~ bio

Bob Pritchard writes acoustic, electroacoustic, and interactive works, often combining Modernist and post-Modernist influences through quotation, reference, and stylistic juxtaposition. His pieces can be demanding and virtuosic, exploring the edges of performance and perception, and his solo works Breathe On Me, and Escape, My Soul, as well as Time Clips, Primitive, are examples of this direction.

He has received numerous commissions from The Canada Council, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Ontario Arts Council, and The British Columbia Cultural Fund, and has written for performers such as Megumi Masaki, David Owen, the Standing Wave Ensemble, Nu:BC, Barbara Pritchard and Beverley Johnston, the Hard Rubber Orchestra, Marguerite Witvoet, and Kathryn Cernauskas. He has also received performances from the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra. As well, he has been involved with installation pieces, working with visual artists Richard Prince, Robert Creighton, Murray Kropf, Merijean Morrissey, and Anne Severs.

Dr. Pritchard's piece Strength was chosen as a representative Canadian chamber work for submission to the ISCM 2007 jury in Switzerland. Strength was written for saxophonist Julia Nolan with cinematography by Cathryn Robertson and received a Unique Award of Merit from the Canadian Society of Cinematographers.

Dr. Pritchard teaches in the UBC School of Music, and is involved in interactive performance research with the UBC Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems (ICICS) and the Media And Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre (MAGIC). In 2009 he and Keith Hamel were jointly awarded a three-year Artist-Researcher grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada to develop score-following methods using sound and motion sensors. In 2007 he, Sid Fels, and Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson received a Canada Council for the Arts/Natural Sciences and Humanities Research Council New Media Initiative three-year grant for the development of Digital Ventriloquized Actors (DIVAs). In 2004 he was the recipient of a three-year Artist-Researcher SSHRC grant for work in interactive speech synthesis and performance.

In 2005 he was awarded a Killam Teaching Prize in recognition of his abilities and innovations in classroom teaching. He is a member of the Canadian Music Centre and the Canadian League of Composers.