David Cope
David Cope was an American composer, musicologist, and artificial intelligence researcher whose work sat at the intersection of music and computing.
Born in San Francisco on May 17, 1941, Cope was educated at Arizona State University and the University of Southern California. He went on to hold the position of Dickerson Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he also served as a university teacher across multiple formats. He taught the Workshop in Algorithmic Computer Music, a summer program focused on algorithmic approaches to music-making, and a general education course called Artificial Intelligence and Music. Outside the university, he was co-founder and CTO Emeritus of Recombinant Inc.
His primary area of research involved artificial intelligence and music, and he wrote programs and algorithms capable of analyzing existing compositions and generating new works in the style of the original input. That work placed him in an unusual position spanning computer science, musicology, composition, and musical instrument making — roles he held concurrently rather than in sequence. The recurring thread across his career was the question of what machines can do with musical style and structure, and how algorithmic processes relate to human creative output. Cope died in Santa Cruz on May 4, 2025, at the age of 83, of congestive heart failure, a few weeks short of his eighty-fourth birthday. His sustained focus on algorithmic composition and the relationship between artificial intelligence and musical style defined the arc of his professional life.
Quotes by David Cope
The last time it happened it was the same thing. The sub was ready, and we couldn't get him out of the game in time.
Their game against Aspen was snowed out. We've had a lot of training sessions, so that's been an advantage. I certainly expect it to be closer against Eagle the second time.
It was great to see (us) score goal right after they did. That's a characteristic of our guys. The first five minutes after a goal, they kind of bear down and play pretty well.
That's something we talked about. Can our final pass be a quality one that creates another pass for somebody else.
Our defenders are really covering for each other well. Our defenders are also getting involved in the attack. You saw Sydney get assists and Morgan (Wallace) got involved in the attack.
The thing about Kelsey and Jules is that they have so much speed that we tell them they don't need a head start. They can run across laterally, and when it's hit, go in.
It was a little disconcerting because that happened with our starting group in. But she's a good player, very explosive.
It was three long trips, and we came out of it with 20 goals for and three against. You can't argue with that. It was a great team bonding experience. I think we're a better team coming out of it than we were going into it.
We created a lot of chances to score some goals, but we may have to be more efficient against Steamboat. It could be that we create five chances and get one goal.