- Travis Garrison
Who Knows
(6 mins) (8) - Robin Cox
MACHINE
(7 mins) (4) - Eric Lyon
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery!
(8 mins) (2) - Cort Lippe, composer
Patti Cudd, performer
Duo for Cajon and Computer
(9 mins) (2) - Midwest Sushi
Approaching Ozymandias
(7 mins) (2) - Daniel McKemie
Echo Organism
(5 mins) (1) - Chris Mercer and Brad Robin
Mercurial
(8 mins) (8) - Maxwell Miller
Physical Media
(8 mins) (2) - (58 mins) (23)
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Travis Garrison
Who Knows
What?
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Robin Cox
MACHINE
A work inspired by an enormous combine harvester and the many analogies to life it conjured.
Robin Cox is a composer, violinist, multidisciplinary collaborator, and technologist addressing intersections of acoustic and electronic sound, visual media, and new listening methods and environments. He has also directed The Robin Cox Ensemble in over 170 performances, produced numerous albums of contemporary music, premiered over 100 works by other artists, created the large scale community dance participation event HOURGLASS, co-invented the immersive audio/video performance venue BIG TENT, an directed a mixed-media concert series as founder of Iridian Arts.
Cox has received numerous awards, including multiple Lester Horton Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Music for Dance and an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for the founding of Iridian Radio. He holds degrees from the Univ. of Texas at Austin, Univ. of Michigan, and the Univ. of Miami, and after many years on faculty at California St. Univ. Long Beach Bob Cole Conservatory and California Institute of the Arts, Dr. Cox joined the Music and Arts Technology faculty at Indiana University University Indianapolis in fall of 2013.
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Eric Lyon
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery!
Allen Ginsburg’s poem Howl was published in 1956, the same year as the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. The two events portend seemingly incompatible futures that nonetheless are both with us now. A bursting forth of cultural chaos in an “armed madhouse” and the technocratic reduction of intelligence to code. Ginsburg’s ritualistic and repetitive rant about Moloch inspired this performance, a tone poem that derives its sounds from two main sources – AI-generated music and the OB-Xd virtual analog synthesizer VST plugin manipulated using the Slewable Utility for Random Parameters (SLURP) designed by the composer.
Eric Lyon is a composer and audio researcher focused on high-density loudspeaker arrays, dynamic timbres, virtual drum machines, and performer-computer interactions. His audio signal processing software includes “FFTease” and “LyonPotpourri.” He has authored two computer music books, “Designing Audio Objects for Max/MSP and Pd,” a guidebook for writing audio DSP code for live performance, and “Automated Sound Design,” a book that presents technical processes for implementing oracular synthesis and processing of sound across a wide domain of audio applications.
In 2015-16, Lyon architected both the Spatial Music Workshop and Cube Fest at Virginia Tech to support the work of other artists working with high-density loudspeaker arrays. In 2025 he created the Spatial Audio Tidepool to provide technical instruction for creative uses of high-density loudspeaker arrays. Lyon’s compositional work has been recognized with a ZKM Giga-Hertz prize, MUSLAB award, the League ISCM World Music Days competition, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Lyon is Professor of Practice in the School of Performing Arts at Virginia Tech, and is a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology.
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Cort Lippe, composer
Patti Cudd, performer
Duo for Cajon and Computer
Cajon and electronics
Duo for Cajón and Computer was commissioned by percussionist Patti Cudd for a tour of Korea and Thailand. The electronic part was created at the Hiller Computer Music Studios of the University at Buffalo using Max/MSP software.
The computer listens to and analyzes the live cajón performance in real time using Miller Puckette’s bonk~ object. This tool detects when and how the cajón is struck, its loudness, timbre, and spectral content across 11 frequency bands. The resulting data—from large-scale rhythm to detailed frequency information—is used to shape the computer’s audio output by controlling synthesis and compositional algorithms dynamically.
As the performer interacts with the system, they influence all aspects of the computer-generated sound. The goal is to create a real-time dialogue that is both intimate and responsive, where the computer reacts musically to the performer’s expressive choices. The performer may guide the electronic output subtly or overtly, making each performance unique.
Musically, the computer functions both as an extension of the cajón—amplifying and transforming its acoustic identity—and as an independent musical partner. This dual role creates a rich, layered interaction, much like traditional chamber music, where individual expression and ensemble cohesion coexist.
The electronic sound palette is shaped through a variety of techniques, including resonant filter banks, formant and comb filters, delay and feedback, frequency shifting, modulation synthesis, spatialization, spectral processing, and sample playback.
Duo for Cajón and Computer is dedicated to Max Mathews, a pioneer of computer music, who passed away in April 2011.
Duo for Cajón and Computer (2011) by composer Cort Lippe is an interactive electroacoustic work that explores the dynamic relationship between live percussion and real-time computer processing. The piece was written for percussionist Patti Cudd and features the cajón—a traditional wooden box drum—as the sole acoustic instrument. Using Max/MSP software, the computer analyzes the performer’s gestures in real time and generates electronic responses that evolve organically with the live performance. The result is a fluid and expressive dialogue, where the electronics respond to the performer’s playing rather than simply accompanying it. Each performance is unique, shaped by the nuances of the performer’s interpretation and the computer’s real-time responses.
Patti Cudd is a percussionist and educator known for her commitment to contemporary and electroacoustic music. She is a member of the acclaimed new music ensemble Zeitgeist and has premiered hundreds of works by leading composers. She teaches at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls and has performed internationally at festivals and institutions dedicated to experimental music. Her three-CD collection Eos includes 16 commissioned electroacoustic works, including Duo for Cajón and Computer.
Cort Lippe is a composer and researcher specializing in interactive computer music. He worked at IRCAM in Paris and has worked extensively in the field of real-time sound processing. Lippe taught at the University at Buffalo, where he directed the Lejaren Hiller Computer Music Studios. His compositions explore the intersection of acoustic performance and electronic transformation, often using custom software to create responsive musical environments.
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Brian; Justus; Jackson; Arya Johnston; Burdick; Quigley; Pennington
Midwest Sushi
Approaching Ozymandias
Electronics, found percussion, and vocals.
During this piece various elements are used to create texture and to move through different environments, representing various locations and events taking place within a wasteland. A contact mic is being used during this piece on a few objects such as a locking carabiner, and one of our members’ facial hair. Follow actions, live playing, and live sound modulation are all included in this piece, as well as eerie vocals that are introduced and processed as life begins to grow in the wasteland. The piece includes sounds that range from dry and sparse, to sounds that flourish and overcome the wasteland, paired with vocals to as a physical representation of life within the piece. Both improvised and planned techniques are used to create a smooth yet spontaneous feeling.
Midwest Sushi is an experimental electronic group that works with ambient, noise, and various electronic genres. We aim to push these styles (and more) in our own ways, creating not only songs but also soundscapes. The piece being performed, Approaching Ozymandias, is a haunting soundscape that intends to take its listeners through a journey of death, and the reintroduction of life in a barren world. During this piece various elements are used to create texture and to move through different environments, representing various locations and events taking place within the wasteland. Sounds contained within the piece are created through the use of playing midi instruments, contact microphones, vocalizations, and many kinds of modulation. A mixture of both planned and improvised playing are displayed for the purposes of spontaneity, and cohesion, that life often also displays. This piece leads you from sparse deserts, damp industrial rooms, past walls filled with squeaking creatures, into a representation of the world’s rebirth.
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Daniel McKemie
Echo Organism
Calling upon the aesthetics of bio art, feedback systems, and noise music, Echo Organism is an exploration in the reactions of sound within the extremes of natural and artificial resonant chambers. The performer wires contact microphones around their throat where they are routed into a feedback matrix system before being fed into a computer. Using the Signal Crate framework developed by the composer, a series if resonant filter banks and custom convolution modules maneuver the behaviors of imaginary spaces. Drawing on inspiration from early examples of live electronic music performance by Robert Ashley and Pauline Oliveros, Echo Organism aims to see how far the limits of technology, in this case both digital and analog, can be pushed before starting to unravel.
Daniel McKemie is a composer, technologist, researcher, and percussionist based in Oneonta, New York. His work focuses on audio feature extraction and low-level signal processing to explore timbre and novel synthesis techniques. Additionally, he designs innovative methods for interfacing handmade circuitry, modular synthesizers, and embedded systems with both legacy and contemporary software to achieve his musical results. This approach enables the creation of complex, responsive performance environments and compositional processes controllable from multiple angles.
Daniel currently serves as a Lecturer at SUNY Oneonta, where he teaches courses on electronic music, audio arts, and music history. He earned his MS in Computer Science at Brooklyn College, where he worked as a graduate research assistant in Professor Johanna Devaney’s Laboratory for Understanding Music and Audio (LUMaA), and served as an adjunct lecturer teaching courses in computer music.
His music has been performed throughout Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia, and his research on computer music and web-based audio/composition techniques has been presented and published internationally at conferences including the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), the Korean Electro-Acoustic Music Society (KEAMS), the Australasian Computer Music Association (ACMA), the International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research (CMMR), the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS), and the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC), among others.
Daniel has studied with Morton Subotnick, Roscoe Mitchell, William Winant, Dean Gronemeier, and Pauline Oliveros, and has collaborated with a wide range of artists and organizations, including the New York Deaf Theatre, Larry Polansky, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal-Toronto Art Orchestra, Funsch Dance Experience, Christian Wolff, Bob Ostertag, and Steve Schick. He also earned his MA in Music Composition from Mills College, and his BA in Music Performance from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
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Chris Mercer and Brad Robin
Mercurial
2 Keyboardists, Live Electronics, and Fixed Media
Mercurial is a structured improvisation with fixed media, using synthesis, instrument samples, and live processing extending into microtonality, timbral deconstruction, and physically impossible musical gestures. The incorporation of fixed media provides useful formal constraints for improvisation, and the scherzo-like character of the playback material suggests the style of improvisation—rapid moves, delicate sounds, and close coordination between improvisers. The fixed media part for Mercurial was created by Brad Robin.
Chris Mercer is a Chicago-based composer, songwriter, and improvisor. He received a B.M. in Composition at the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1995 and a Ph.D. in Composition at the University of California, San Diego in 2003. His principal teachers were Chaya Czernowin and Chinary Ung, instrumental music, and Peter Otto and Roger Reynolds, electronic music. He has held artist residencies at Experimentalstudio SWR, Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, and Sound Traffic Control in San Francisco. He has held animal communication research at the Duke Lemur Center, the Brookfield Zoo, and the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center. His music has been performed by Fonema Consort, Ensemble Ascolta, Ensemble SurPlus, SONOR Ensemble, Schlagquartett Köln, and the Kairos Percussion Quartet. He has taught electronic music at UC San Diego, UC Irvine, and CalArts; he currently teaches composition and music technology at Northwestern University.
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Maxwell Miller
Physical Media
for CD player and Electronics
Physical Media is a piece which utilizes some recordings taken from an old family cabin as its primary materials. There is a recording of a John Denver and Plácido Domingo CD which skips in a CD player, as well as a soundscape recording taken from the front porch which features some birds and environmental sounds. These sounds are then taken and processed, becoming abstracted from their source recordings. The processed recordings have been arranged and burned to a CD, which is then manipulated in real time by the performer.
Maxwell Miller’s art blends elements of performance art, video art, and experimental music to create chaotic listening spaces. He is often involved with performances of his works, either taking to the stage as an electronics operator or as a performer. He has presented works at Electronic Music Midwest, Performing Media Festival, and the SPLICE Institute, and was the recipient of the 2023 Franklin G. Fisk Composition Award. He is currently the Program Coordinator for the SPLICE Institute, a weeklong summer program which takes place in Kalamazoo, MI.
He currently studies as a doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He received a Master’s of Music Composition from Western Michigan University, and a Bachelor’s of Music Composition from Central Washington University. His composition instructors include Eli Fieldsteel, Kerry Hagan, Lisa Coons, Christopher Biggs, Jiyoun Chung, and Martin Kennedy.
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