SPLICE Institute 2021 Concert 2 Program
Tuesday June 29, 2021
7:30pm EDT
https://youtu.be/ItTdEwaLM7A
Sarah Belle Reid : Cabinet (2021), world premiere
Sam Wells, trumpet
Christopher Biggs, electronics
Sam Wells and Christopher Biggs, audio and video mastering
Adam Vidiksis : Hyperdyne (2013)
Adam Vidiksis, tenor drum & electronics
Olly Wilson : Piece for Piano & Tape (1969)
Keith Kirchoff, piano
Becky Brown : Ouroboros (2018)
Becky Brown, body controller and electronics
Becky Brown, audio mastering
Peter Van Zandt Lane, video mastering
ESC : Inside (2021), world premiere
Scott Deal, percussion
Christopher Biggs, electronics
Elainie Lillios, electronics
Christopher Biggs, audio and video mastering
Notes
Sarah Belle Reid : CabinetA cabinet of curiosities is a room in ones house, in which collections of oddities and special treasures are stored. These items are preserved and displayed on shelves upon shelves, lining the walls from floor to ceiling.
As you wander through these spaces, down corridors that connect rooms together in unexpected ways, the items you notice and dwell upon weave together a peculiar story—one that is deeply personal and ever-changing, made up of precious items, secret memories, and overlapping moments in time.
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Adam Vidiksis : Hyperdyne
Hyperdyne explores the dynamics of force as the impetus for vibration, both electrical and mechanical. This work features frenetic rhythms which are then processed by the computer, variably expanding or diminishing the resonant characteristic of the sound produced by the drum. As the piece progresses, the digital filtering is accompanied by increasingly less resonant sound production by the performer, through the use of various extended techniques that reveal harmonic spectra of the drum, sticks, and performance space. The result is a process of diminishing resonance throughout the work, leading to a sense of wilting or decay.
Olly Wilson : Piece for Piano & Tape
Composed in 1969, Olly Wilson's Piece for Piano & Tape uses a prepared piano to distort the natural sound of the piano: rulers and protractors are placed the strings, creating a buzzing distortion that perfectly blends with the electronics. Many thanks to Tom Lopez of Oberlin Conservatory for supplying the score and electronics. back to program
Becky Brown : Ourobouros
walk circles round the morning and choke down again tomorrow, too I would like to introduce the days all crawling out of you
yawn those teeth a little wide next year's last week's burnt anew yesterday's stuck on your tongue you'll try today, but then forget to back to program
ESC : Inside
By combining synchronous structured improvisations of percussion and electronic processing with asynchronous audiovisual recordings of our studio spaces and equipment, Inside explores humanity's increasing connection to indoor spaces and implies our escalated detachment with external environments. Technology has enabled many of us to disconnect from environments that are becoming less habitable and biologically diverse and to retreat indoors. We transform and control our indoor environments intentionally and noticeably to great short term benefit, while the environments that will sustain humanity longer term are transformed incidentally and irrevocably. Awareness of small, incremental changes becomes alien to experience while we inhabit our insulated spaces discussing the weather offhand as a minor inconvenience or pleasant surprise. back to program
Bios
Sam Wells is a Los Angeles-based trumpeter, composer, and improvisor who creates evocative and narrative multimedia performances. Sam has performed throughout North America and Europe, as well as in China. He is a recipient of a 2016 Jerome Fund for New Music award, and his work, stringstrung, is the winner of the 2016 Miami International Guitar Festival Composition Competition. He has performed electroacoustic works for trumpet and presented his own music at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, Chosen Vale International Trumpet Seminar, Electronic Music Midwest, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, NYCEMF, N_SEME, and SEAMUS festivals. Sam and his music have also been featured by the Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance (KcEMA) and Fulcrum Point Discoveries. He has also been a guest artist/composer at universities throughout North America. Sam is a member of Arcus Collective, Kludge, and SPLICE Ensemble. Sam has performed with Contemporaneous, Metropolis Ensemble, TILT Brass, the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, and the Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra. Sam has recorded on the New Amsterdam/Nonesuch, New Focus Records, SEAMUS, and Ravello Recordings labels. Sam is currently enrolled in the Performer-Composer DMA program at the California Institute of the Arts. He has degrees in both performance and composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and graduate degrees in Trumpet Performance and Computer Music Composition at Indiana University. He is on faculty at SPLICE Institute, Molloy College, and the California Institute of the Arts. back to programChristopher Biggs is a composer and multimedia artist residing in Kalamazoo, MI, where he is Associate Professor of Music Composition and Technology at Western Michigan University. Biggs’ recent projects focus on integrating live instrumental performance with interactive audiovisual media. Biggs is the Director of SPLICE Institute. His first album, Decade Zero, was released on Ravello Records in the fall of 2017. back to program
Adam Vidiksis is a composer, conductor, percussionist, improviser, and technologist based in Philadelphia whose music often explores social structures, science, and the intersection of humankind with the machines we build. Critics have called his music “mesmerizing”, “dramatic”, “striking” (Philadelphia Weekly), “notable”, “catchy” (WQHS), “magical” (Local Arts Live), and “special” (Percussive Notes), and have noted that Vidiksis provides “an electronically produced frame giving each sound such a deep-colored radiance you could miss the piece's shape for being caught up in each moment” (Philadelphia Inquirer). His work is frequently commissioned and performed throughout North America, Europe, and Asia in recitals, festivals, and major academic conferences. Vidiksis’s music has won numerous awards and grants, including recognition from the Society of Composers, Incorporated, the American Composers Forum, New Music USA, National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, and ASCAP. His works are available through HoneyRock Publishing, EMPiRE, New Focus, PARMA, and SEAMUS Records. Vidiksis recently served as composer in residence for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and was selected by the NEA and Japan-US Friendship Commission to serve as Director of Arts Technology for a performance of a new work by Gene Coleman during the 2020 Olympics in Japan. Vidiksis is Assistant Professor of music technology at Temple University, President and founding member of SPLICE Music, which includes the annual Institute, Academy, and Festival, a Resident Artist at the Renegade Theater company, and a founding member of the Impermanent Society of Philadelphia, a group dedicated to promoting improvisation in the performing arts. He performs in SPLICE Ensemble and the Transonic Orchestra, conducts Ensemble N_JP, and directs the Temple Composers Orchestra and the Boyer College Electroacoustic Ensemble Project (BEEP). He produces real-time generative improvised electronic music (a.k.a 4EA and Circadia of Circadia & Currency). [www.vidiksis.com] back to program
Olly Wilson (1937 – 2018) was an American composer who, while on faculty at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1965-70) founded the TIMARA (Technology in Music and Related Arts) program, the first-ever conservatory program in electronic music. He later was an emeritus professor at the University of California, Berkeley, retiring in 2002. back to program
Pianist and composer Keith Kirchoff has performed throughout North America, Europe, and the Pacific Southwest. A strong advocate for modern music, Kirchoff is committed to fostering new audiences for contemporary music and giving a voice to emerging composers, and to that end has premiered over 100 new works and commissioned over two dozen compositions. Specializing on works which combine interactive electro-acoustics with solo piano, Kirchoff's Electroacoustic Piano Tour has been presented in ten countries, and has spawned three solo albums. Kirchoff is the co-founder and a director of SPLICE and the founder and Artistic Director of Original Gravity Inc. Kirchoff has won awards from the Steinway Society, MetLife Meet the Composer, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and was named the 2011 Distinguished Scholar by the Seabee Memorial Scholarship Association. He has recorded on the New World, Kairos, New Focus, Tantara, Ravello, Thinking outLOUD, Zerx, and SEAMUS labels. back to program
Becky Brown is a composer, harpist, artist, and web designer, interested in producing intensely personal works across the multimedia spectrum. She focuses on narrative, emotional exposure, and catharsis, with a vested interest in using technology and the voice to deeply connect with an audience, wherever they are. She is currently pursuing graduate studies in Composition and Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia. back to program
ESC is a networked, electroacoustic trio comprised of Elainie Lillios, Scott Deal, and Christopher Biggs. The group creates web-based sound art through networked means, using interactive technologies combined with acoustic percussion and creative media. Acclaimed as one of the “contemporary masters of the medium” by MIT Press’s Computer Music Journal, electroacoustic composer Elainie Lillios creates works that reflect her fascination with listening, sound, space, time, immersion, and anecdote. Scott Deal has performed throughout North America, Asia, and Europe. Deal’s recordings have been described as “soaring, shimmering explorations of resplendent mood and incredible scale”….”sublimely performed”. Christopher Biggs is a composer and multimedia artist whose “original and unique musical language” blends dense, contrapuntal textures with direct, visceral expression. His music presents a “masterful combination between acoustic instruments and electronics” (Avant Scena).
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