Theodore Gordon
Asst Professor
Weissman School of Arts and Sciences
Department: Fine & Performing Arts
Areas of expertise:
Email Address: ted.gordon@baruch.cuny.edu
> View CV- Biography
- Teaching
- Research and Creative Activity
- Grants
- Honors and Awards
- Service
Education
Ph.D., History and Theory of Music, University of Chicago Chicago United States
M.A., History and Theory of Music, University of Chicago Chicago United States
B.A., The Arts in the Humanities, Yale University New Haven United States
Artistic and Creative Activities
Gordon, T. (2026). Instruments that Talk Back: Celebrating the Legacy of Don Buchla. Museum of Music Technology.
Gordon, T. (2019). Dream Dance: The Art of Ed Emschwiller: An Evening with Joan La Barbara and Morton Subotnick. Lightbox Film Center.
Gordon, T. (2019). Sounding Circuits: Audible Histories. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Books
Gordon, T. (2025). The Composer’s Black Box: Making Music in Cybernetic America. Berkeley, CA, University of California Press.
Journal Articles
Gordon, T. (2022). “Androgynous Music:” Pauline Oliveros’s Early Cybernetic Improvisation. Contemporary Music Review, 40(4). 386–408.
Erbe, T., & Gordon, T. (2022). Tom Erbe Interviewed by Theodore Gordon. Organised Sound, 27(1). 26–31.
Gordon, T., Rings, S., & Kotche, G. (2019). What Makes a Song Songy? Interview with Glenn Kotche & Steven Rings”. Portable Gray, 1(2). 38–43.
Book Chapters
Gordon, T. (2027). 'On-Line Computational Thought': John C. Lilly in American Experimental Music. In Zeavin, H., & Matthias, J. (Eds.), Submersion: Reconsidering John C. Lilly Cambridge, MA. MIT Press.
Gordon, T. (2024). The Buchla Music Easel: From Cyberculture to Market Culture. In Kitzmann, A., Engstrom, E., Thoren, C., & Teboul, E. (Eds.), Modular Synthesis: Patching Machines and People (p. 49–80). London, UK. Routledge.
Presentations
Gordon, T. (2026, October 3). Don Buchla in the Cybernetics Moment: Exploring Buchla’s Place in 1960s San Francisco. Instruments that Talk Back: Celebrating the Legacy of Don Buchla. Museum of Music Technology: Museum of Music Technology.
Gordon, T. (2026, March 30). "The Composer's Black Box: Making Music in Cybernetic America". Society for American Music Annual Conference. Richmond, VA: Society for American Music.
Gordon, T., Bassett, M., Whitman, K. F., & Stewart, L. (2026, February 4). Ted Gordon’s “The Composer’s Black Box: Making Music in Cybernetic America”. Brooklyn, NY: Roulette Intermedium.
Gordon, T. (2026, September 25). The Composer’s Black Box: A Book Talk and Performance by Theodore Gordon. Tulsa, OK: Oklahoma Center for the Humanities.
Gordon, T. (2026, February 20). The Composer's Black Box. Tufts University STS Lunch Seminar Series. Medford, MA: Tufts University.
Gordon, T. (2026, February 12). The Composer's Black Box. Comparing Domains of Improvisation Workshop. Columbia Computer Music Center, New York, NY: Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience program at Columbia University.
Gordon, T. (2026, March 26). Making Music in Cybernetic America: AN EVENING WITH THEODORE GORDON and musical guests. Baltimore, MD: High Zero Foundation.
Gordon, T. (2026, March 27). Book Launch: The Composer’s Black Box with Ted Gordon. ULISES. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Department of Music.
Gordon, T. (2026, October 30). Pre-Histories of 1980s Multimedia: Electronic Mediations of the Self . Society for the History of Technology Annual Meeting. Luxembourg: Society for the History of Technology.
Gordon, T. (2026, May 30). Instrumentalizing the Synthesizer. American Musical Instrument Society Annual Meeting. Phoenix, AZ: American Musical Instrument Society.
Gordon, T. (2026, April 30). New Sensations: Lilly Diffracted Through American Experimental Music. Reconsidering John C. Lilly. Online
Gordon, T. (2026, October 30). Sun Ra and the Moog: Freedom, Discipline, and Sound. Peabody Institute Musicology Colloquium. Baltimore, MD: Peabody Institute at the Johns Hopkins University.
Gordon, T. (2026, November 30). The Short Life and Long Afterlife of the Buchla Music Easel. American Musicological Society Annual Meeting. New Orleans, LA: American Musicological Society.
Gordon, T. (2026, November 30). Sun Ra and the Moog: Freedom, Discipline, and Sound. American Musicological Society Annual Meeting. New Orleans, LA: American Musicological Society.
Gordon, T. (2021, October 31). Programming and Meta-Programming in the Electro-Organism: Learning to Play the Human Body as an Electronic Musical Instrument. Society for the Social Studies of Science. Toronto, ON, Canada
Gordon, T. (2021, April 24). No Ideas But In (Doing) Things: The Politics and Materialities of Alvin Lucier’s Early Works. Northwestern University New Music Conference. Evanston, IL [virtual]: Northwestern University.
Gordon, T. (2020, October 29). Echolocating the Human. Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting. Virtual: Society for Ethnomusicology.
Gordon, T. (2020, February 28). Interspecies Feedback in Alvin Lucier's Vespers. Circulations: Symposium on Live Audio Feedback in Art. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
Gordon, T. (2020, February 21). No Ideas But In Things? Cybernetics and Materiality in Alvin Lucier's Early Electronic Music. Columbia University Department of Music Colloquium Series. New York, NY: Columbia University Department of Music.
Gordon, T. (2019, June 24). Music in the Cybernetics Moment. Sonic Circulations. London, UK: Kings College London.
Gordon, T. (2019, November 30). The Anonymous Artists of America and the Buchla Modular Electronic Music System. American Musicological Society Annual Meeting. Boston, MA: American Musicological Society.
Gordon, T. (2019, October 25). Diffracting Cybernetics at the San Francisco Tape Music Center. Recursions: Music & Cybernetics Conference. Edinburgh, Scotland, UK: University of Edinburgh.
Gordon, T. (2019, July 3). "Cybernetics, Modularity, Subjectivity". Synth Library Prague. Prague, Czech Republic: Synth Library Prague/ZVUK.
Gordon, T. (2019, June 7). The Political and Social Legacies of Bay Area Experimentalism. Indexical. Santa Cruz, CA: Indexical (performance series).
Gordon, T. (2018, February 28). Living on the Earth: The Experimental World(ing) of Ramón Sender. After Experimental Music. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.
Gordon, T. (2017, June 30). Improvisation and Indeterminacy in the Music of Pauline Oliveros. Performing Indeterminacy. Leeds, UK: University of Leeds.
Gordon, T. (2017, June 30). The Patchwork Girl: Pauline Oliveros and Technologies of Self. Sixth International Conference on Music and Minimalism. Knoxville, TN: Society for Minimalist Music.
Gordon, T. (2017, March 31). ‘The Composer’s Black-Box’: Cybernetics, Creativity, and Technology at the San Francisco Tape Music Center. Society for American Music Annual Conference. Montreal, QC, Canada: Society for American Music.
Gordon, T. (2017, November 10). Excavating Pauline Oliveros's Expanded Instrument System. American Musicological Society Annual Meeting. Rochester, NY: American Musicological Society.
Gordon, T. (2017, October 26). Pandit Pran Nath, Mysticism, and Music in the San Francisco Bay Area. Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Meeting. Denver, CO: Society for Ethnomusicology.
Gordon, T. (2016, April 29). Opening Buchla’s Box: Rethinking Experimentation in Electronic Music in the Early 1960s. Periods and Waves: A Conference on Sound and History. Stony Brook, NY: Stony Brook University.
Other Scholarly Works
Gordon, T. (2020). New Sounds in Electronic Music.
Reviews
Gordon, T. (1970,January 1). Review of The Williamsburg Avant-Garde by Cisco Bradley. Journal of the American Musicological Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Gordon, T. (2019,April 1). Review of Electronic Inspirations: Technologies of the Cold-War Musical Avant-Garde, Jennifer Iverson (Oxford). Current Musicology.
| Title | Funding Agency Sponsor | Start Date | End Date | Awarded Date | Total Funding | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Summer Salary for Book Research and Writing | PSC CUNY 53 | 07/01/2022 | 06/30/2023 | 04/15/2022 | 3499.45 | Completed |
| Summer 2021 Travel for Archival Book Research | PSC CUNY 52 | 07/01/2021 | 06/30/2023 | 04/15/2021 | 3500 | Completed |
| Summer Salary for Book Research and Writing 2023 | PSC-CUNY 54 | 07/01/2023 | 06/30/2024 | 04/18/2023 | 3500 | Funded - In Progress |
| Honor / Award | Organization Sponsor | Date Received | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| IDM Audio Lab Summer Residency | New York University Tandon School of Engineering | 2025-08-10 | Week-long residency at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering Integrated Design & Media Program's Audio Lab to conduct research on the instruments of Serge Tcherepnin |
| Eugene M. Lang Junior Faculty Research Fellowship | Baruch College | 2024-04-30 | |
| Leonardo Abstracts Service (LABS) Top-Ranked Thesis Abstract | Leonardo | 2018 | Awarded "top-ranked thesis abstract" for PhD Dissertation; thesis published in <i>Leonardo</i> Volume 52, Issue 5, October 2019 |
| Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship | Columbia University | 2018 | Awarded prestigious two-year postdoctoral position in the Department of Music at Columbia University for research & teaching |
| Short-Term Research Fellowship | New York Public Library | 2017 | Awarded a research fellowship to conduct archival research at the NYPL Library for the Performing Arts |
| Field Trip/Notes/Guide Fellowship | University of Chicago Art/Science/Culture Initiative | 2017 | Awarded a fellowship to join cohort of interdisciplinary scholars to share research and collaborate on co-authored research projects |
| Stuart Tave Teaching Fellowship | University of Chicago | 2017 | Awarded competitive fellowship to design and teach original, interdisciplinary undergraduate seminar at the University of Chicago; this seminar was added to the "Media Arts" minor program |
College
| Committee Name | Position Role | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Curriculum Committee | Committee Member | Present | |
| Baruch in Concert | Committee Member | Present | |
| Webmaster | Committee Chair | Present | |
| Committee on Academic Standing | Committee Member | 6/1/2024 | |
| Committee on Research | Committee Member | 6/1/2024 |
University
| Committee Name | Position Role | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CUNY Graduate Center Music Department Admissions Committee | Committee Member | 8/28/2024 | Present |
| CUNY Graduate Center Music Department Examinations Committee | Committee Member | 8/28/2024 | Present |
Professional
| Organization | Position Role | Organization State | Organization Country | Start Date | End Date | Audience |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism | Editor, Associate Editor | England | United Kingdom | 7/5/2022 | Present | International |
| American Musicological Society Roland Jackson Award Committee | Committee Member | 9/1/2024 | 6/1/2026 | International |