- Cecilia Suhr—Prism of Distortions—8:31 (s)
- Rodrigo Cádiz—String spells—10:00 (s)
- Cerulean S. Payne-Passmore—All That You Touch You Change —5:00 (s)
- Brody Washam—the love we deserve —5:00 (4)
- Benjamin Damann—the king of nothing—4:00 (s)
- Mutien Lai—Farewell—4:30 (s)
- Hermetic Fever (Louis Lopez and Joshua Gerowitz) + Georgia Bell—10:00 (s)
Cecilia Suhr—Prism of Distortions—8:31 (s)
At the interplay between familiar and unfamiliar, chaos and mild order, movement, and stagnation, “Prism of Distortions,” expresses the invisible border, lines, and limits of our invisible tolerance level for cultural and societal norms through a temporal and textural coalescence. Through real-time audio-visual interaction and live electronics, this performance features cello (and or violin) improvisation with fixed media.
Cecilia Suhr is an award-winning intermedia artist and researcher, multi-instrumentalist (violin/cello/voice/piano/bamboo flute), multimedia composer, interaction designer, painter, author, and improviser. She has won multiple awards in the fields of music, visual art, interactive media, and academic research, including the MacArthur Foundation, DML Research Grant Award (2012), the Pauline Oliveros Award from the IAWM (2022), “Honorable Mention,” from The American Prize (2023), Bronze Medal Winner from the Global Music Awards (2022), Best of Competition Winner from the BEA (2023), Saint Michael Achievement Medal from International Juried Fine Arts Competition, (2013) to name the few. Her music has been featured at the NYCEMF, ICMC, SEAMUS, EMM, SCI, ACMC, Tenor, New Music Gathering, Turn Up, Splice Festival, Performing Media Art Festival, New Music on the Bayou, Hot Air Music Festival, Moxonic Festival, Studio 300, Beast Feast, Mantis Festival, ISSTA, Klint Gut, among many others. She is the author of “Social Media and Music” (Peter Lang Press, 2012) and “Evaluation and Credentialing in Digital Music Communities” (MIT Press, 2014). Currently, she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Creative Arts at Miami University Regionals.
Rodrigo Cádiz—String spells—10:00 (s)
Elisabeth Stimpert, clarinet
String spells (2024) is a composition for clarinet, gametrack and live electronics, especially written for Elizabeth Stimpert.
Rodrigo F. Cádiz is a composer, researcher and engineer. He studied composition and electrical engineering at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC) in Santiago and he obtained his Ph.D. in Music Technology from Northwestern University. His compositions, consisting of approximately 60 works, have been presented at several venues and festivals around the world. His catalogue considers works for solo instruments, chamber music, symphonic and robot orchestras, visual music, computers, and new interfaces for musical expression. He has received several composition prizes and artistic grants both in Chile and the US. He has authored around 60 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals and international conferences. His areas of expertise include sonification, sound synthesis, audio digital processing, computer music, composition, new interfaces for musical expression and the musical applications of complex systems. He has obtained research funds from Chilean governmental agencies, such as ANID and CNCA. He received a Google Latin American Research Award (LARA) in the field of auditory graphs. In 2018, Rodrigo was a composer in residence with the Stanford Laptop orchestra (SLOrk) at the Center for Computer-based Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), and a Tinker Visiting Professor at the Center for Latin American Studies, Stanford University. In 2019, he received the Prize for Excellence in Artistic Creation at UC. He was the chair of the 2021 edition of the International Computer Music Conference. He is currently a professor at both the Music Institute and Electrical Engineering Department at UC.
Elisabeth Stimpert is a founding member of the new-music ensemble Alarm Will Sound. She serves as Associate Professor of Music at the University of Central Missouri where she directs the UCM Clarinet Studio, New Technologies Ensemble, and co-directs the annual MOXsonic Festival.
Cerulean S. Payne-Passmore—All That You Touch You Change —5:00 (s)
In this piece, you will hear chaotic, fractal-like cascades melt into ghostly whispers and crystalline structures shimmer into demonic radio static. The sound is produced by the feedback loop formed by my laptop’s mic and speaker. It is controlled somewhat like a theremin, with the shape and distance of the hand from the microphone impacting how sound waves leave or return into the loop. The feedback loop acts as both an instrument and a live processing effect. And when this sound passes through two different transposition processes, it generates unstable patterns of recursive intervallic relationships.
While creating this piece, I read Octavia Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower and noticed many layers of feedback cycles. Set in a near-future dystopia shaped by the feedback cycles of climate change, Parable of the Sower often returns to the relationship between belief and action. Our beliefs shape our actions, our actions construct our world, and our world in turn shapes our beliefs. Inspired by Butler’s metaphor of touch, I wondered if I could render a feedback cycle tangible. Would I learn anything about my own role in the greater feedback cycles in which I am embedded? I found that in this feedback cycle, simple patterns can manifest quickly out of chaos, nearly imperceptible motions can effect massive changes, and stillness, rather than motion, is sometimes the most potent intensifier.
Cerulean S. Payne-Passmore (they/them) is a composer from Philadelphia, PA currently pursuing doctoral studies in music composition as a Benjamin Franklin Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, studying with Tyshawn Sorey. Their current research focuses on live-processing of acoustic sound, creating generative, interactive electroacoustic environments, feedback synthesis, and integrating their harmonic practice within a semi-improvisatory framework. Recently they have collaborated with bassoonist Dana Jessen, the TAK Ensemble, and yarn/wire. Their work often returns to themes of climate change, genderqueer expression, and making what seems strange sound beautiful.
Brody Washam—the love we deserve —5:00 (4)
“the love we deserve” is an original composition featuring delay modulation and processing of live glass marimba loops in quadraphonic surround. The sound of the glass marimba is being fed into a pedal board, where the signal is run through a subtle chorus and a digital delay, of which the rate is being modified in real time. Phrases are performed and looped in Ableton Live as the delay settings are modulated, as well as where the loops appear within the quadraphonic field.
Inspired by a variety of scores from films such as “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “The Social Network”, the work starts as a guided ambient improvisation, with the melodic phrases creating new polyphony and harmony with each other every time they repeat, all supported my a blanket of tonic. As the piece evolves, it becomes more rhythmically and melodically centered, until this structure breaks and the music returns to a familiar ambient soundscape, ending on a persistent reassurance of tonic.
Brody Washam is a sophomore studying Music Technology at the University of Central Missouri. He is an avid percussionist, specializing in drum set, as well as a multi-instrumentalist and composer working within a multitude of musical styles. He has composed four works for percussion and technology while at UCM, implementing techniques such as live sample processing and triggering using drumhead sensors/contact microphones. In addition to his performing within various UCM ensembles, he is also a member of the band Oxford Remedy, a Kansas City based grunge and indie rock group.
Benjamin Damann—the king of nothing—4:00 (s)
Benjamin Damann is a composer, percussionist, and music technologist. His works — inspired by probability, indeterminacy, improvisation, and the timbral manipulation of acoustic instruments through physical preparation and electroacoustic augmentation — have been performed throughout the United States and Europe.
He is devoted to realizing electronic, experimental, and graphical works for percussion as well as programming software to aid in the performance of such works. Benjamin holds a BM in percussion performance with a concentration in composition from Eastern Illinois University, an MM in Composition from Bowling Green State University, and is currently pursuing his PhD from the University of North Texas.
Mutien Lai—Farewell—4:30 (s)
“Farewell” is a piano with fixed media and live electronics piece that explores the complex emotions of letting go. The first part of the music depicts a strings of present experience, with quick and overwhelming transitions between themes representing mixed feelings of joy, excitement, irony, frustration, loneliness, satisfaction, and struggle. At the very end, the music shifts into blurred and far away, a dream-like quality, evoking a sense of nostalgia and the acceptance of letting go of something good.
Mutien Lai, a musician hailing from Taiwan, is a pianist and composer currently pursuing her studies in composition and piano performance at Cincinnati-Conservatory of Music (CCM). With a strong foundation in piano performance, Mutien earned her Master’s degree in Piano Performance under the guidance of the renowned pianist Soyeon Kate Lee at CCM. Her educational journey began at Taipei National University of the Arts in Taiwan, where she obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance while studying with Mei-Ling Chien.
Mutien’s musical journey has been marked by a deep commitment to both classical piano and contemporary composition. While she has been active as a collaborative pianist, and frequently performs in recitals, competitions, and auditions, her journey has evolved to encompass a burgeoning interest in composition. She has cultivated a keen interest in electronic music, exploring the fusion of classical and contemporary electronic elements in her compositions.
Hermetic Fever (Louis Lopez and Joshua Gerowitz) + Georgia Bell—10:00 (s)
Electro-acoustic improvisation from Georgia Bell (double bass), Louis Lopez (trumpet, Max), and Josh Gerowitz (guitar, efx)
Louis Lopez is a performer/composer/engineer working in Los Angeles. His live performances incorporate trumpet, electronics, and custom software that he builds. He has performed and recorded with Wadada Leo Smith, Mike Keneally, Todd Hannigan, and Twin Temple. His project, Hermetic Fever, with guitarist Josh Gerowitz is an improvised duo based in Los Angeles with their debut album set to release in 2023. He has done sound design for film and television including Patagonia’s films Fish People, Finding Fontinalis, and Takayna. Louis can be found rebuilding and modifying vintage audio gear and teaching music production at Pasadena City College.
Georgia (E.) Bell is a double bassist, vocalist, improviser, composer, painter, and champion of the 21st century salon. She is a founding member of SatanNotSatan, a quarterly gathering for experimental musicians and artists in Los Angeles since 2014. Bell’s original songwriting employs a combination of jazz harmony, post-classical chamber music, and contemporary poetry. As an improviser, Bell is breaking new ground with the exploration of innovative extended techniques on double bass. Her debut solo album IN THE MOOD FOR SLUDGE is an exploration of these techniques in the form of two loosely structured 20-minute improvisations.
Joshua Gerowitz is a composer, performer, improviser, and guitarist who resides in Los Angeles. His work is concerned with live human interaction, the juxtaposition of premeditation and spontaneity, as well as the fickle nature of our perceptual senses. His recordings have been referred to as “eccentric and original work of multidimensional and captivating music” (Vital Weekly), and he has been called “a creative soul with hugely impressive chops, as his keen vision is assertively concentrated on blazing newer trails” (All About Jazz). Gerowitz is a cofounder (with Georgia Bell) of SatanNotSatan (a community based multi-disciplinary artistic salon founded in 2014).