Concert 1 Program
Steven Kemper : Teka-Mori
Aurie Hsu, dancer
Howie Kenty : Everybody Loves Me
Howie Kenty, vocals and electronics
Adam Beard, percussion
Dennis Sullivan : Uncreation
Anne Dearth, flute
Ted Moore : feedback viii
Ted Moore, no-input mixer & eurorack synthesizer
Kyle Hutchins, feedback saxophone
Kyle Johnson : I'm not really much of a talker
Kyle Johnson, live electronics
Eric Lyon : Loose Canon
Kyle Hutchins, tenor saxophone
Paul Thomas : Skeuomorph no. 2
Paul Thomas, accordion
Mark Zanter : Racket (2017)
Mark Zanter, electric guitar
Chris Scarberry, drum set
Brigid Burke, video
Notes
Kyle Johnson : I'm not really much of a talkerI'm not really much of a talker is not based on a true story. The collection of multimedia-theater songs about lies, narrative, fiction and reality is performed live by Kyle Johnson with video and audio accompaniment.
During performance, I perform an original text onstage next to a large television or projection screen playing coordinated images and sound. Some songs tell stories, some are beautifully abstract and wordless, some are documentary pieces about real people, some connect to form larger sections while some are independent. Across the performance of the entire piece the perspective of the audience is constantly shifting, wondering how one part of the story connects to the other, what is fiction and what is fact, and what will come next.
back to program
Mark Zanter : Racket (2017)
Racket (2017) for electric guitar, live processing and live video, explores/maps physical gestures that are tropes of electric guitar performance using them to generate musical events, explore pure sonic content in varied musical contexts, and find potential meanings intentional or accidental—to throw light upon their interpretation in social contexts.
back to program
Steven Kemper : Teka-Mori
Teka-Mori, for belly dancer, Remote electroAcoustic Kinesthetic Sensing (RAKS) system, and computer-generated sound, features an interactive, bi-directional relationship between movement and music that connects choreographic gestures and sonic outcomes. Teka refers to the vocalization of two different drum strokes on a doumbek. Mori, adapted from the Latin phrase memento mori, evokes the idea of lifelessness and decay. The piece conveys a dystopian, “broken-machine” aesthetic through noisy, distorted sonic materials. The choreography in Teka-Mori is rooted in belly dance, which originated in the U.S., but is derivative of Raqs Sharqi (Middle Eastern dance). Controlled torso and hip isolations and upper and lower body layering are a few characteristics of the movement vocabulary. The RAKS system is a wearable wireless sensor interface designed specifically for belly dance movement, consisting of a flex sensor, accelerometer, and programmable LEDs.
back to program
Paul Thomas : Skeuomorph no. 2
Skeuomorph no. 2 is one piece of a series of works for a variety of instrument/s and computer. A skeuomorph is an object that imitates the design of a similar artifact made from another material. Skeuomorphic design, particularly in graphical user interfaces, enables users to more easily interact with new technology by imitating familiar physical objects. The series of Skeuomorph pieces considers musical elements such as clear rhythmic pulse and moments of tonality skeuomorphically in order to invite the listener to newer and unfamiliar sound worlds.
back to program
Eric Lyon : Loose Canon
Loose Canon is an articulated noise composition for improvising performer. Noise builds temporal structures of improvisatory guidance, and assembles DSP configurations for the live processing of the performer. In addition to the live performer, a second “ghost” performer is assembled from samples recorded earlier in the improvisation, and is then sent through further random DSP processing. The highly contingent and immediate nature of the software interface prevents the performer from comprehending the large-scale form, but could inspire the performer’s playing with the intensity of the computer-improvised enhancements, creating a sense of surprise and apprehension.
back to program
Howie Kenty : Everybody Loves Me
Let us use his own words to reveal a path that begins with deep insecurity, an insatiable need for validation, and an extreme sense of entitlement. Let us follow it through to the fear, intolerance, and violence that the speaker stokes in many of his followers. If we allow this division to continue, where does this narrative ultimately end? The salient question for me is how to reveal the toxicity in this nature to those who don’t immediately recognize it; this power lies in inciting latent tendencies. When we each enter this type of exploration, what deep-rooted fears of Other might we find harbored within ourSelves, and crucially, how do we deal with them in our actual interactions? This piece attempts these challenges by taking quotations as its only compositional seeds, adapting their contours, cadences, and words directly into pitches, rhythms, and text, implementing and re-arranging them to form the entirety of the work. While the audience’s challenge is reflection and considered action, the performer’s is simultaneously more difficult and potentially more alluring; they must possess themself entirely of this visceral, uninhibited id, becoming pure reactive malice, discord, and excitation, unencumbered by contemplation or morality. It’s a remarkably seductive path for everyone, regardless of philosophy. Burdens of persuasion this tremendous are perhaps impossible for this piece; maybe another desperate scream of absurdity and horror is the only thing realized. Nevertheless, I believe it is a profound moral obligation for each of us to consider these questions and to act on our considerations, deliberately. Everybody Loves Me is the first of a planned exploration encompassing three works.
back to program
Dennis Sullivan : Uncreation
Uncreation is concerned with mapping unusual timbral qualities onto the flute that we otherwise don’t hear, zooming way in on small actions and innards of producing music. It focuses on the sounds of little mechanisms at work and the sounds our mouths make before, in-between, and after our words - small, sometimes uncomfortable little sounds.
back to program
Bios
Mark Zanter, has appeared on NPR’s Live at the Landmark, WILL, IPR, on WVPN In Touch With The Arts, is published by Les Productions d’OZ, Schott European American and MJIC, and his works have been performed nationally and internationally at festivals including, MUSIC X, June in Buffalo, Soundscape, NYCEMF, Echofluxx14, SEAMUS, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Seensound. Zanter has received awards from ASCAP, AMC, ACF, Meet the Composer, WV Division Culture, WVMTA; and Lament and dream received special distinction for the ASCAP Rudolph Nissim Prize. He records for Ablaze, Navona, and innova record labels. Dr. Zanter is professor of music; and Distinguished Artist and Scholar at Marshall University.back to program
Ted Moore is a composer, improviser, intermedia artist, and educator based in Chicago. His work focuses on fusing the sonic, visual, physical, and acoustic aspects of performance and sound, often through the integration of technology. Ted’s work has been premiered by the International Contemporary Ensemble, Spektral Quartet, The Dream Songs Project, Yarn/Wire, Splinter Reeds, Quince Vocal Ensemble, ad others, and has been performed across the country including at The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Spectrum (NYC), and Root Signals Electronic Music Festival (Statesboro, GA), among others. Ted also frequently performs solo on electronics using his laptop, modular synthesizer systems, resonant physical objects, lighting equipment, and video projection. Currently Ted is pursuing a PhD in Music Composition at the University of Chicago.
back to program
Praised for his “formidable technique” and “enviable uniformity of tone” (The Saxophone Symposium) and described as a “skilled improviser, no doubt about it” (I Care If You Listen), Jeffery Kyle Hutchins is a concert saxophonist, chamber musician, improviser, pedagogue, and performance artist who focuses on the creation and promotion of contemporary music and interdisciplinary media. His work emphasizes close collaboration with composers and artists to create adventurous programming, often incorporating the body, the voice, the instrument, technology, and space. He has performed concerts in Asia, Europe, and North America, and has participated in the creation of more than 100 new works. Jeffery Kyle Hutchins is a Yamaha Performing Artist, E. Rousseau Mouthpiece Artist, and Légère Artist.
back to program
Steven Kemper is a composer, music technologist, and instrument designer. As a composer, Steven creates music for acoustic instruments, instruments and computers, musical robots, dance and video. Steven has received awards for his music from the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology, Meet the Composer, the Danish Arts Council, and the International Computer Music Association. His first album, Mythical Spaces, was released by Ravello Records in 2018. Steven is a co-founder of Expressive Machines Musical Instruments, a collective dedicated to creating and composing music for robotic instruments. He also co-developed the RAKS (Remote electroAcoustic Kinesthetic Sensing) System, a wireless sensor interface designed specifically for belly dancers with composer and dancer Aurie Hsu. Steven’s research has been presented at NIME, ICMC, and MOCO, and published in Leonardo and Organised Sound. Steven is currently Assistant Professor of Music Technology and Composition at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University.
back to program
Aurie Hsu (www.auriehsu.com) is a composer, pianist, and dancer. She performs with the Remote electroAcoustic Kinesthetic Sensing (RAKS) system, a wireless sensor interface for belly dance developed with composer Steven Kemper. Aurie has presented at NIME, ICMC, MOCO, SEAMUS, SIGCHI, Pixelerations, Third Practice Festival, the Logos Foundation, and the Cité International des Arts. Aurie received a Ph.D. in composition and computer technologies from the University of Virginia and holds degrees from Mills College and Oberlin Conservatory. She is an Assistant Professor in Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA) at the Oberlin Conservatory.
Paul David Thomas is an assistant professor and coordinator of music theory and composition at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, TX. Paul's acoustic and electronic music has been presented at venues, conferences, and festivals throughout the United States and Europe. He has special interest in writing for performer and electronics, group improvisation, and choral ensembles of all skill levels. Additionally, Paul is an active new music performer, regularly performing his own works for accordion and computer. Originally from northeastern Ohio, Paul holds degrees in composition from Bowling Green State University (MM) and the University of North Texas (PhD). Paul's choral music is published through Hal Leonard, Carl Fischer, and BriLee Press.
back to program
Eric Lyon’s work focuses on articulated noise, chaos music, spatial orchestration, and computer chamber music. His software includes FFTease and LyonPotpourri, collections of externals for Max/MSP and Pd. He authored “Designing Audio Objects for Max/MSP and Pd.” His music has been recognized with a Giga-Hertz prize, MUSLAB, League ISCM World Music Days, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2017 he edited two issues of the Computer Music Journal, devoted to the topic of high-density loudspeaker arrays. Lyon has composed for such artists as Sarah Plum, Margaret Lancaster, The Noise Quartet, Ensemble mise-en, String Noise, The Crash Ensemble, Esther Lamneck, Kathleen Supové, Marianne Gythfeldt, and Seth Parker Woods. Lyon has taught computer music at Keio University, IAMAS, Dartmouth College, Manchester University, and Queen’s University Belfast. Lyon teaches in the School of Performing Arts at Virginia Tech, and is a faculty fellow at the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology.
back to program
Howie Kenty is a Brooklyn-based composer and performer, occasionally known by his musical alter-ego, Hwarg. His music, called “remarkable” with “astonishing poetic power” by the International Compendium Prix Ars Electronica, is stylistically diverse, encompassing ideas from contemporary classical, electronic, rock, sound art, theatre, and everything in between, occasionally with visual and theatrical elements. Howie plays guitar in the progressive rock band The Benzene Ring, and is currently a Graduate Council Fellow PhD student at Stony Brook University. Recent recognition includes a 2017 Copland House residency, a 2018 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts residency, first prize commission in the 2017 Null-state Chaosflöte competition, competition winner for the 2018 Open Space Festival of New Music, competition winner for the 2018 RED NOTE New Music Festival Composition Workshop, and an ASCAP Plus+ award. Hear more at http://hwarg.com.
back to program
Adam Beard is an active percussionist and composer residing on Long Island. As a percussionist, Adam plays a variety of contemporary chamber and solo repertoire in ensembles such as the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players and DNA Percussion, which he founded with percussionist Daniel Pate. Adam has received the Sarofim Composition Award for his piece Webs and actively composes works for chamber ensembles and soloists. He has received commissions from Musiqa and AURA and his works have been performed throughout the United States. Adam holds a MM in Percussion Performance from Stony Brook University where he is currently a doctoral candidate and a BM from the University of Houston.
back to program
Anne Dearth is a flutist and music teacher in Northwest Ohio. She is the co-founder and artistic director of N/A Ensemble, a new chamber music group dedicated to performing experimental and adventurous works. Previously residing in New York City, she has performed with Contemporaneous, the W4 New Music Collective, and has participated in the Bang on a Can Marathon, the Tribeca New Music Festival, Iota Festival, and the Lower East Side Music Festival. Anne particularly enjoys working closely with composers and has premiered multiple works written expressly for her, most recently Shame for speaking alto flutist by Jesse Diener-Bennett and Uncreation by Dennis Sullivan. Originally from Dearborn, MI, Anne studied with Amy Porter at the University of Michigan before coming to New York to study at NYU with Robert Dick.
back to program
Dennis Sullivan is as well very active as a solo artist in the US and Europe, commissioning new works for his unique hybrid of percussion, theater, and electronics as well as actively performing his own compositions. As a composer, Dennis’s work has been heard in the US, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands. His music explores cross-genre coalescence between acoustic, electronic and timbral based noise music. His compositions examine sounds through a very small aperture, zooming in to focus on the unheard sounds within a sounds, drawing attention to the sonic consequences that are always present but not always heard. He crawls inside of each instrument to find every pitch in the spectrum and every small consequence of the physical action that goes into producing sound. By connecting and combining often discordant states, he attempts to create a feel of interconnectivity that divulges underlying qualities of continuity and unity.
back to program
Kyle Johnson is a composer, and multimedia artist whose creative work is presented internationally. Recent multimedia pieces include the one-person opera I'm not really much of a talker. premiered at Harvard University and the musical cinema work Still created in collaboration with the Qualcomm Institute. His documentary work on the Cage diaspora has been collected by the Library of Congress, his feature length documentary film on contemporary music will be released by Neuma in 2019, and his in-process documentary on Regional Mexican Music and its place in immigrant communities features interviews with the leading contemporary stars of Banda and Norteño genres. He grew up in suburban San Diego. It's not that all the houses looked the same, it's that I could walk in to any one of them and know exactly where all the bathrooms were.
back to program
Chris Scarberry is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Music Performance at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, from which he also holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Performance. He is a Veteran of the United States Army Bands, where he performed in much of the US, Pacific Islands, and Asia. Before his military service and graduate school, Chris was a percussion instructor with the Marshall University Marching Thunder, Derby City Knights All-Age Drum and Bugle Corps, the Optima Indoor Percussion Ensemble, and the George N. Parks' Drum Major Academy.
back to program