Music Studios Faculty
Clay Chaplin - Director of Computer Music & Experimental Media Studios, Composition & ESP Faculty, Larry Levine Chair in Contemporary Music
Clay Chaplin is an electronic musician, improviser, and audio engineer from Los Angeles who explores the realms of sampling, field recording, analog electronics, and computer synthesis for creative sonic expression. His solo performances often utilize custom electronics in combination with computer processing and stochastic code structures to create chaotic instruments for improvisation.
Clay’s performances and exhibitions include the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM), Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Elektroakustiche Musik (DEGEM), the Korean Electro-Acoustic Society, New Instruments for Music Expression (NIME), Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festival, Black Mountain College Museum, and —in California and Los Angeles —Center for New Music, High Desert Soundings, Indexical, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, REDCAT, Coaxial Arts, Machine Project, 2220 Arts and Archives, and the Dogstar Orchestra. Clay has been composer in residence at STEIM and the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College.
Clay studied composition and computer music with Morton Subotnick, Tom Erbe, and Mark Trayle at CalArts. Clay is currently the Director of the Computer Music and Experimental Media studios at CalArts, teaches in the Composition-Experimental Sound Practices program, and is the Larry Levin Chair in Contemporary Music.
Emily Evans - Co-Director, Musical Arts / Experimental Pop Specializtion
Emily Evans is a sound engineer, music producer, recording studio director and musician. In 2006, she founded The Green Door Studio, a community-access analog/digital recording studio in Glasgow, Scotland, which has been named Recording Studio of the Year (Scottish New Music Awards, 2010), is consistently ranked among the Top 100 Cultural Contributors in Scotland, was called “the beating heart of the Glasgow music scene,” by Resident Advisor. She has recorded and mixed over 100 albums and EP’s, 3 named in the top 10 for Scottish Album of the Year and 7 featured in Album of the Year lists in The Wire magazine, The Vinyl Factory and The Quietus. Her clients include Belle and Sebastian (Matador Records), Golden Teacher (Rough Trade/ SoulJazz / Optimo Music), The Amazing Snakeheads (Domino Records), Alasdair Roberts (Drag City), LAPS (DFA Records), Tafi Cultural Group, and Total Leatherette (Milk Records).
From 2014-15, she facilitated an international collaborative mobile recording project with musicians from Glasgow, Belize and Ghana. The resulting album, Youth Stand Up!, was named among the Best Albums of 2015 by The Vinyl Factory. From 2016-18, she worked with musicians from Tafi Atome in Ghana to establish the Tafi Cultural Institute and build a recording studio in the village and continues to produce collaborative recording projects with them. In 2017, she moved to California and set up a mixing studio to work in partnership with Green Door (UK) and Tafi Cultural Institute.
She holds a Bachelors in Art:Semiotics from Brown University, a Master of Design in Sound for the Moving Image from Glasgow School of Art (which she earned as an Arts and Humanities Research Council Scholar), a Postgraduate Certificate in Sonic Arts from the University of Glasgow, and has spent a year studying Environmental Art at Glasgow School of Art.
John Baffa - Technical Director Performance Production
John Baffa has been in the professional audio business for more than 25 years; primarily as a recording engineer. John has held positions on both the faculty and staff at the Herb Alpert School of Music at California Institute of the Arts since 2000. John is currently the Technical Director Performance Production as well as faculty within the Music Technology: Interaction, Intelligence and Design (MTIID) Specialization department.
He founded TV Tray Recording Studio in 2003, working from the top of a TV tray as he learned the ins and outs of recording. From those humble beginnings, the studio grew and developed over the years, building an impressive list of clients and projects spanning a huge range of genres.
Simultaneously continuing to mix live sound, he honed his chops in such places as the Alex Theater in Glendale and West Hollywood’s legendary Troubadour, as well as in venues all over the world, including the Sydney Opera House.
In 2014, John was recognized with his first Grammy award for his work recording and mixing Partch on Plectra and Percussion Dances.
Over his career, John has worked with a diverse set of performers, mixing such artists as Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Trio, Johnny Cash, Mike Patton, Henry Rollins, The Melvins, Pulley, Ten Foot Pole, Vinny Golia, Ullrich Krieger, Vicki Ray, David Rosenboom, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, The Vonettes, Plotz, Dr Mint, Banyon, the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Anne Hall, Towse, and Ackland.