The internationally active composer, intermedia artist and technologist Dr. Jason Thorpe Buchanan has been appointed Professor of Composition with Digital Media at the University of Music Würzburg for the winter semester 2025/26. In his new role, he heads the Studio for Experimental Electronic Music and the Master's program in Composition with New Media. His work operates at the intersection of music, technology and performance and explores complex relationships of multiplicity, causality and behavior in intermedial contexts.

Buchanan's works have been performed internationally and include projects with renowned ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Nikel, Ensemble Interface, EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Slagwerk Den Haag, Eklekto Percussion, Mivos Quartet and many more. Scenes from his multimedia opera Hunger have been presented in Darmstadt, Los Angeles and New York City.

As artistic director of the [Switch~ Ensemble], he has been shaping the international scene for contemporary music with new media since 2012. He has also taught at leading institutions in the USA, Europe and Asia - including the University of Texas at Austin, Mahidol University (Thailand), the University of Music "Carl Maria von Weber" Dresden as part of the Hybrid Music Lab and the International Composition Institute of Thailand. He was also the executive director of the New Music Initiative at the University of Missouri and directed the VIPA Festival in Valencia, Spain. He has been regularly invited as a guest composer and lecturer by institutions such as Stanford University, the MATA Festival (NYC), the Grieg Academy (Bergen, Norway) and numerous other universities worldwide.

Buchanan holds a Ph.D. in composition from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester (USA). His teachers and artistic mentors include internationally renowned composers such as Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Steven Takasugi, Pierluigi Billone, Chaya Czernowin and Georges Aperghis, whose influences continue to influence his work in an innovative and independent way.

The four-semester Master's course "Composition with New Media" offers students an intensive examination of electro-acoustic, computer-aided and multimedia composition. The focus is on innovative forms of composing, the combination of instruments, voice and digital media as well as the exploration of new concert and performance situations. By combining experimental practice and theoretical reflection, students are enabled to develop their artistic identity and realize their own musical visions with originality and technical competence.