Friday, March 8, 2019, 1pm – Concert 1 – Hart Recital Hall — Utt Building

MOXsonic 2019 Featured Image

Friday, March 8, 2019, 1pm – Concert 1 – Hart Recital Hall — Utt Building


Improvising Machine #42 for laptop, human, and indeterminate instrument

Jeff Kaiser

Elisabeth Stimpert, clarinet

Sometimes the machine pays attention to you, sometimes it ignores you.

Dr. Elisabeth Stimpert is a founding member of the critically-acclaimed ensemble Alarm Will Sound (www.alarmwillsound.com). She has performed across the country and internationally at major venues in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cleveland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, Italy, China, South Korea, and Germany. Elisabeth works regularly with many of today’s living composers, having presented and recorded world premieres of works by John Adams, Steve Reich, John Luther Adams, King Britt, Donnacha Dennehy, David Lang, Wolfgang Rihm, Michael Gordon, Augusta Read Thomas, Carl Schimmel, Christopher Stark, Stefan Freund, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Matt Marks, John Orfe, and Robert Pound. Her current work explores electroacoustic collaborations with clarinets and electronics, in the music of Christina Butera, Anna Clyne, David E. Chávez, Eric Honour, and Jeff Kaiser. As Assistant Professor of Clarinet at UCM, Dr. Stimpert teaches applied clarinet, aural training, woodwind methods, and woodwind literature and pedagogy, as well as directing UCM’s new music ensemble “UnCoMmon Noise” and serving as Director of Artist Engagement for the annual MOXSonic experimental music festival at UCM (www.moxsonic.org). She holds a B.M. in clarinet performance and music theory from Ohio State University, an M.M. in clarinet performance and music education from the Eastman School of Music, and a D.M.A. in clarinet performance from Shenandoah University.

Jeff Kaiser is a trumpet player, composer, conductor, media technologist and ethnomusicologist. While classically trained as a trumpet player and composer, Kaiser now takes an integrative, systemic view with his traditional instrument, emergent technology (in the form of custom interactive/generative software and hardware interfaces), and space—in addition to people—all being crucial and integral participants in his dynamic and adventurous performances. He gains inspiration and ideas from the intersections of experimental composition and improvisation, and the timbral and formal affordances provided by combining traditional instruments with emerging technologies. The roots of his music are firmly in the experimental traditions within jazz, improvised and Western art music practices. Kaiser considers his art audio-centric, but he also works with live video, tracking, and interactive and generative technologies. Kaiser is Assistant Professor of Music Technology and Composition at the University of Central Missouri (UCM), and has taught an incredibly wide variety of classes: including ethnomusicology, interactive arts technology and digital audio composition—among others—at: UCM, University of San Diego, University of California San Diego, University of California Irvine, and MiraCosta College.


mouthfeel

Alex Christie

Alex Christie, performer

Sound speaks into a space shaped by light. Light presses on sound. Space presses on sound. The performer may intervene.

“mouthfeel” is an interactive environment that reassesses the way we think, act, speak, and move in our surrounding worlds. The performer is forced to deal with the physical space around them and use only the (broken) tools of communication that are readily available. They reposition their body in order to find states of stability and instability, clarity and noise.

“mouthfeel” challenges the way we use technology and privileges processes that must be re-practiced and re-discovered over those which grant immediate gratification.

Alex Christie makes music and intermedia art in many forms. His work has been called “vibrant”, “interesting, I guess”, and responsible for “ruin[ing] my day”. He has collaborated with artists in a variety of fields and is particularly interested in the design of power structures, systems of interference, and absurdist bureaucracy in composition.

Recently, Alex’s work has explored the ecology of performance in intermedia art and interactive electronic music. Through real-time audio processing, instrument building, light, video, and theater, Alex expands performance environments to offer multiple lenses through which the audience can experience the work. Alex has performed and presented at a variety of conferences and festivals whose acronyms combine to spell nicedinsaucescenesfeemmmmmmmogscabsplotsox. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Composition and Computer Technologies (CCT) at the University of Virginia as a Jefferson Fellow. Other interests include baseball and geometric shapes.


Chain Link
Eric Honour


DuoTube

Ralph Lewis (composer) Robin Meiksins (video/flute performance)

Ralph Lewis, David Nguyen, Alex Christie, laptops

DuoTube is inspired by flutist Robin Meiksins’ aim to move YouTube and other digital music spaces from being mostly archival to more creative circumstances. DuoTube uses YouTube’s video shortcut keys to allow a viewer to play a video like an instrument. By pressing numbers on the keyboard, fragments and loops of the original video are created out of a solo deliberately written as source material for this piece.

In its original conception that was meant for a casual viewer at home/ After the concert, you are invited to explore the piece yourself on Ms. Meiksins’ YouTube channel. If you do, I hope you enjoy performing music using this everyday website and discovering this hidden instrument within your computer.

Ralph Lewis is a composer whose works seek meeting points between sonorous music and arresting noise, alternative tunings and timbre, and the roles of performer and audience. Currently a doctoral candidate in music composition at University of Illinois, his music has been presented at SEAMUS, Electronic Music Midwest, MOXsonic, N_SEME, Boston Microtonal Society, and the Music for People and Thingamajigs Festival.

Robin Meiksins is a freelance contemporary flutist and teacher specializing in collaboration with composers. She has a masters degree from Indiana University and received its Mrs. Hong Pham Memorial Recognition Award for New Music Award. Notable performances include her two year-long collaborative projects: 365 Days of Flute and 52 Weeks of Flute, and SEAMUS.


Improv for Piano and Electronics

Travis Garrison


Moving In Cities

Shawn Trail

Shawn Trail (TXTED)- performer/composer/designer/developer

TXTED is the solo project of percussionist/computer scientist Shawn Trail that explores original polyrithmic, ambient and spatial electroacoustic improvisations based around specific themes accompanied by interactive visuals. This work is based on the metaphor of “”moving in cities”” featuring a pitched percussion hyper-instrument designed/developed by the performer- the “”Chromalimba””. The project has a long history of festival performances, research publications, albums, and artist residences. TXTED incorporates Music Information Retrieval (MIR) and Musical Machine Learning Interaction (MMLI) techniques using custom software and hardware developed in the open-source programming language Pure Data running on a Raspberry Pi. For this iteration TXTED will feature audio reactive visuals using the novel “”Visual Interactive Design Synthesizer”” (VIDsynth), developed for real-time interaction built in GEM.

Shawn Trail is a percussionist/computer scientist working at the intersection of tradition and innovation. As a performer Trail has toured North America performing on stages ranging from Lincoln Center, Webster Hall, Montreal Jazzfest and more, alongside artists ranging from Meshell Ndegeocello, Budos Band, to Pharoah Sanders. In the studio Trail has worked with Bernard Purdie, multi-platinum producer Peter Denenberg, Jaga Jazzist and was a contributor to the soundtrack of Emmy nominated film Favela Rising. Currently Trail is Visiting Assistant Professor/Artist-in-Residence of Sound Arts at Dakota State University. He has a PhD in Computer Science/Music; his research focuses on non-invasive gesture sensing, physical modeling, machine learning and acoustic actuation for pitched percussion performance. He has published his work at NIME, ICMC, SMC, and IEEE; was twice artist-in-residence at STEIM in Amsterdam, NL and was the Robotics Technician for Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion Project. He has conducted research internationally: novel musical interfaces on a Fulbright to Copenhagen, and traditional xylophone and percussion at the University of Ghana. Trail holds a Master of Music degree in Studio Composition from SUNY Purchase College Conservatory of Music; and Bachelor of Arts in Music Technology/Percussion Performance from Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky. Trail maintains Lost Audio, a digital R&D lab and recording studio.


Brownshirts in the Hundred-Acre Wood

Jake Sentgeorge and Kyle Minor

Jake Sentgeorge, Voice and Push

This brief scene created by Kyle Minor imagines a successful apprehension and detention of three criminals who are known for their extensive human rights abuses. The addition of a new prisoner surprises the dictators, and us. The pleasant setting contrasts with the despicable views of those present.

Jake Sentgeorge performs throughout the United States, Canada, Italy, and Brazil as a tenor soloist in opera, oratorio, and recital. He creates electroacoustic works setting new poetry and enjoys collaborating with artists all across the continuum. He has served as at UCM for 10 years as an instructor of vocal studies including director of opera workshop, musical theatre, applied voice, and teaching diction and vocal lit.


Flat Circle

Carter John Rice

Kevin Arbogast – Alto Saxophone

Flat Circle draws inspiration from the concept of time as a function of space. If one were to remove themselves from spacetime they might see all the matter of the universe as a static object, a flat circle. All events, all decisions, all causes and effects, would be viewable as a continuum that has no beginning and no end. Musically, this concept was actualized via the unit circle and its realization as a sine tone. Nearly all parameters of the piece slowly modulate with wave-like qualities, ranging from steady and circular to spontaneous and stochastic.

Carter John Rice, a native of Minot, North Dakota, is a composer, audio engineer, and music educator currently based in Kalamazoo, MI. Rice was drawn to music through a desire to instill knowledge in others. He is passionate about music education, and enjoys teaching music at all levels.

As a composer, Rice draws inspiration from a wide array of sources including acoustic phenomena, cognitive science, and classical mechanics. His music has been featured at venues such as the national SEAMUS conference, the national conference for the Society of Composers Inc. (SCI), the International Computer Music Conference, Electronic Music Midwest, and the SPLICE Festival and Institute.

​Rice currently works as an assistant professor of multimedia arts technology at Western Michigan University.

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