- Eric Honour • Rushpusher • for live electronics • 8 • 7
- Jay Batzner • Five Bagatelles (about buildings and food) • for toy piano and mini-synths • Stereo • 8
- Alex Smith • Ode to My VW Golf • For percussion, voice, and electronics • 4 • 5
- Anna Meadors • Rude Solo Light • for saxophone & no-input mixer • Stereo • 8
- Alexandria Smith and Caroline Miller • Oxyluciferin • Voices, trumpet, and electronics • 4 • 8
- John Thompson • Intertwine • for audiovisual system and drum machine • 8 • 8
- Total: (28) 44 mins
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Rushpusher
for live electronics
Eric Honour
Rushed onto a Push, Rushpusher features a rush of buttons pushed rushedly, to push a sense of rushing, pushy music, pressing close like pushing through a dense bed of rushes. Also, a bass may be dropped.
Devoted to exploring and furthering the intersections of music and technology, Eric Honour’s work as a composer and saxophonist has been featured around the world in numerous international conferences and festivals like ICMC, SEAMUS, MUSLAB, Sonorities, EMM, NYCEMF, and others. A member of the Athens Saxophone Quartet, he performs regularly in Europe and the United States, and has presented lectures and masterclasses at many leading institutions.
Honour is Chair of the School of Visual and Performing Arts, Professor of music, and founder of the Center for Music Technology at the University of Central Missouri, teaching courses in acoustics, music technology, and composition. His work as an audio engineer and producer appears on the Innova, Centaur, Ravello, and Irritable Hedgehog labels, among others, as well as on numerous independent releases and he has served as an acoustics consultant and designer on projects ranging from recording studios to classrooms to auditoriums and performance spaces, most recently serving as the principal designer of UCM’s cutting-edge music technology studios, which opened in 2022.
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Five Bagatelles (about buildings and food)
for toy piano and mini-synths
Jay Batzner
These pieces grew out of my RPM Challenge album for 2024. Each movement is a structured improvisation that focuses on mainly lo-fi and ambient moods. If chosen for MOXsonic, I’ll play a selection of these pieces.
Multi-award winning costume creator Jay Batzner (b. 1974) is better known for his musical activities than his sewing skills. While he has sung in Tosca and danced in The Nutcracker, it is his repertoire of original compositions which has earned him the most recognition.
Jay is a composer who has Done Things and Been Performed Places. His catalog ranges from traditional ensembles such as natural horn + live electronics, 4-hand organ duo, and countertenor + alto sax, to the unusual and idiosyncratic ensembles of voice + piano, unaccompanied bassoon, and choir. His works have been performed on all habitable planets in the known universe.
As a collaborator, Jay has created music with numerous choreographers, visual artists, and poets. His interdisciplinary work with Team Hyena Puppet has led to the production of several science-based dance pieces, a journal article, a book chapter, several conference presentations, and a feature in Forbes. It is through this work that Jay claims to know more about hyena mating behaviors than any other musician on the planet.
Currently, Jay rambles about music and various tangents (comic books, science fiction, hyena mating behaviors, etc.) at Central Michigan University. He has degrees from Serious Places but that was a long time ago. Right now Jay is completing his first full-length opera (his first opera was pretty short) and trying to get better at chess. Actually right now Jay is writing this biography but you get the idea.
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Ode to My VW Golf
For percussion, voice, and electronics
Alex Smith
Ode to My VW Golf is a tune for drums, voice, and electronics. I was fortunate to drive my VW golf for 14 years before it became undriveable in fall 2024. I am a percussionist and woodworker, which often requires me to haul large amounts of gear; my trusty Golf never failed me, and I packed it to the brim on multiple occasions. Doing so would often get me lots of laughs by onlookers, particularly at the lumber yard. The tune is an ode to my VW, while poking some fun at large trucks that never reach their full potential, and the recent direction of certain truck designs.
I grew up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and I’ve recently been wanting to reconnect with those musical experiences. This tune is the first of several that will likely go on an experimental, satirical, country-bluegrassy-Southern rock, something or other album.
In terms of the technology, I use the BinkLooper in Ableton to automate arming and launching a series of clips. Drum triggers and dummy clips are used to trigger sounds and automate their musical parameters. The voice and simpler instruments are processed live, under the influence of the drum signal in envelope follower.
Alex Smith is a musician, scholar, technologist, instrument maker and educator. He is Associate Professor of Percussion at University of Central Missouri (August 2017). He received a DMA from Michigan State University (2019) along with an MM in percussion performance and an MA in musicology/ethnomusicology (2015). Alex earned his undergraduate degree from East Carolina University (2010).
Alex released his first album, Determined Volumes, with the pfMENTUM label in October 2020. He released his second album, TrnslcntTkn, with Mother Brain Records in May 2022. The quartet he is a part of, Without Borders, has toured in Taiwan, Japan, and the US; they released their first album, String Quartet No. 5, with Chorphilia in Taiwan in March 2023. He received a Fulbright-Hays DDRA to conduct original research for eight months in Ghana from Dec 2018-Aug 2019. Alex endorses Vic Firth-Zildjian and Ludwig-Musser.
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Rude Solo Light Program Note:
My creative practice focuses on improvisation and exploration, using both familiar and unconventional tools to discover and play with sounds. Recently, the no-input mixer has become a key element in my work. Its unpredictable, chaotic nature aligns with my approach to music: embracing spontaneity and finding beauty in the unexpected.
This piece is a structured improvisation for no-input mixer and saxophone, where feedback loops and distortion interact with the saxophone’s signal. It is a duet between unruly circuitry and myself.
Many thanks to Dani Dobkin for introducing me to this wild instrument.
Bio: Anna Meadors is a composer, saxophonist, producer and educator. Her music is inspired by nature walks and small details, birds, slightly uneven pulses, the buzzy stillness of bodies of water, and joyful improvisation. Her saxophone playing has been described as “potently feral” (American Pancake) and “sprawling across the walls and dripping onto the floor all John Zorn-like” (Outside Left). She has compositions on albums by Party of One (Madefor records), clarinetist Andy Hudson (Potenza Records), percussionist Evan Chapman, and Consortium Works (people places records). As a saxophonist, she is lead soloist in the jazz-rock trio Joy on Fire, which has been called “a thrill of high voltage jazz ‘n’ roll” (All About Jazz) and has been featured twice on Bob Boilen’s All Songs Considered, NPR. Anna has engineered and co-produced the last three Joy on Fire albums, has filmed and edited two of their recent music videos, and is currently working on a solo saxophone and electronics album. Anna recently finished her Ph.D. at Princeton University in Music Composition and is the Assistant Director of Columbia University’s Computer Music Center, where she teaches classes on electronic music composition, production and recording.
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Oxyluciferin
Voices, trumpet, and electronics
Alexandria Smith and Caroline Miller
Oxyluciferin is a byproduct of the chemical reaction between luciferin, a light-producing compound found in bioluminescent organisms, and luciferase, the enzyme (catalyst) that reacts to luciferin. This reaction occurs as luciferin is oxidized, releasing energy that manifests as light. Oxyluciferin is generated during light-emitting processes in bioluminescent organisms such as fireflies and the eye-flash squid. It is volatile and unstable, making it difficult to study and handle. Various molecular forms of oxyluciferin or environmental conditions such as temperature, pH, and solvent polarity can influence the color of light that is emitted. These organisms can be found deep in oceans, lagoons, caves, and on land. The process continues to evolve and develop as the climate changes and new adaptations are formed.
Oxyluciferin is one instance in our process-based body of work that explores eco and bio themes through a queer feminist lens. In co-composing, we dream up sonic structures that amplify the non-human: biochemical processes, cryptic geologies, and “alien” or “extreme” ecosystems. Radical empathy with and embodiment of these features drives our exploration of sound, structure, and musical relationship.
In this piece, we explore the biochemical process of bioluminescence and organisms that emit light with this phenomena through sound. We use live electronics, atmospheric soundscapes, trumpet, and our voices to animate new relationships with these non-human entities and with each other. Throughout the piece, you will hear sections of composed and improvised explorations of chemical processes and highlights of various organisms that co-exists in this system.
Caroline Louise Miller (they/them) is a US composer based in Portland, Oregon. Common themes addressed in their work include affect, ecology, labor politics, tactility, materiality of media, dreams, and hidden dimensions of reality or history, often within dreamlike musical spaces that thread field recordings, shimmering textures, and romantic melodic lines through harsh noise and clattering dissonances. They have enjoyed wide-ranging collaborations, including works for musical theater, short film, contemporary chamber ensemble, installation, acousmatic fixed media, field recording, improvisation, and jazz big band. Collaborations have most recently included funding through Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble, Sonic Matter Festival, Alarm Will Sound/Matt Marks Impact Fund, SPLICE Ensemble, Chamber Music America, Guerilla Opera, Transient Canvas, Ensemble Adapter, and others. Their music is performed nationally and internationally. Caroline is currently Assistant Professor of Sonic Arts at Portland State University, where they teach courses including electronic music composition, songwriting, studio production, and music for visual media. http://www.carolinelouisemiller.com/
Alexandria Smith is a multimedia artist, audio engineer, scholar, and educator who enjoys working at the intersection of all these disciplines. Her research focuses on integrating critical-making methods into instrument design and creating interactive musical systems, installations, and instruments. She also builds wearable instruments that incorporate biofeedback and sensor technology to explore embodiment and listening. Her work has been presented at conferences such as AES, ICMC, SEAMUS, and MoxSonic, and published in Arcana Musicians on Music X. Alexandria’s work has been presented at the Stone NYC, FONT Festival West, VI Semana Internacional de Improvisación, and at the NienteForte Concert Series. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at the Georgia Institute of Technology where leads the Interactive Music, Performance, Audio, and Creative Technologies Lab and teaches courses in creative technologies, interactive music, history and repertoire, and recording. alexandriasmithmusic.com
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Intertwine
for audiovisual system and drum machine
John Thompson
Intertwine is an audiovisual work that explores tight coupling of audio and visual elements. It is performed using a combination of elements including drum machine and direct control of the audiovisual system.
Intertwined is rooted in the works of John and James Whitney, Norman McLaren, Lance Putnam, and Len Lye.
John Thompson teaches, composes and conducts research in the areas of computer music and music technology. He currently directs the Music Technology program at Georgia Southern University where he is Professor of Music. He has a continuing interest in interdisciplinary studies, and seeks to highlight and follow new paths in music.