Friday, March 8, 2019, 4pm – Concert 2 – Hart Recital Hall — Utt Building
Suspended in the Pit
Lars Bröndum
“Suspended in the Pit” is a live electronic piece involving a portable modular synthesizer, a pitch ribbon and loopers. A randomly generated ostinato lies beneath ambient sustained melodies that slowly are spun into webs of microtonal harmonies. Different textures slowly evolve and disappear. The piece is freely inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum”. “Suspended in the Pit” is featured on Bröndum’s recent CD “Chimera Cadence”. “Chimera Cadence” is a suite of eight pieces inspired by the moods of Gothic horror fiction, art and architecture. The concept originates from comments Bröndum often get when he plays live, “You should write music for horror movies!” Intrigued by the idea Bröndum composed the Chimera Cadence suite of music that is inspired by the writings of Baudelaire, Anna Akhmatova, Blake, de Sade, Poe etc. More information can be found here: http://www.antennaemedia.se/Home/Albums.html
Lars Bröndum, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Skövde, Sweden. Bröndum is also a professional musician and composer and has performed throughout the world. His music often explores the interaction between acoustic and electronic instruments and integration of improvisation into through-composed music. He performs live as a solo artist and in several ensemble configurations using analog modular synthesizers and effect pedals. He has received several grants and commission and his CD “Fallout” was 2016 awarded “best experimental music album” at the SOM (Independent Music Labels of Sweden) Manifest Awards. Bröndum completed his PhD in Music Theory and Composition at University of Pittsburgh in 1992. He also has a Masters degree in Composition and Music Theory (1989) and a Bachelors of Music degree in Guitar Performance (1987). Bröndum also runs an independent record label, Antennae Media www.antennaemedia.se
Chance Designs n.3
John Ritz
Greg Byrne, percussion
John Ritz, cello & electronics
Chance: a possibility of something happening.
Design: purpose, planning, or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact, or material object.
The Trio of Chance Designs formed in Spring 2017. The group explores notions of chaos theory within the context of sound. A networked system of musicians, instruments, microphones, loudspeakers, and digital signal processing algorithms is established – there is a possibility of something happening. From the very first sound produced (system input), a process of interaction between the musicians and computer proceeds in the sound domain. Musical form (design) is then considered an emergent property of this dynamical system of sonic interactions.
Dr. Greg Byrne is Distinguished Professor of Music and Director of Percussion Studies at the University of Louisville. Byrne is the recipient of the 2012 Kentucky Music Educators Association’s “Teacher of the Year” award. He is consistently honored as a Faculty Favorite and was featured as a University of Louisville Top Ten Faculty Favorites in 2004. Dr. Byrne is an Educational Artist for REMO, Inc. and VIC FIRTH, Inc.
Dr. John Ritz is Assistant Professor of Composition and Director of the New Media program at the University of Louisville. He has received recognitions for his work from the ASCAP/Morton Gould Composer Awards, the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition, the 21st Century Piano Commission Competition, the Forum Biennial Musiques en Scène, and the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States. Ritz’s music has been performed throughout the US, as well as in France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Canada, and Chile.
Manifold2
Tom Baker, Robert Campbell
Tom Baker, sound; Robert Campbell, image
Manifold2 is a an improvised sound-image work by Tom Baker and Robert Campbell. Using digital video images and abstractions combined with improvised live-electronic sound, the duo creates unique installations of a recurring piece, regenerating material and gestures in new combinations and recompositions. Manifold2 creates a dystopian environment of granulation, recombination, integration, and regeneration through sounds and images.
Tom Baker and Robert Campbell began working together in 2018 to explore the line between sound and image in the digital, intermedia environment. Their first work, Manifold2, was premiered in Seattle in 2018.
Tom Baker has been active as a composer, performer, producer, and educator in the Seattle new-music scene since arriving in 1994. He is the artistic director of the Seattle Composers’ Salon, co-founder of the Seattle EXperimental Opera (SEXO), an advisory board member of the Washington Composers’ Forum, founder of the new- music recording label Present Sounds Recordings, and is currently Professor of Music at Cornish College of the Arts.
Tom has received awards and grants for his work from many organizations, including Meet The Composer, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, 4Culture, and Artist Trust. He has been an artist-in-residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida and the Montalvo Arts Center in California. His works have been performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
Tom is also active as a performer and improviser, specializing in fretless guitar and live-electronics. He has recorded seven albums, including two solo records. Triptet, a heavily electronic trio with Michael Monhart and Greg Campbell, recently released its fourth album, Slowly-Away, on Brooklyn-based Engine Records. Tom has worked with many innovative musicians, including Stuart Dempster, William O. Smith, Christian Asplund, Chinary Ung, Ellen Fullman, Matana Roberts, and Henry Threadgill.
Robert Campbell’s body of work includes video art, digital media, installation, and documentary film. Since 1984, his single-channel video art work has been exhibited at festivals and exhibitions in the U.S., Europe and Japan. For the past 18 years his new media, installation and digital print work has been featured regionally and nationally at the Frye Art Museum, Whatcom Museum, Kittredge Gallery, Henry Art Gallery, 911 Media Arts Center, COCA, Fuel Gallery, SOIL Gallery, Kirkland Art Center, Peeler Art Center, Commencement Art Gallery, MOV-iN Gallery, Santa Fe Center for Contemporary Art, Cheekwood Museum of Art, Museum of Northwest Art, University of Arizona Museum of Art, and included in the 2012 International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) and seven of the past eight annual Currents Santa Fe International New Media Festivals. His video/dance collaborations have been featured at On the Boards, Bumbershoot, Cornish Playhouse, Port Angeles Fine Art Center and Lincoln Center.
Robert has produced documentaries in the U.S., Italy, Ukraine, Zambia and South Africa, with excerpts of his work in Africa selected for the Journey to Planet Earth series on the PBS network. He was the 2016 Astra Zarina Fellow with The Civita Institute in central Italy, Artist-In-Residence at: Pilchuck Glass School (2006, ’07); Centrum (2000, ’05 and ’09) in Washington State; and Burren College of Art in County Clare, Ireland (2000). He has taught courses in video art, documentary, animation, digital imaging, experimental cinema, video for dance, and video installation at Cornish College of the Arts since 1991. In 2012 he founded the Institute of Emergent Technology + Intermedia (iET+I) at Cornish, which he currently co-directs with composer Jarrad Powell, Cornish Music faculty. Campbell received his BFA and MFA degrees from the School of Film and Video at California Institute of the Arts.
Math of Cynics
Sean Hamilton
Sean Hamilton, percussion
Math of Cynics (2018) is a work from an ongoing series of improvised compositions for solo drum set and electronics written to explore the coexistence of acoustic and electronic sound in an improvised setting. These works utilize electronics programmed in Pure Data which create material either by “listening to”, reacting to, or processing the sounds of the acoustic drums through microphones on the drum set, or by generating their own “improvised” material with random numbers. While the works of this series employ various forms guided largely by the electronics, Math of Cynics is composed in nine movements of no specific order that serve as independent modules of sound generation and processing. These modules are triggered by a foot pedal and may be arranged in any number of possibilities and length according to the desire of the performer.
Sean Hamilton is a percussionist, composer, improviser, and audio engineer whose interests primarily lie in the intersections of new music, electroacoustic music, free improvisation, experimental music, and interdisciplinary projects. Sean has presented performances throughout North America and in Europe, with featured performances including the SEAMUS National Conference, WKCR-FM New York’s Afternoon New Music, the Interference Series, the Red Room Series, the Anxious Sound Series, and those given while serving as an artist-in-residence with Leeds Improvised Music and Experimentation (LIME) in the United Kingdom. He has also presented lectures on improvisation at various universities in the US and United Kingdom, including the University of Arizona, New York University, the University of South Carolina, Goldsmiths University of London, and the University of Leeds. Sean is regular collaborator with artists of varying disciplines, and has previously collaborated with artists including VERB Ballets, New Orleans Airlift, Lindsey Kelley Dance, Tatsuya Nakatani, Death Posture, and Eli Blasko. As an audio engineer, Sean has produced sound for the St. Petersburg Opera (FL), the Vail Dance Festival, Jason Marsalis 21st Century Trad Band, the Stuart Saunders Smith 70th Birthday Celebration, Samantha Fish, Harry Allen and Grant Stewart, and the Florida Dance Festival.
Sean is proud to endorse Innovative Percussion and Grover Pro Percussion.
Alsafar
Meagan A. Conley and Alberto Racanati
Marble
Alsafar (Arabic word for travel) is a meditation on migration throughout history. The work was inspired by the ongoing immigration crisis in many countries, including America. Underneath an ambient landscape and percussive hi-hats, the trumpet plays a soulful, searching melody. The trumpet is constantly in opposition to the more sinister elements, including harsh harmonics from a delay pedal and sampled fragments of speeches by politicians of our day.
Formed in 2017, Marble is an electronic music duo comprised of Meagan A. Conley and Alberto Racanati. The group aims to create electronic music using an array of acoustic instruments including trumpet.
Improvising Computer & Performer
Edward Stumpp
Keaton Garrett – Alto Saxophone
The performer begins the improvisation with a limited pitch set and gradually expands upon it. In response, the computer collects these pitches and utilizes Markov chains to predict the performer’s next pitch. These pitches are used to create harmony and melody throughout the improvisation, allowing the computer and performer to engage in a real-time dialogue with one another.
Edward Stumpp is a composer and artist from Boise, Idaho. He holds a Bachelors of Music Composition from Boise State University and Masters of Fine Arts from Mills College in Electronic Music Composition & Recorded Media. Currently enrolled at Michigan state University, his work focuses on electroacoustic composition, machine listening, guided improvisation, and animated scores.