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The central research question was: Why do Chinese students want to study in the United States? The participants were 20 Chinese students who studied in the U.S. Ten interview questions were used and data were processed in NVivo 10. Five major themes emerged from this study: (a) American culture benefits foreign perceptions of education in the U.S.; (b) increased personal wealth increases demands for educational freedom; (c) Chinese test performance does not indicate education quality; (d) Chinese culture clashes with students’ desire for self-actualization; and (e) an education in the U.S. is considered an immigration stepping stone.

have been conducting with leading composer-practitioners of electroacoustic and computer music whose contributions to the art and technology of sound diffusion have been key to its development and growing acceptance through the last four decades. These discussions cover the aesthetics of, compositional approaches to, and technological realizations of sound diffusion. Topics include the dynamics of sound diffusion; stereo and multitrack solo-tape diffusion with multispeaker configurations in composition and performance; spatial composing; the diffusion of "tape-plus" pieces; diffusion as drama or "aural cinema"; present and future developments in sound diffusion in loudspeaker orchestras and multispeaker diffusion systems such as the Acousmonium (Desantos 1997), the Gmebaphone (Clozier 1997), and BEAST (Harrison 1998); the Spatialisateur (Jot 1997); advances in the field of ambisonics and Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) multichannel systems (Elen 1998); and specialized multiple-speaker systems (Stockhausen 1996). The present interview with composer Denis Smalley (see Figure 1) took place at City University in London on 2 April 1998. Denis Smalley, composer, is professor and head of the Department of Music at City University, London. He received his first degrees in New Zealand, specializing in composition and performance. He studied with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire and investigated electroacoustic composition with the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris before moving to the UK, where he completed his doctorate at the University of York. He was senior lecturer in music and director of the Electroacoustic Music Studio at the Univer

The term “third coast” originated in Houston, Texas, in the seventies to describe growing significant activity in the arts in US southern states bordering the Gulf of Mexico. New and live-electronic music thrives as well in the inland cities of San Antonio, Austin, the Dallas/Ft. Worth “metroplex”, and at the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia in Denton. Alternating with explanatory text is a transcription of an informal conversation between Texas composers Austin and Jerry Hunt, discussing the technology and aesthetics at issue in live-electronic music. They describe their own works, including Hunt's Sur (Doctor) John Dee (1967) and Flund (1987) and Austin's Accidents (1967) and Beachcombers (1983), elucidating the musico-dramatic, technical, and poetic dimensions of each piece.

The three authors each explore an aspect of Larry Austin's 1990 extended composition for radio broadcast. Composer-writer Charles Boone examines the work for its musical and dramatic interest and for its significance as a hybrid of Horspiel, with elements of theater, portraiture and sound collage. Its scope, means, intent, realization and compositional approach are elaborated by Austin, the com poser. Throughout his section, he intersperses aphorisms drawn from his conversations with the seven protagonists of his 'sound movie'. Austin's collaborator, computer music scientist Xavier Serra, explicates the technical/theoretical genesis of TT:TGE's computer generated speech sounds.

Silence. John Cage died on Wednesday, 12 August 1992. Silence. For me, as for so many, John was a beloved friend, sponsor, and mentor. My personal and professional associations with John spanned three decades and two continents of not infrequent meetings, his affectionate greetings with hugs and kisses remembered so fondly by me, my wife Edna, and our five children, who grew up knowing John as "Dad's friend." Memories. Silence.

Larry Austin and Thomas Clark have frequently collaborated on projects such as hosting the 1981 International Computer Music Conference, establishing the Events Series at the University of North Texas, where they are colleagues, and an article for Perspectives of New Music in 1984. Recently, they have coauthored a forthcoming textbook, Learning to Compose: Modes, Materials, and Models of Musical Invention. The following conversation about Austin's work as a composer is a natural continuation of their regular discussions about issues of new music, composition, and computer music.