The Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia (CEMI), a division of UNT’s School of Music, has roots in Denton as far back as 1963. To put that in context, UNT has been pushing the experimental envelope since before the Beatles invaded America and before its current director, Andrew May, was born.

You can sample a taste of CEMI’s cutting-edge musicality tonight when The Tornado Project, a trio for flute, clarinet, and computer, makes its Southwestern debut in the Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater. Who was Merrill Ellis, anyway? He was the composer and faculty member who turned an old house on Mulberry Street into the Electronic Music Center in 1963. And it all comes full circle.