A diverse group of pieces and great turnout made for another big success at the Annex computer music concert. Our Graduate Assistant Evan Merz organized the event, which featured special guests Mark Popowitch and Michael Taylor. Other featured composers and/or performers included Natee Prasanpanich, Robert Anderson, Conor Mackey, Tim Moyers, Peter Veugeler, Kenneth Joseph, Aaron Vermedal, and Nathan and Matthew Edwards. Here are some pictures from rehearsal:
Evan Merz and Kenneth Joseph performing on piano and steelpan from Evan’s visual score.
Mark Popowitch and Alex Beach getting ready to rock
Evan busy at the board.
The Fall Annex Group Computer Music concert is approaching, and it looks to be a packed show.
It is on Thursday, November 5 at 8pm in the Northern Illinois University Recital Hall. Don’t miss it!
A group of students from the NIUCMS program visited Sweetwater for the SEAMUS 2009 event last summer. Both myself (Nathan Edwards) and Evan Merz were mentioned in the recent SEAMUS newsletter for our blogs about the event. Here are the direct links to my posts:
The tour page has been updated to include the latest equipment purchased for the program over the summer.
These additions include Intel Mac Pro computers, dual 23″ widescreen cinema displays, 25 and 49-key M-Audio Axiom MIDI controllers, and new software including Logic and Final Cut.
We have also been updated to the latest Pro Tools LE system, which includes the Digi-003 hardware unit with Pro Tools 8 software.
The music and video in this piece were generated by a java program that I recently coded. The software uses some concepts borrowed from John Cage, but updates them with modern AI techniques. Specifically, I use Cage’s gamut, graph and chance techniques, as they were used in the third movement of the piano concerto, and after. Instead of using pure chance, however, I use artificial intelligence to control how the voices move around the graph. Swarm intelligence techniques allow each voice to follow other voices, or move away from them.
Our concert, titled “Electrics”, will be this Friday, April 24, at 8 PM in the recital hall at NIU.
We are excited to have a very strong group of compositions, which will include multi-channel audio and a piece utilizing a human-interactive interface. A preview of the submissions are in the posts below. Don’t miss it!
This is the stereo version of my 8-channel piece entitled Hexagon.
Hexagon is the exploration of the interaction and relationship between the pure, almost serene sound of the voice mixed with comparatively chaotic and harsh sound textures.
“Infidel Hymn No. 2” is a spiritual interactive music and video. The primary purpose of this spiritual work is to reveal the “light of truth and peace.” Thus, the audience can come to worship the performer/composer, to submit to him, and to believe that he is a last prophet and the perfect example of all mankind. There is no compulsion in worship. Truth is henceforth distinct from error. The believers, worshipers, and those who appreciate this perfect work will be safe in the hereafter. But for those ignorant disbelievers, they will face an inquisition in this life, and a painful doom in hereafter! God is forgiving and merciful. Lo! But God does not like those who ask too many questions. Nobody expects the (Spanish, Moorish, Roman, Arab, Japanese, or whatever) Inquisitions!
Technical Note: The audio part is programmed in Csound. The paranormal video part is miraculously programmed (patched) in an extraordinary (CPU hog) Max/Jitter.
This paranormal work needs to perform live. Anyway, you can click below to listen to music.
