With its establishment in 1947, the Department of Music began a steady expansion of academic courses that had initially been offered as part of the curriculum in Education. In keeping with Stanford's tradition of combining theory and practice, knowledge and invention, community service and individual discovery, the Department has always sought to connect its programs to a broad range of scholarly and creative activities, which today embrace performance, composition, electroacoustic music, musicology and ethnomusicology. The patent established after Professor John Chowning’s discovery of FM synthesis in 1967 became the principal source for endowing the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), whose groundbreaking research has contributed significantly to the Department's international profile. In 2013, with the opening of the state-of-the-art Bing Concert Hall, the Department is positioned to take all of its programs to new levels of excellence.