Virtual audio: that's the process of electronically engineering sounds to sound illusionistically as though they're happening in space around you. Among composers working in art music (as opposed to sound effects or industrial uses), Henry Gwiazda (b. 1952) is the pioneer. (To pronounce his name, assume the "i" is silent.) In Gwiazda's music, seagulls swoop around you, basketballs bounce toward you, people cut your hair with astonishing audio realism. He's got two types of virtual audio pieces. One, exemplified by his thefLuteintheworLdthefLuteistheworLd, can only be listened to on headphones. Sounds happen behind you, over your head, and on both sides. In the other kind, as in buzzingreynold'sdreamland, sounds take place in a large almost-sphere around you, but you have to be placed exactly so in front of the speakers - about 14 feet away and between them. This makes Gwiazda's music difficult for many people to experience, since only one person can sit in the "sweet spot" at a time.

Even more impressive than Gwiazda's technical innovations, though, is his poetic sense of natural sounds. Unlike so many sampled-sound composers, he doesn't manipulate sounds, but usually uses them right off of sound effects records. The poetry comes in the way he combines them, making surreal aural landscapes through combining the sound of potato chips being munched with a lithe violin phrase (to take an example from his MANEATINGCHIPSLISTENINGTOAVIOLIN. With his beautiful approach to soundscapes, and his dream of spatial music, Gwiazda is as much a lone visionary as Harry Partch or Conlon Nancarrow. - Kyle Gann

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