.
Truax's approach to soundscape composition is characterized by the creative use of recognizable environmental sounds to evoke specific associations, memories, and imaginative responses in the listener. He operates under a philosophy of context-based creation, where the environmental context of the sounds is intentionally preserved, enhanced, and exploited by the composer. His compositional techniques exist on a continuum, ranging from found sound compositions that remain very close to the original recorded environment to more abstracted works that involve significant transformations of these recordings. Pacific Fanfare is composed of sound signals from Vancouver. Pendlerdrøm evokes a commuter’s train journeys including daydreams. La Sera di Benevento represents a soundwalk in the Italian city of the title. Dominion involves 12 instrumentalists combined with recordings of Canadian soundmarks from coast to coast. The title track of his Islands CD, Island, depicts a sonic journey to a magical realm. All of these works are published on his Cambridge Street label which he founded in 1985.
Other soundscape compositions created with his PODX system include Pacific which explores environmental sounds from the Pacific region time-stretched through granulation techniques; Basilica which stretches the sounds of Quebec City's Notre-Dame de Québec bells; Temple which utilizes convolution to incorporate spatial characteristics of a church; as well as Chalice Well, Aeolian Voices, and Earth & Steel which create immersive virtual soundscapes based on terrestrial elements. Truax employs a variety of both analog and digital studio techniques to transform environmental sounds, often layering them in both stereo and octophonic formats to create immersive sonic environments. Time compression is another technique, as used in The Bells of Salzburg and Rainforest Raven ''.
In works like Song of Songs, and Steam he integrates narrative elements and live instruments with soundscape material. Finally, some of his works explore more abstracted perspectives on the soundscape, such as What The Waters Told Me, How The Winds Caressed Me, and When The Earth Mourned For Me. By validating environmental sound as a musical element, Truax and his colleagues at SFU such as Hildegard Westerkamp broadened the horizons of electroacoustic music and encouraged a more ecologically conscious approach to sound art.
Beyond traditional concert settings, Truax has also created multimedia works such as the opera Powers of Two which integrates singers, dancers, and an eight-channel soundtrack to explore themes of psychological, spiritual, and sexual unity. He has also created other works that incorporate computer graphics and video, including Divan, Wings of Nike, Song of Songs ,'''', and Night of the Conjurer in collaboration with Theo Goldberg. His music theatre work Androgyne, Mon Amour'' combines a double bass player with a soundtrack based on selected poems by Tennessee Williams.

Academic career

Barry Truax's academic career at Simon Fraser University began in 1973 and spanned several decades until his retirement in 2015. He held positions in both the School of Communication and the School for the Contemporary Arts where he helped establish the Music program and taught courses in acoustic communication and electroacoustic composition, with a specialization in soundscape composition. Truax supervised numerous students and other composers, such as Hildegard Westerkamp, Paul Dolden, and Arne Eigenfeldt.
In 1999 he received the Award for Teaching Excellence from Simon Fraser University. After his retirement, Truax served as the Edgard Varèse Guest Professor at the Technical University, Berlin and as a guest composer at the BEAST Festival in Birmingham. He also taught online webinar courses in sound and audio, as well as soundscape composition.
He is a founding member of the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music, the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, and the Canadian Electroacoustic Community to which he was appointed Patron in 2024. In 1985, he established the Cambridge Street record label, which specializes in computer and electronic music, and hosted the 1985 International Computer Music Conference in Vancouver. He and his partner, Dr. Guenther Krueger, also established Glenfraser Endowments at both SFU and Concordia University, Montreal to support students in sound studies and electroacoustic composition.
He was made a Member of the Order of Canada on December 31, 2025.

Selected Works

'''Compositions'''

Works for Instruments and/or Voice and Soundtracks

Aerial, 1979, solo horn and four soundtracks
Bamboo, Silk and Stone, 1994, Asian instruments and two soundtracks
Dominion, 1991, chamber ensemble and two soundtracks
East Wind, 1981, amplified recorder and four soundtracks
From the Unseen World, 2012, piano and six soundtracks
Inside, 1995, bass oboe and two soundtracks
Love Songs, 1979, solo female voice and four soundtracks; Text: Norbert Ruebsaat
Nautilus, 1976, solo percussion and four soundtracks
Nightwatch, 1982, solo marimba and four soundtracks
Patterns, 1996, female speaker and two soundtracks
She, a Solo, 1973, mezzo-soprano and tape
Sonic Landscape No. 4, 1977, organ and four soundtracks
Steam, 2001, alto flute and two soundtracks
Tongues of Angels,1988, oboe d'amore, English horn and four soundtracks
Twin Souls, 1997, chamber choir and two soundtracks
The Way of the Spirit, 2005-2006, ichigenkin, shakuhachi and eight digital soundtracks
Wings of Fire, 1996, female cellist and two soundtracks; Text: Joy Kirstin