Bill Seaman / John Supko

Scott Lindroth

Travis Garrison

Keith Allegretti

Lee Weissert

Lin Culbertson

Daniel Blinkhorn

Melissa Grey / Jan de Weille

[Miolina, Lynn Bechtold & Mioi Takeda]

Thomas Rex Beverly

Rodney Waschka II

Stephen Anderson

Lynn Bechtold

[Miolina]

Elainie Lillios / Bonnie Mitchell

Bill Seaman's work employs various technological means to explore image/music/text relations through an expanded technological poetics. The combination and recombination of media elements and processes in interactive and generative works of art unfold as a process of meaning/becoming he calls “Recombinant Poetics.” Historically, he has explored interactive computational meta-meaning systems that enable participants to become mindfully aware of how meaning arises and changes through use. His music often combines his own structured piano improvisations and composed selections of samples as well as computational and analog abstractions. Seaman is interested in new forms of computation and learning systems in addition to notions of computational creativity: using the computer as a generative tool as well as working toward future intelligent computational systems. For more information please visit www.billseaman.com.

Called “spellbindingly beautiful” (Steve Smith, Time Out New York), the work of composer John Supko explores intersections: chance and intention; traditional music notation and real-time score generation; sound and spoken text; installation and performance; human and computer creativity. In recent years, Supko has been developing generative software to navigate his vast archives of field recordings, sampled acoustic and digital instruments, noise, and voice recordings. He uses this software to find unexpected compositional possibilities as well as to create dynamic sonic environments that are integrated into live performance with human musicians. For more information please visit www.johnsupko.com.

s_traits is an ongoing collaboration between Bill Seaman and John Supko. It started in 2011 with conversations about generative music and how to make it. The two quickly discovered that they had been independently exploring what might be described as the “uploading” of human creativity to the computer: Supko’s work involved developing software that emulated his compositional process; Seaman was investigating how creativity could be codified and reanimated through artificially intelligent systems.

1) the drive is on the blink
2) flung overboard as poetic justice
3) at the end of the mouth

Scott Lindroth (b. 1958) composes music for chamber ensembles, wind ensemble, orchestra, and electronic media. His music has been performed by the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the Seattle Symphony, among others. His interactive motion-to-music system, SoundSpace, has been exhibited continuously at the NC Museum of Life and Science for 5 years. Current project include new works for the Meehan/Perkins Duo as well as for chamber orchestra. Lindroth has been on the faculty at Duke University since 1990.

Every detail of Twitter Music is generated by text patterns found in a set of 1000 English-language Twitter messages posted shortly after the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Every message contains the word “osama”. The sonification makes audible the different communities of shared tweets about this momentous event. I pay no attention to the meaning of the words. As a reminder of the music's origins, a screenshot of the algorithm in action runs simultaneously with the performance, offering the audience a chance to see the emerging communities centered around particular shared terms (on lines beginning with "---->").

Travis Garrison is a composer, theorist, audio engineer, and performer of electroacoustic music. Garrison's composition selectric.metal will be included on the forthcoming "Electronic Masters” CD series on ABLAZE Records. His works have been performed at important festivals including the ICMC, SEAMUS, EMM, the Symposium on Arts and Technology, and the NYCEMF. Currently on the staff of East Carolina University where he has taught electronic music composition, Garrison holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from the University of Florida, an MA from Dartmouth College, and a BA from the University of California, San Diego.

selectric.metal: Type. Bounce. Hit. Manufacture. Drone. Mix. Bake. Serve.

A native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Keith Allegretti is a composer and pianist. He holds degrees in composition from Rice University (B. Mus., 2012) and the University of Michigan (M. Mus., 2014). A composer who enjoys working in all genres from camber to orchestral and even musical theater, Keith has had performances in Santa Fe, Houston, Berlin, Ann Arbor and elsewhere by professional and amateur ensembles. Among the groups that have performed his work are Santa Fe New Music, Quartetto Indaco, the Rice University Chorale, the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, the American Creators Ensemble, and the Santa Fe Community Orchestra. Awards and recognitions include first place in the Santa Fe Community Orchestra Composition Competition (2012) and the University of Michigan Arthur and Mary Platsis Award (2013). Past teachers include Richard Lavenda, Anthony Brandt, Pierre Jalbert, Kurt Stallmann, Paul Schoenfield, and Michael Daugherty.

Bubble Coitus was created using purely electronic technology, without any reliance on recorded sound. Opening with a series of broad gestures build out of synthesized pops, the piece paints images of thousands of tiny bubbles in a cloud. These clouds move through different densities, contours, and volume levels, each one painstaking constructed to be different from the others. The sonic result is something that is organic and tactilely stimulating.

Lee Weisert is a composer of instrumental and electronic music whose compositional interests include physical (re)modeling, recursive structures, and microsound. His recent music has incorporated increasingly disparate elements such as orchestral instruments, field recordings, digital synthesis, and analog circuitry, in an attempt to find, "through experimentation, tinkering, and unconventional approaches, a ritualistic and deeply expressive world of sound." Wild Arc, his debut CD of acoustic and electronic compositions, was released in 2014 on New Focus Recordings, and has been praised by critics as "dazzling" and "mind-melting."He is currently an assistant professor at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Étude Géologique No. 2 is the second in a series of electroacoustic compositions that uses natural (i.e. geological) materials as source sounds. Several hundred recordings were made of bottles, crock pot lids, window panes, carboys (large vessels used for brewing beer), crystal glasses, and salad bowls. With the exception of amplitude shaping, the recordings are heard in their unaltered state. The formal structure consists of 33 sections ranging in duration from four to thirty seconds. Thus, the concept of "formal section" veers at times indistinguishably into that of "gesture."

Musician and composer Lin Culbertson’s experience as an improvisor greatly informs her sound work. Her compositions are comprised of synthesized sounds, field recordings, and conventional instruments, and incorporate aspects of indeterminacy in their arrangement and performance. The influence of her graphic design background is evident in the use of graphic scores and visual translation software to include non-musical elements in the sound creation process. She is a founding member of the improvisational unit White Out.

Aural Spiral #1 is the first in a series of compositions which are inspired by Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. In this study, the imagined ambient surroundings of the original installation site have been loosely rendered in synthesized sound. A photograph of the actual Spiral Jetty has been transmuted into sound through the use of a computer program. The rhythmic pulsing of water and wind lays the foundation for the first appearance of the jetty aural event. With each subsequent appearance, the duration parameter of the event is half as long as the preceding one, accelerating to the point of spiral origin. Finally the spiral submerges, sinking into obscurity beneath the pulsing waves.

Daniel Blinkhorn is an Australian composer and new media artist who works extensively with electroacoustic music. His creative works have received over 25 international and national composition awards and has worked in a variety of creative, academic, research and teaching contexts. He is an ardent environmental sound field recordist, where he has embarked upon a growing number of recording expeditions around the world. www.bookofsand.com.au

hermetica attempts to capture the sonic vitality accompanying the life of a colony of hermit crabs. After encountering a surreptitious colony of hermit crabs on an island off the coast of Venezuela, I was astounded to discover the wonderful world of sound contained within. As I stood and looked at the colony, I wondered what the small crabs sounded like. I was barely 5 feet away, yet could hear nothing of the activity within the colony. Fascinated by the idea of the arcane and hermetic textures they might create as they jostled and wrestled over one another in a somewhat confined space, I lowered a microphone into the colony in an attempt to eavesdrop, hoping to capture some semblance of their activities. Much to my surprise, the intensified mass of beautifully articulated sound I heard produced a distinct impression of motion and dexterity as the crabs grappled and vied within the colony. As I listened, what struck me most was the disparity occurring between that which I saw, and that which I heard. To see the crabs as they moved so slowly and awkwardly over one another produced a striking contrast to the sheer density and intensified activity portrayed by the sounds this action appeared to make.The work was very carefully processed to reveal this heightened aural activity, whilst nudging and transforming some of the sounds, the overall shape of the work was designed to create a portrait of the colony, allowing the listener to observe another aspect of sound ecology from a seascape environment.

Composer Melissa Grey’s projects include installations, food and music events, collaborations with artists, architectural designers, and students, as well as concert works and electroacoustic performances, described as “elegantly diabolical…technically complex…strikingly eerie and captivating” (furtherfield.org). Recent works have been published by The MIT Press and exhibited or performed at Parsons The New School for Design, National Gallery of Canada, Goethe-Institut Montréal, The Stone, Corridor at BolteLang, Dorsky Gallery, Judson Church, Whitney Museum of American Art (with Antenna International), Alphabet City Festivals 2010 AIR and 2009 WATER, 3rd, 4th, and 6th Streaming Festivals (Amsterdam), Cinesonika: First International Film and Video Festival of Sound Design, Reno Interdisciplinary Festival of New Media, and others. Find out more at melissagrey.net.

Jan de Weille has a PhD in biology from Utrecht University, Netherlands and is now working and living in Montpellier, France. He has been inspired by art students to write computer programs that help create musical pieces. His works have been largely influenced by minimal music and its contemporary variants. As a beginning electrophysiologist, Jan de Weille has been studying the electrical impulses generated at the bottom of electrosensitive organs in the skin of catfish. Catfish use this sense to locate prey in muddy water. His sound work has been included in Flow, an internet performance with Annie Abrahams on Waterwheel, curated by Suzon Fuks, Brisbane; Aqua Art sound broadcast (James Harris gallery, Miami); Wilderness Information Network (C. Peppermint, New York); Transrevelation (curated by Melissa Grey and Jim Briggs, NYC). Find out more at http://www.bram.org/sound/bow.html

Lateral Line: Three Electric Fish: "Fish use their lateral line system to detect water movement. The receptors in the lateral line consist of mechano-sensitive hair cells that are deflected by waterflow. Our inner ear and electroreceptive organs in certain fish are evolutionary derived from the lateral line organs. Kryptopterus bicirrhis, Gnathonemus petersii and Apteronotus albifrons are three electric fish that live in Southeast Asia, West Africa and South America, respectively. The bodies of these fish are covered with small organs, 'small pits', that are stimulated by weak electric fields such as those generated by prey animals. While the glass catfish Kryptopterus locates prey by sensing their electric fields, Gnathonemus and Apteronotus generate an electric field using discharges by modified muscle cells located in their tails. Because prey and other objects deform the electric field, these two fish are able to orient themselves even in muddy water.” – Jan de Weille

Violin parts composed by Melissa Grey for Miolina, Three Electric Fish Stereo Mix by Jan de Weille
Recordings courtesy of Dr. F. Bretschneider, department of biology, University of Utrecht, Netherlands

Miolina was formed in 2012 when artistic director/violinist Mioi Takeda decided to form a violin duo with longtime collaborator, violinist/composer Lynn Bechtold. Miolina specializes in violin duo music that employs the natural beauty and sound of the instruments, with or without electronics and video. They enjoy collaborating on new compositions with composers, as well as discovering hidden gems of the past. To date, they have worked with composers Melissa Grey, Takuma Itoh, Debra Kaye, Dary John Mizelle, Jeff Myers, Milica Paranosic, and Eric Tanguy, among others. Miolina's future productions include a performance at the Electronic Music Midwest Festival in Chicago; creating music for the 1928 film "Jujiro" by Teinosuke Kinugasa; and a collaborative performance with composer Martin Phelps in Paris, France. Both violinists are longtime advocates of new music, and have performed with various new music groups, including the American Symphony Orchestra, Composers Concordance, Glass Farm Ensemble, North/South Consonance, SEM Ensemble, & VIA.

Violinist Lynn Bechtold has appeared in recital throughout the U.S., Canada, Holland, and Switzerland. An advocate of contemporary music, she has worked with composers such as Gloria Coates, George Crumb, John Harbison, and John Heiss, and has premiered works on the Princeton Composers' Series and Composers Concordance. In 2001, she gave the premiere of "Violynn," a work for violin and electronics written for her by Alvin Lucier. As a chamber musician and member of the Lumina String Quartet, she has also performed in Italy, Japan, Russia, and Ukraine. She has performed with the Absolute Ensemble, the East Village Opera Company, the New York Symphonic Ensemble, the SEM Ensemble, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, and the Vermont Symphony.Her performances have been broadcast on CBC Radio, CBS TV, and NHK TV.

Since she settled in NYC, Japanese violinist Mioi Takeda earned her reputation as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player, and as a seasoned new music specialist in town. As Miolina's artistic director, her mission is clear: Encourage composers to write music for violin duo employing the natural beauty and sound of the instruments, without limitations. She also hopes to expand the violin-duo repertory for future generations. Mioi wants to help rediscover neglected violin-duo compositions by old masters, and to share the joy of current violin-duo music with her audiences. She also enjoys doing yoga and watching The Big Bang Theory when she is not playing the violin.

American composer Thomas Rex Beverly is a graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas where he received a bachelor’s degree in music composition. At Trinity, he studied with Timothy Kramer, David Heuser, Jack W. Stamps, and Brian Nelson. Beverly studied abroad in fall 2008 in Prague, Czech Republic. There he studied composition with the Czech composer Michal Rataj. He has had pieces performed at the 2013 Electroacoustic Barn Dance Festival, the 2014 Biennial Symposium for Arts and Technology at Connecticut College, 2014 National Student Electronic Music Event at Georgia Southern University, the 2014 SCI Iowa New Music Symposium, the 2014 TransX Transmissions Art Symposium in Toronto, Canada, the 2014 Sweet Thunder Electroacoustic Festival, 2014 New York City Electroacoustic Festival, the 2014 International Computer Music Conference, and the 2014 So Percussion Summer Institute. He is currently studying at Bowling Green State University in their Master of Music Composition degree program where he is studying with Elainie Lillios and Christopher Dietz.

Dancing Tree is product of my fascination with slow growth. The tree in this time-lapse video is about 300 years old, but is only 15 feet tall because of the desert environment where it grows. The music in this piece is a sonification of the subtle, but often frenetic movement of the dancing tree on one windy day in the desert of west Texas.

Rodney Waschka II, composer, is best known for his unusual operas and his algorithmic compositions. His music has been performed throughout North America and Europe, in Asia, South America, and Africa. Waschka's pieces are published by Borik Press and recorded on the Capstone, IRIDA, Centaur, Vox Novus, and AUR labels in the USA, on the Ama Romanta, Candy Factory, and Plancton labels of Portugal, the PeP label of Canada, the RMA and Nimbus labels in England, and the Ablaze label of Australia. Waschka is a professor at North Carolina State University where he teaches composition and other courses. (www.waschka.info)

A Portrait of Pablo Picasso by One of His Lovers (2014) was created by using audio processing software to read visual images as audio input -- in this case, an image of Pablo Picasso and images of three of his paintings. The resulting sounds, including clouds of clicks and pops, were then manipulated in an intuitive manner. The sounds heard in the initial part of the music reappear throughout the work, modified and often detached from the other sounds that form the beginning of the piece. For a brief survey of some of Picasso’s lovers, see http://sapergalleries.com/PicassoWomen.html

Stephen Anderson is a composer and pianist. His works have been performed by ensembles throughout the United States, including the West Point Military Academy Band, Dallas Chamber Orchestra, Montclair State Wind Symphony, Crested Butte Chamber Orchestra, UNC Symphony Orchestra, Carolina Choir, the MIT Concert Band and many others and at such venues as the College Band Directors National Association, the International Tuba Euphonium Association, and the Australian Trumpet Guild. Awards and recognition include two commissions from the Barlow Endowment (2005, 2010) finalist, West Point Jazz Knights Composers Forum competition (2011), Chapman Family Foundation Teaching Award (2014), Junior Faculty Development Award-UNC Committee on Faculty Research (2008), United Arts Council of Greater Greensboro, the UNC Research Council, Endeavors magazine features (2013, 2008), and reviews in All About Jazz, Jazz Times, All Music Guide (2010, 2008), and PAS (2009).

From Whence They Sing, for electronic media, was created entirely from a single sound file that was recorded at a street market in Tijuana, Mexico. The title loosely echoes the words of a street musician who sings, “de donde son los cantantes” as he plays the claves, and while a nearby street vendor repeats over and over the words, “one dollar…one dollar…” Various portions of the file were extracted and manipulated in Sound Hack, Audio Sculpt, Sound Edit 16, and Peak software, and the modified sounds were subsequently mapped in Pro Tools.

Away/Home deals with the sounds I associate with being away and being home: some sounds are endearing and some are grating. In this piece, "Away" is Japan, where I've spent time playing concerts for many summers; "Home" is NYC, or my childhood home, or anywhere I've associated with that word. The piece deals with the juxtaposition of our love/hate relationship with travel: too much time at home, we long for sights unseen...too much time away, we long for the comforts of home. The melodies in the instruments are meant to accompany the pre-recorded electronics, which are made up of real sounds that have been recorded in those places, then manipulated to my liking. Away/Home 1.2 is the third instrumentation of this piece. The original was written for violin and cello and premiered at the Austrian Cultural Forum in 2010 and the second version is for violin and alto flute.

Elainie Lillios and Bonnie Mitchell collaboratively develop abstract experimental works focusing on the intricate relationships between audio and visuals. They have created experimental animations and large-scale animated interactive installations that seek to influence the audience emotionally, psychologically, and physically.

Elainie Lillios’s music focuses on the essence of sound and suspension of time, conveying varied emotions and taking listeners on "sonic journeys". Lillios was a 2013-14 Fulbright Scholar in Greece and recently won second prize in the 2014 Destellos Competition. Recordings are available on Empreintes DIGITALes, StudioPANaroma, La Muse en Circuit, and SEAMUS labels, plus online at www.elillios.com

Bonnie Mitchell’s artworks explore experiential relationships to our physical and psychological environment. Screenings and exhibitions include Kalamazoo Animation Festival International, SIGGRAPH, International Symposium of Electronic Arts, Ars Electronica, International Computer Music Association, and many others. Mitchell is currently a Professor in the School of Art at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, USA.

2BTextures: i. Branches ii. Breath. 2BTextures is a two movement abstract animation that explores the complex relationship between experimental audio and visuals. This experience takes viewers on an integrated sonic and visual journey into a surrealistic environment influenced by nature.