Woodstockhausen 2002

Woodstockhausen

Concert Program

UCSC Music Recital Hall

September 27, 2003

“There is geometry in the humming of the strings.

There is music in the spacing of the spheres”

- Pythagoras -

a tiny festival of esoteric music

Astronomers recently discovered an “audio” broadcast of singular proportions. Sound waves pitched to a B-flat frequency 57 octaves below middle C have apparently been emanating from a supermassive black hole at the center the Perseus galactic cluster for billions of years. This is the basso-profundo swan song of trillions of tons of matter leaving our universe on its way to…somewhere else. This is the same destination to which we all journey, at some point never looking back, to join the cosmic chorus.

Well, yes, that’s a little bit dark. They don’t call them “rather dim” holes.

Welcome to Woodstockhausen, an annual sanctuary for those obsessed with acoustic and visual phenomenon of all forms. We seek to provide a performance environment for artists and audience with a yen for extreme aesthetic exploration and a taste for accidents along the way. It is our pleasure to present to you the often heretofore hidden new work of composers, inventors, sound designers, outright mad scientists, and the occasional frivolous joker.

www.woodstockhausen.org
- Volunteer Credits -

Matty Baumann -	Stage Manager
Chris Cohn -	Poster Artist/Promotion/Stage Technician
Amar Chaudhary -	Technical Assistant
Luke Dahl -	Assistant MC
Peter Elsea -	Technical Director
Lynn Flick -	Caterer
Will Grant -	Lighting Design
Wayne Jackson -	General Director/Webmaster/Curator/MC
Jean Marc Jot -	DJ/Sound Design
Veronique Larcher -	Co-Director/Treasurer/Promotion
Mark Plummer -	Lighting Design/Promotion
Tim Thompson -	Stage Technician
Dave Tristram -	Viviography
Matt Waxman -	Campus Publicity

- Act 01 -

-TBA-

- TBA -

Performed by the New Music Works Ensemble

15’00”

ELSA Award for New Music Works’ Sound Horizons Student Composition Contest.

I Am a Bird
Will Grant	2’24”

My own voice, mixed in ProTools.

etude no. 4
Peter Traub	3’10”

'etude no. 4' is an attempt to create an organic and alien sonic ecosystem. It was created using Csound and ProTools.

The Edge of Night
Matt Herman	10’00”

Matt Herman will be performing solo on Chapman Stick (an instrument combining aspects of both guitar and piano), using a system of audio delay and a few other effects to create a soothing, evolving cloud of sound.

Boll Weevil
Joseph Benzola	6’55”

The emotional center of Boll Weevil is an African-American ballad/field holler called Boll Weevil sung by Vera Hall. I had an idea to create a diverse musical setting for this solo voice piece. The musical center is a transmuted sample of Ornette Coleman's "Skies of America". Other altered sections include portions of Xenakis, South Indian vocal music, tambura, Jimi Hendrix, as well as original electronic material. The symbol of the Boll Weevil was one of loneliness. Though diverse musical elements flow together and merge, the overall feeling of this piece is one of separation, melancholy, and longing.

Haunted Resonance
Sylvia Pengilly	6’10”

“Haunted Resonance” is a performance work which incorporates music and moving graphics. It uses the “VideoDelic” software (U&I software) which performs realtime manipulations upon two libraries of stored graphics. These manipulations are activated by MIDI triggers which, using the Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyzer (IBVA), emanate from the brain activity of the performer. These brainwaves are mapped according to their voltage, which is mapped to amplitude, and their frequency, which is mapped to pitch; this information is sent both to “VideoDelic” and to an Akai sampler containing a bank of sounds created using “MetaSynth,” thus generating the music. The compositional environment software, MAX, (Cycling’74), is used to refine the MIDI functions, splitting one “notein” into several ranges with different sounds and functions for each. Artistically it is the artist’s attempt to relinquish conscious control of the unfolding of the work since, because of the unpredictable nature of the performer’s brain activity, each performance is unique.

Autotrophic Manifestations 3 (excerpt)
Later Days	4’17”

Life has an anti-entropic ability to exploit the most minimal and exotic of energy gradients. This granular synthesis composition for artificial life demonstrates the principle in sound. Each grain in the piece (there are many millions of them) represents the lifecycle of a virtual being fighting to survive and reproduce in an austere conceptual world. The code used to generate this piece was loosely based on the “p” project proposed by Kim Cascone at microsound.org.

returnal delight

Luke Dahl

6’00”

This piece will be a somewhat structured improvisation of processed electric piano and electronics.

Argument
Jason Thomas	3’30”

“Argument” is a piece based on the relationship between pitch-based sounds and noise. It takes as its model Jim Tenney's Dialogue, created at Bell Labs, which has a similar goal of relating pitch and noise. In order to achieve this goal, I have designed a single instrument for the entire composition, capable of producing various degrees of harmonic and inharmonic spectra through FM synthesis. Random number generators control the C:M ratio of each sound, hence yielding unpredictable degrees of harmonicity.

surreal dawn
twilight	9’20”

I composed this piece almost entirely using granular synthesis. I created nearly all of the sounds in this piece by sampling household appliances and manipulating them beyond recognition into the infinitely evolving textures and rhythms that you hear. Mark Plummer will perform this piece live on either acoustic guitar, keyboard or both (see below) with laptop playback of the song tracks.

- Act 02 –

Cloud Chamber: An Electronic Interpretation of Dreams (excerpt)
Cloudchamber	15’00”

Sound artists David Leith and Toby Carroll structure improvisation to reveal the unseen, with digitally treated field recordings and analogue electronic tape manipulations of prepared speech, ambient sounds and manipulated microsounds.

reading the leaves (by moonlight)

Falling You

8’00”

A melancholy drone for those who live their lives by the softer light of the night orb.

Charmer: Firmament

Amar Chaudhary

5’00”

A recording of a snake-charmer flute broken down into its basic components and reassembled into a new and different instrument. The performer explores the instrument in time and frequency to draw out its ethereal and haunting nature.

Xi
Amar Chaudhary	6’00”

This work was one of those accidental discoveries that musicians live for. Armed only with a graphics pen and a pair of ears, the performer explores a space of timbre and rhythm.

retour
Peter Traub	6’55”

'retour,' French for 'return,' was my first electro-acoustic work after a 3 year hiatus from composing. It was composed primarily using Csound. The sections and sounds are based on short (under one second) samples of acoustic recordings. It is a multi-channel work, with a four channel mix being used for Woodstockhausen.

On A Real High Wire At Midday Sun
Ovo	15’00”

Samplers, synthesizer, effects, turntables, and vocals. Processed and performed by OVO

Through the Course of Hours
Jason Thomas	4’16”

Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can remain quite unaltered through the course of hours. -Mark Twain

Survivors
Later Days	8’00”

A blood-thirsty paean to the blind watchmaker. This solo for evolved timbres summarizes my latest work in sound design by selection rather than design. Hundreds of hypothetical beasts were sacrificed for your listening pleasure.

Stretching the Membrane
Later Days	4’30”

Solo for homebrew granular synthesis tools. The tools are VST software plugins developed over the past three weeks.

Mystic Dance for E Ghent
Joseph Benzola	2’15”

Piece dedicated to the composer Emmanuel Ghent.

Elegy for Paul Wellstone
Will Grant	3’08”

Written the day after, remembering Dr. King and JFK.

A Pound of Creation Pie
Shalmaneser	15’00”

All creation tastes like rhubarb.

Plaquemine Brulée
Polly Moller	4’17”

A bayou spirit can't believe her luck -- the local community has made her an offering, and it's a man she knows.

Spoken words by Polly Moller

All background instruments played or programmed by Polly Moller

- Act 03 -

Faux Voix
Rick Walker	12’00”

Faux Voix is a piece that Rick developed on his European tour this summer utilizing only his voice as a sound source

This is not Happening (Parts I and II)
Mitch Finegold	8’00”

The composition \"This is not happening\" is structured in two parts. The first section is a dark ambient soundscape with ample pitch modulation while the second section features electronically modified strings and brass in part inspired by the work of Steve Reich. LFOs and distortion effects are used to create some of the unique rhythmic effects.

Cypod
Beau Casey	5’27”

The composition "This is not happening" is structured in two parts. The first section is a dark ambient soundscape with ample pitch modulation while the second section features electronically modified strings and brass in part inspired by the work of Steve Reich. LFOs and distortion effects are used to create some of the unique rhythmic effects.

Hygienetics
Cloudchamber	7’90”

A piece about travel and cleansing the mind.

My God / Finally Black / Residue
Amy X Neuburg	15’00”

Three oldies but goodies from my repertoire of "avant-cabaret" ditties. All samples and looping commands are triggered live using the DrumKat. No computer, no pre-recorded voices.

kangae
Will Grant	1’49”

"ka-n-ga-e" means "Mind" in Japanese.

The Other is Nightshade
Clatterbox	5’47”

Mixed live on Free Radio Santa Cruz by Matthew Embry and Jason Arredondo. Mastered by Steve McDonald. www.freakradio.org

gulls, lulls, and bowls
Nathan Levine	6’00”

The themes of this piece explore all the affection, romance and anger that surrounds the everyday absurd nature of life. It is written for alto clarinet, trombone, gongs and a water bowl.

zam zam zing
Nathan Levine	4’00”

This lovely poeme simultane features three performers expounding upon the weighty themes of change, god, thought, and of course, zim, zam and zing.

gulls, lulls and bowls
Nathan Levine	6’00”

explorations of affection, romance, anger and the everday absurd nature of life are the vague ideas that went into the composition of this piece. where are the lulls? where are the gulls? true... but the bowls are quite present!

Edge 0316
Amar Chaudhary	6’25”

This work is based on recordings of the ocean not far from the composer's home. Samples of toy instruments and processed variations thereof are mixed in. The end result captures the mood of the time the recordings were made: at once dark, playful, anxious and optimistic.

Music of the Spheres

Pythagorean Association for

Interplanetary Understanding

A mild discourse on sonic cosmology.

- Installations -

Dancing Under the Stars of Lyra

The myth of Orpheus comes to life as his lyre, long ago placed in the heavens as the constellation Lyra, comes back to earth to create beautiful music. The 24 strings of this 10-foot-high lyre are rope-lights which are controlled independently by the notes of the music. Surrounding the lyre are dance pads, on which people dance to interactively control and generate the music being played.

by Tim Thompson

Electrolux

An interactive bit of wall art. Very few children were traumatized in the making of this piece.

by Wayne Jackson

- Audionauts -

Matty Baumann

An artist must regulate his life. Here is a timetable of my daily acts:

I rise at 7:18. Am inspired from 10:23 to 11:47. I lunch at around 12:11 and leave the table at 12:14. A healthy horseback ride around my domain follows 1:19 P.M. to 2:35 P.M. Another bout of inspiration from 3:12 to 4:07 P.M. From 5:00 to 6:47 P.M., various occupations (fencing, reflection, immobility, visitations, contemplation, dexterity, swimming and natation*). Dinner is served at 7:16 and finished at 7:20 P.M. Afterward from 8:09 to 9:59 symphonic readings, out loud, of course. I go to bed regularly at 10:37 P.M. Once a week I wake up (on Tuesdays) with a start at 3:14 A.M. My only nourishment consists of food that is white: eggs, sugar and shredded bones, the fat of dead animals, salt, coconuts, chicken cooked in white water, moldy fruit, rice, turnips, sausage in camphor, pastry, cheese (the white varieties, of course), cotton salad, and certain kinds of fish, without their skins. I breathe carefully (a little at a time), and dance very rarely. When walking, I hold my ribs and look steadily behind me. My expression is very serious. When I laugh, it is unintentional and I always apologize, very politely. I sleep with one eye closed, very profoundly. My bed is round, with a hole in it for my head to go through. Every hour a servant takes my temperature and gives me another. For a long time I have subscribed to a fashion magazine. I wear white socks and a white vest, along with a velvet coat, soft felt hat and flowing tie (which is partially obscured by my beard), on my nose, I wear a pince-nez, of course. My doctor has always told me to smoke (cigarettes, of course). He even explains himself: "Smoke, dear fellow. Otherwise, someone else will smoke in your place".

Also, I was ordained as Minister of my own religion recently for tax purposes.

*Natation: the contemplation of one's navel

Joseph Benzola

…is an independent multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer living in NY. He does not conform to one discipline, idiom, or theory, but embraces all types of music's and playing philosophies.

He does not see a dichotomy between written or improvised, acoustic or electric, real time or sequenced, jazz, classical, rock, world music, etc. Instead, he sees theses various visions as tools for his own unique musical concepts. The music of Benzola does not keep various disciplines placed in separate boxes, but rather allows the ideas of Sun Ra, Coltrane, Miles, Monk, and Taylor to dance with Africa, India, Bali, Cage, Xenakis, Stockhausen, and Varese.

The unifying center to his musical/sound universe is the gathering of these concepts in a creative improvised setting; how various sound/musical environments can co-exist in seemingly unrelated manners. There is a very free use of rhythm. Many times, the rhythm/flow of a piece will dictate all other elements to follow. So, rhythm is not used as a straight "four on the floor" dance center, but rather draws all sound/musical elements into its flow.

Also of importance is the use of juxtaposed timbres and sound elements in replacement of so called diatonic melodies and tonal harmonies. His compositions bare very little resemblance to the western song tradition, but rather follow their own structural path.

Contact:

amanita@optonline.net

www.electronicscene.com/jbenzola

www.mp3.com/amanitamusic

Beau Casey

…has taken an independant approach to music from an early age. Collaborating with others, producing audio-visual events, and experimenting with electronics have been his main goals.

He earned a Master of Fine Arts Degree from Mills College, Center for Contemporary Music and had an independent major in "Sonic Art" at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He also studied at the University of Sheffield and Dartington International Summer school in England, and had the opportunity to study with Stockhausen.

Beau was a recepient of the Heller Performance Scholarship, the President's Undergraduate Fellowship for Stevenson College, and a grant from the Performing Rights Organization in the U.K.

He has exhibited his music at the “Cinema for the Ear” Millennium Event, Sheffield 1999; “Electro-Acoustic Music Festival,” University of Missouri, Kansas City 2000; “The Now Music Festival,” San Francisco 2001; “The CEIT Festival,” California Institute for the Arts 2002; “Signal Flow,” Mills College 2002; and "Coloring Sounds: Songlines for Seibert's Pipes" as a guest of artist Josefa Vaughan, The Lab, San Francisco, 2003.

Beau is excited at the chance to exhibit his music at Woodstockhausen 2003 and hopes audience members and peers will give feedback to his unique style.

Amar Chaudhary

…is a longtime composer and performer specializing in contemporary and electronic music, as well as a developer of advanced software for sound synthesis and music composition. Amar studied composition at the Westchester Conservatory of Music in New York and Yale University. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, Amar was a researcher at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) and developed advanced software for music composition and performance, including Open Sound Edit, an advanced 3D graphical editor for sound representations and Open Sound World, a programming environment for real-time music and audio applications. Amar has received several honors for his musical work, including a 1992 premier of his clarinet quartet at Weill Recital Hall in New York, and has since had his music performed internationally. Since coming to Santa Cruz, Amar has become actively involved in local electronic and experimental music, including Woodstockhausen, the Santa Cruz Digital Arts Festival and the Kinder Bender ensemble. More information about Amar Chaudhary’s music and research interests can be found at www.amarchaudhary.com.

Christopher Cohn

When I was 6 (1961) my mother took me, at dawn, to watch the circus set up in an empty lot at the edge of town. The roustabouts were driving huge stakes setting up this big muddy multi-colored tent. The people were strange, dark, and somewhat menacing not buoyant and bright as I'd been led to believe. Seeing the freaks and acrobats in their trailers and bathrobes drinking coffee was lurid and intriguing. While my mother's plan to sell me to the side show didn't work out it did leave me with a lifelong interest in knowing how things work behind the scenes. Consequently I've ended up doing a lot of schlepping.

Cloudchamber

Toby played bass guitar in several Rock, Punk and New wave bands in and around Montreal in the 80's. After running a fairly unsuccessful analog tape/midi studio he moved to Vancouver B.C. and started teaching Audio production and Pro Tools at a local private school.

Toby also worked in studios around Vancouver doing work for film, radio, television, CD ROM and music. Toby and David were founding members of the "The Mac Classics" an electronic music experiment using "outdated" or "discarded" technology (www.themacclassics.com).

The Cloud Chamber Project (www.cloudchamber.net) grew out of conversations about granular synthesis, microsounds and sound and image manipulation in general.

David Leith has always been fascinated by the intersection of sound, science, electronics and visuals. It all began with him attempting to make time run backwards, brownie cameras, home made electronics and banging his fists on the family piano. Soon it transitioned to rock bands, ARP Odesseys, Stockhausen, Echoplexes and laptops. Times change. (www.davidleith.com)

Toby is also currently shopping demos for the "Orgone Dub Clinic" a dub project that is near completion. (www.members.shaw.ca/tobycarroll/orgone.html)

P.S. Please Note!! * - Juga Kitanovich, the visual side of the Cloud Chamber, could not attend due to world travel.

Luke Dahl

Luke Dahl is looking for the imaginary line that lies between popular music and art music. He pursues this elusive beast by exploring the fields on both sides of it's supposed location. He tinkers by night with electronic toys to create trite beats, loops, and melodies that will fade with the dawn; and by day he treads the halls of academia, creating self-consistent musical structures to stand through the ages. He's been told this line exists, so he's sure he's about to stumble across it any day now.

Peter Elsea

...is a graduate of the University of Iowa, where he studied composition with Peter Todd Lewis and Richard Hervig, and music technology with Lowell Cross. After receiving his master's degree in 1974, he was appointed staff technician in the electronic music studio, where he served for six years designing and building equipment and occasionally writing computer code. In 1980, he moved to the University of California, Santa Cruz, and became teacher, technical staff and janitor for the electronic music studios. He is currently studio director, which is the same job with a nicer title. These days he mostly writes computer code and occasionally builds a piece of hardware. He is best known as the author of the lobjects, a set of more than 100 external objects for the Max music programming environment.

Matthew Embry

Clatterbox is/has been a diverse collective of live electronic music and auditory pontification broadcasting live on FRSC for 6 years ongoing...utilizing any and all sources mixed live by DJ Matter Embry and DJJ.geewhiz at the Mega Studio A.

www.freakradio.org

Falling You

…creates dark ambient / ethereal / trip-hop / experimental music for those who long for the sun, but live by the moon, featuring some of the most evocative and gorgeous female vocals you're likely to hear.

Mitch Finegold

… is a composer and sound designer from Washington, DC who has written music for film, performance art, and theatre productions. He was co-nominated for the 1998 Helen Hayes theatre award in the category of sound design/composition. Mitch was previously the keyboardist in the band Meladrome, and continues to write his own electronic music.

Will Grant

Working in performance art since May 1968 in Paris. MFA, Mills-CCM, MA in Theory, UCSC. Love writing scores for dancers. http://www.greyotter.com

Matt Herman

…is originally from Philly and moved out to Santa Cruz three years ago. He has been playing music for 16 years and has been playing the Chapman Stick for the last two years. In elementary school he began playing the saxophone, and later, bass for his concert and jazz bands. Soon he moved on to guitar and the Stick with which he enjoys composing original experimental and ambient music. Recently, Matt moved to San Francisco with his girlfriend and is excited to begin performing in a new city.

Wayne Jackson

...is intrigued by the complexity of emergent systems, both natural and computational. In the summer, this fascination leads him to create obscure computer music software. In the winter, it sends him outside to hunt mushrooms. Since 1998, Wayne has "evolved" thousands of sounds for his compositions and ruthlessly eliminated hundreds of thousands of others. Since the summer of 2002, he has rewritten his genetic algorithm synthesizer for optimized live performance and is now casting around for an audience interested in such stuff.

Over the past year Wayne’s collegiate love for dumpster diving has frothed back to life. With the premeir performance of Kinder Bender at last year's Woodstockhausen, he careened off into a reckless obsession with circuit bending and "found object" music. Employees at local thrift stores greet him with a knowing smirk, and the children in his life clutch their toys very tightly.

Other accomplishments in 2002-2003 include the concept and lyrics for the operetta Without Ourselves, the experimental virtual-life album Autotrophic Manifestations, and the perpetuation of “Kinder Bender”.

Wayne started Woodstockhausen in 1998 with the help of many dedicated friends. He can be reached at wayne@darwinarts.com, or at his web site http://www.darwinarts.com/~wayne/.

Jean-Marc Jot

…(a.k.a. dj~ot) has occupied a large part of his adulthood designing digital algorithms and tools for the spatialization of sounds. He was a researcher at IRCAM in Paris from 1992 to 1998, where he developed the Spat~ software using Max/MSP and collaborated in a number of computer music productions and recordings. Since 1998, he has been leading the development of 3D audio and EAX technologies at the Creative Advanced Technology Center in Scotts Valley. The addictions that he has developed since his twenties include expresso coffee, collecting music recordings and playing mixes of such recordings for dancing or sitting audiences.

Véronique Larcher

During 6 years, Véronique Larcher worked as an engineer in IRCAM (Paris) from which she holds a PhD in Sound Spatialization. She has been involved as a musical assistant in several projects, such as "K...", an opera by Philippe Manoury that was premiered at Paris Opera in March 2001. She is now working in Santa Cruz (CA), both as a 3D audio scientist for CREATIVE Labs, and as a producer of musical events for ELSA Productions, a non-profit that she created with a bunch of others. In its first season this year, ELSA presented the ELectron SAlon series, including the premiere of the Digital operetta “Without Ourselves” at the Rio Theatre, and other events for the San Francisco Operahouse and for the French Consulate, featuring Luc Ferrari, DJ Olive, Morton subotnick, David Wessel, John Zorn and many more. URL: www.elsaproductions.com

Nathan Levine

though a californian at heart, nathan is a double baSSist, composer and improviser cuRRently living and working in the pacific northwest. a celebratory sense of play and surprise permeates the improvised interdisciplinary work that he has pursued relentleSSly in the last few years. creating an exquisite mixture of seriously oFF-kilter musique, theater and dance is his only profeSSed focus at this time.

S.R.S.F.S. www.offbeatproductions.org S.R.S.F.S.

Polly Moller

…is a performance artist from the San Francisco Bay Area. She combines avant-garde flute playing with poetry and psychedelic art-rock, delivering a thought-provoking and high-intensity artistic statement.

She earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Flute Performance and a Master of Arts degree in twentieth-century performance practice (emphasizing the history and practice of multiphonics on the flute and horn), and was a member of the Octagon New Music ensemble, before stepping outside the classical flute world to blaze her own trail. For more information, surf to http://www.silverwheel.com

Amy X Neuburg

…enjoys a busy bi-coastal career performing her "avant-cabaret" works for voice and electronics, composing for dance and visual media, and singing in contemporary music-theatre. Highlights include solo concerts in the Other Minds (SF) and Bang on a Can (NYC) festivals, international touring with Robert Ashley's operas, a long-running show with Culture Clash, a 2-year gig composing for Modomedia's Piki & Poko in Starland cartoons, and 10 years of recording and touring with her electronic band Amy X Neuburg & Men. Upcoming exciting stuff includes residencies at Arizona State and Columbia College Chicago, and a New Zealand festival/college tour. She has three CDs on the Racer label, with a fourth on the way. Catch her at the Santa Cruz Looping Festival October 11. Web site: www.isproductions.com/amy.

New Music Works

…is dedicated to presenting music of our time in concert. Our goal is to develop a positive relationship between today's audiences and music of our time, through imaginative, diverse programming. NMW's annual concert series offers works by living composers in a variety of media, emphasizing music by Santa Cruz area composers, producing original music/theater works, while also including masterworks of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Phil Collins, Music Director and Conductor

Jeff Gallagher, clarinet

Irene Herrmann, cello

Timb Harris, violin

Aria Di Salvo, cello

OVO

…began in February 2000 as the latest musical incarnation of long time collaborators Ben Matson and Jake Lewandowski. The duo began working together over 10 years ago, first teaming up on absurdist theater and short film projects. Since then, their work has ranged from standup comedy on the Los Angeles circuit to DJing and playing live electronic music sets on Fresno's now defunct pirate radio station.

Melding strains of hip hop with glitch and sputtering ambience, OVO has become a favorite with open minded radio DJs around the world. A partnership with Finland's Luumu Recordings label has allowed the international release of Funny (In A Sad Way) (2000), VOV (2001), and Orange (2002) as special edition CDs with hand packaging and unique artwork.

Live events with San Francisco's Under The Radar have highlighted a recent focus on live, improvisational music. Vocalist Michelle Leiva was added to the lineup this spring while Matson was out on sebatacle, further bolstering the group's newfound direction.

weareovo.com

luumurecordings.com

Sylvia Pengilly

…is fascinated by the correlation between what the ear hears and what the eye sees. Although “officially” a composer, she has been willingly seduced into the worlds of video, computer graphics and dance, her current works combining all these elements in a unique realtime multimedia performance situation which amplifies the theme of each work by introducing it to the audience through the eye as well as the ear.

Mathematics and physics, including Chaos Theory, Quantum Mechanics, and Superstrings, are also of great interest and frequently provide the basis for her compositions.

She is professor emeritus of the College of Music at Loyola University, New Orleans, and holds a DMA degree in composition from the College/Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati, and an MA degree in composition from Kent State University.

Mark Plummer

…has been making computer music since the mid-80s, when he purchased his first synthesizer. A full-blown passion blossomed shortly thereafter. He has composed music for a PBS drama, episodic television and fashion shows. Mark has been a tireless evangelist of using computer music in education and has taught music educators and students for over 10 years.

Shalmaneser

… is an artificially unintelligent twitching disco brain. Tim Walters types very slowly so that even Shalmaneser can understand.

Jason Thomas

I am currently an M.F.A. candidate at California Institute of the Arts, where I study primarily computer music with Morton Subotnick and James Tenney, having previously studied with Sir Harrison Birtwistle. My main interest is the perception of time in a musical context. I have previously presented music at the University of Nebraska, Dartmouth College, New York University, and several other institutions, as well as non-academic venues. Further information, including mp3 files may be found at http://www.jason-thomas.org.

Tim Thompson

… is a musician, composer, and software developer. He has developed a programming language and environment for MIDI experimentation - keykit - which he uses in a wide variety ofways to create unique algorithmic music and instruments. In recent years he seems to be fixated on using playstation dance pads as musical controllers. His web site - http://nosuch.com - has lots of interactive musical toys.

Peter Traub

… is an electronic music composer and software developer living the Bay Area. He received his Master's in Electro-Acoustic Music Composition from Dartmouth College in 1999. Since then, he has continued to compose concert music and has created several internet-based sound installations. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Center for Computur Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford.

Dave Tristram

…<david@tristram.com> uses computers and video equipment to create a new form of dynamic improvisational visual art, called Viviography.

Simply put, Viviography is the art of creating art in motion. Derived from the Latin prefix "vivi" or "alive," Viviography uses the power of modern computers to create images that are born on the screen, then advance, retreat, shift, ascend, or disappear at the artist's bidding. Viviography allows the artist to achieve the spontaneity of jazz performance in a visual medium. When accompanied by music, Mr. Tristram's Viviography can engender a synaesthetic response in the viewer, where audience members report the experience of seeing music, or hearing pictures.

Rick Walker

Fresh from a 2 1/2 month, 8 country solo headlining live looping tour of Europe and the British Isles, Rick Walker is fascinated by found, invented and electronically manipulated sounds.

One of the founding members of the World Beat movement as a drummer / percussionist / bandleader he is now one of the leading figures in the burgeoning international live looping movement. He released his second Loop.pooL CD early this year, the live recording, TRANSLUCENT DAYGLO LIME GREEN PLASTIC and is hard at work on his 2nd CD of abstract electronica, PURPLE HAND to be released in the late Fall of 2003.

He is also a Santa Cruz County City Arts Commissioner and fiercely passionate about trying to create more support for the arts in the US of A in the apathetic Naughties.

He can be reached at rickwalker@looppool.info or at his website at WWW.LOOPPOOL.INFO

Matthew Waxman

… composes and creates multimedia works with an organization around notions of spatial orientation and pop-culture within a non-linear environment. He is currently a student studying Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Waxman lives at http://people.ucsc.edu/~mwax and can be reached at mwax@ucsc.edu.

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UCSC Electronic Music is one of the most comprehensive programs of its kind.

http://arts.ucsc.edu/ems/music/

ELSA Productions is a non-profit organization that has emerged from the first season of the "ELectron SAlon" concert series in Santa Cruz (CA) in 2002. Our group got together at the confluent of two inspirations and motivations: Wayne Jackson and his Woodstockhausen festival, bringing an expertise in the grass-roots experimental arts and his desire to multiply the performance opportunities for such live sound and visual experimentations; and on the other side, Véronique Larcher brings her own passion for new performing arts and endeavor for the artists.

With ELSA Productions, we wish to give formal identity to the countless volunteer hours facilitating the most experimental artistic projects to reach the general public. To achieve that goal, we invite artists to perform and we generate the appropriate medium, context and environment for these performances to intrigue a larger crowd and raise their interest and reaction. Our pleasure and mission is also to encourage new forms of arts by providing a space of creativity connecting artists, venues and new audiences, while building a community for the contemporary/experimental arts.

http://www.elsaproductions.com