Stewart Blackwood is a composer, sound designer, and creative coder. He is an Assistant Professor in Composition and Sound Design at Carnegie Mellon University and a working freelance artist. 
 

In his compositions, he blends classical composition techniques, digital synthesis, studio and field recording, and effect processing to evoke original tonalities. He often experiments with different modalities of composing, thinking that the starting point is often the driving factor in a composition. 

In his sound scores, he creates atmospheric soundscapes, interactive elements, and delicate audio spatialization. This work often uses bespoke software written in Max/MSP, Pure Data, or the JUCE SDK. Some of this software is free on the internet. 

His immersive works utilize spatial & immersive audio, video game engines in unconventional ways, live coding, and interactivity in performance. 

 

Before joining academia, he was an Audio Experience Engineer at the spatial audio tech startup Boomcloud360. During his tenure, he developed a bespoke spectral analysis toolset, tuned the audio profiles of various consumer devices, and created novel headphone-based spatial audio filter generation technology.

He holds an MFA in Theatrical Sound Design and Composition from UC San Diego and a BFA in Sound Design & Technology from Kent State University.