SPLICE Institute 2025 Concert 4 Program
featuring
SPLICE Faculty and Guests
Thursday June 26, 2025 - a most auspicious day
7:30:00pm EDT
Dalton Recital Hall, Western Michigan University
Livestream simulcast on SPLICE YouTube (unique link)
Christopher Biggs + Adam Vidiksis : improv
Christopher Biggs, electronics
Adam Vidiksis, percussion
Eric Souther : Devotional Signals ~
Eric Souther, Leap Motion and Touch Design
Chainsaw Fugue : tumulous clusters
Andrew Au, electronics and live video
Per Bloland, lap steel feedback banjo
Flannery Cunningham : as if my eyes were caught
Robin Meiksins, flute
Scott Miller : Coupling
Keith Kirchoff, piano
Adam Vidiksis, percussion
Lisa Coons : Chimera’s Garden
Robin Meiksins, flute
Notes
Christopher Biggs + Adam Vidiksis : improv
Nope.
Eric Souther : Devotional Signals ~
Devotional Signals ~ is an audio-visual alchemic process that explores the materiality of the signal as it shifts through historical forms into contemporary graphics. The leap motion was used to create a twelve complex oscillator spatial mixer with x & z, y generates an envelope (one per hand), invisible planes left and right of the performer trigger drums that can be grabbed mid air morphing the audio-visual material.
Chainsaw Fugue : tumulous clusters
tumulus clusters is one of a growing number of loosely organized improvisations by Chainsaw Fugue, a duo composed of Andy Au on live video (and electronics), and Per Bloland on lap steel feedback banjo (and electronics). Per plays the lap steel feedback banjo - a banjo laying flat on the table in front of him with two sound exciters. One of the exciters rests on the head of the banjo, the other is held and used as a slide on the strings (sometimes). The sound of the banjo is fed through effects (lots of distortion!) and a controlled amount is fed back into the sound exciters. There’s also a computer sending sound, from Per and from Andy. It’s a mess. All that audio is sent back to Andy, who reacts to with live video generation and manipulation. It’s really too much, and stuff keeps breaking. We should get rid of like half of the crap on the table.
Flannery Cunningham : as if my eyes were caught
As a child, I remember asking my mother in frustration why all songs had to be love songs. Surely there were other things to sing about? I certainly thought so. Well, 20+ years later, here's my first love song - of a sort.
as if my eyes were caught uses a network of medieval intertextual refrains: shared segments of music and text that circulated between a wide variety of genres in the long 13th century. For medieval listeners, such refrains often “cued” other works in which they appeared, invoking their melodic, textual, and symbolic connotations. as if my eyes were caught plays with such cuing in various ways, including quoting a 13th-century tenor used under a number of the refrains, drawing in recordings made with audio and processes that relate to the texts of the refrains, and literally cuing the vocal samples via tracking the pitch of the flute. Often the flute articulates the medieval melody of the refrain while the vocal samples deliver a loose English translation of its text with related melodic material, the two dancing around each other. (Many thanks to soprano Heather O'Donovan for her beautiful work in recording the vocal samples!) Lyrically, refrains are usually bound up with themes of courtly love, with the speaker admiring an exemplary but unattainable lover; however, medieval creators were masters of manipulating such messages through the layering of various voices and intertextual associations. Is the beloved a typical noble lady? Is she Robin’s Marion or the shepherdess of the pastourelle genre? Is she the Virgin Mary, turning romantic love into spiritual devotion? Is the love portrayed in fact satirical, signalling an apocalyptic mood at the turn of the 14th century? I am fascinated by the ways that medieval creators played with widely circulating, even generic “love song” material to effect their own distinct musical and textual goals. In many ways, as if my eyes were caught sits squarely in that tradition of playful manipulation of the identity and symbolic import of the lover and beloved.
Scott Miller : Coupling
Coupling was first developed at the Spaial Music Workshop, hosted by the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology at Virginia Tech's Cube, in Blacksburg, VA. It was written for pianist Shannon Wettstein Sadler and percussionist Terry Vermillion as a complementary work for Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Kontakte," a seminal work of spatial music for piano, percussion, and 4-channel tape. In Coupling, the movement of individual sounds and their synthesis (an therefore our perception of their timbre) is coupled to the behavior of sound in the performance space using ecosystemic programming.
back to program
Lisa Coons : Chimera’s Garden
Chimera’s Garden was born of a desire to tell a story within an aural-visual world: a world shared by performer and audience. The multimedia serves as both the “score” the performer reads/responds to, and the context in which the performance exists (a temporally evolving “scene”). The narrative is of a woman deeply connected to the natural world, a protagonist never at home with others. As she is always at odds with the outside world, the woman loses herself in the cultivation of her garden. She is eventually subsumed by her remote sanctuary, undergoing an irreversible metamorphosis and finding her own peculiar peace.
This is a recent work in a series I call “Narrative Environment Works;” works that are story-based for multimedia and performers. The original physical score combined watercolor, ink, and found objects to convey the connections between the protagonist and the natural world. That document, including my original text and vocal performance, was then translated to video and fixed media. Chimera’s Garden is a structured improvisation work, using the aforementioned multimedia as a score/framework for the performance; and it is always a collaboration with the performer, relying deeply on how that individual tells the story.
Bios
Born in Chicago in 1972, Andrew Au was influenced from an early age by science fiction, religion, reading and art. With each series of work he produces, he creates a working narrative that sets the parameters for the aesthetic conventions he uses. In recent series of works, he has treated memetic study as a pseudo-science, presenting cultural ideas as if they were living and evolving creatures. His works also challenge the notions of design being evident in lifeforms through a series of life products that will be evolved, rather than designed. He teaches foundation studies at Miami University at Middletown, OH, and maintains a studio with his wife in Cincinnati.
Christopher Biggs is a composer, electronics performer, 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), and has been described as “heartbreakingly beautiful” (Classical Music Review), and a “sonic foodfight” (Jazz Weekly). His recent projects focus on integrating live instrumental performance with interactive audiovisual media.
Per Bloland is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music whose works have been described by the New York Times as “lush, caustic,” and “irresistible.” His compositions range from solo pieces to works for large orchestra, and incorporate video, dance, and custom-built electronics. He has received awards and recognition from organizations including IRCAM, SEAMUS/ASCAP, Digital Art Awards of Tokyo, the Martirano Competition, and ISCM. He is currently an Associate Professor of Composition and Technology at Miami University, Ohio, and received an Artistic Research Residency at IRCAM in Paris for spring of 2023. A portrait CD of his work is available from Tzadik (now streamable!), and his latest CD, Shadows of the Electric Moon, is scheduled for an August release on New Focus Records.
For information see: perbloland.com, for scores: babelscores.com/perbloland
Chainsaw Fugue is an audio-visual duo based in Cincinnati, OH. We make noisy electronic and acoustic sounds and noisy video, all generated live. Every show is different, come check us out. Our first (and only) video album, Sledge Feathers, is available on Youtube and has the critics in a tizzy:
“By far the best album they’ve ever released. Top of their list. Give it a look/listen.”
- Andy Au.
“Definitely the worst album in this duo’s career. Still worth checking out though.”
- Per Bloland.
Lisa Renée Coons makes creative sound projects with others. Her preferred labels oscillate from sound artist to composer, from mentor and teacher to dreamer and maker. Although her artistic work spans disciplines, media, and vocabularies, almost all are collaborative, integrating aural and visual elements in some capacity, and are grounded in themes of environmentalism, identity, and the performing body. Lisa’s rich experiences collaborating include those with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Spectral Quartet, Mark DeChiazza, The American Composers Orchestra, Ensemble Dal Niente, the NODES Project, Dither Electric Guitar Quartet, Shanna Pranaitis, Iktus Percussion Quartet, Illinois Modern Ensemble, the New England Guitar Quartet, Hannah Addario-Berry, Collect/Project, and the California E.A.R. Unit. She has been fortunate to develop her work in fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Yaddo, the Hartt School, and the Other Minds Festival. Lisa is currently an Associate Professor of Music at Western Michigan University. lisarcoons.com
Flannery Cunningham is a composer and musicologist fascinated by vocal expression, text, and auditory perception. She aims to write music that surprises and delights. Called “silken” by the Washington Post, her work has been performed at festivals such as Aspen, June in Buffalo, Toronto Creative Music Lab, SPLICE Institute and Festival, and Copland House’s CULTIVATE and by performers such as International Contemporary Ensemble, PRISM Quartet, TAK, New York New Music Ensemble, Yarn/Wire, and Music from Copland House. Flannery is attracted to the very old and very new, especially 13th-14th-century song and contemporary electroacoustic technologies. In addition to acoustic ensembles she writes for players and singers with interactive electronics, always striving to foreground the musicality of human performers. A native of central Minnesota, Flannery holds degrees from Princeton University, University College Cork, and Stony Brook University as well as a joint PhD in composition and musicology from the University of Pennsylvania. Alongside her own creative work and research, she currently serves on the faculty and board of SPLICE Institute and as a promotion manager at the publisher G. Schirmer, where she works to increase programming of contemporary music by orchestras and other ensembles.
Described as a “virtuosic tour de force” whose playing is “energetic, precise, (and) sensitive,” pianist and composer Keith Kirchoff has performed throughout North America, Europe, and the Pacific Southwest. A strong advocate for living composers, Kirchoff is committed to fostering new audiences for contemporary music and giving a voice to emerging composers, and to that end has commissioned several dozen compositions and premiered hundreds of new works. He is the co-founder and President of SPLICE Music: one of the United States’ largest programs dedicated to the performance, creation, and development of music for performers and electronics. Kirchoff is active as both a soloist and chamber musician, and is a member of both Hinge Quartet and SPLICE Ensemble. Kirchoff has won awards from the Steinway Society, MetLife Meet the Composer, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Chamber Music America, 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.
Robin Meiksins is a flutist and improviser focused on collaboration with living composers and music performance through the internet. Chicago-based, she uses online media to support and create collaboration, as well as more traditional means of performance. Robin’s biggest creative platform is YouTube. On her channel she is most known for her long term collaborative projects, the first being 365 Days of Flute in 2016-2017. Robin has since completed 5 more long term Youtube projects. Most recently, Robin completed two projects highlighting improvisation and Chicago beer and breweries. Robin has premiered over 200 works written by living composers. In September 2022, she premiered two works for woodwind trio for Arc Project’s “Three Winds” project. She has performed at the SEAMUS national conference, EMM, SPLICE Institute and Festival, and Oh My Ears festival, among others.
Robin holds a masters degree from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music where she studied with Kate Lukas and Thomas Robertello. Robin received a Bachelors of Music with Distinction from University of Toronto, having studied with Leslie Newman.
Scott L. Miller is an American composer best known for his electroacoustic chamber music and ecosystemic performance pieces. His music is characterized by collaborative approaches to composition and the use of electronics, exploring performer/computer improvisation and re-imagining ancient compositional processes through the lens of 21st century technology. Inspired by the inner-workings of sound and the microscopic in the natural and mechanical worlds, his music is the product of hands-on experimentation and collaboration with musicians and performers from across the spectrum of styles. His recent work experiments with VR applications in live concerts, first realized in his composition Raba, created for Tallinn-based Ensemble U.
Miller’s ecosystemic works model the behavior of objects from the natural world in electronic sound, creating interactive sonic ecosystems. Ecosystemic pieces are the result of autonomous sounds competing with each other for sonic space. Individual sounds tend to find a balance, which can be upset by changes to the sonic landscape, such as the introduction of new sounds. Because of this, sonic ecosystems are intimately tied to the space they are presented in. With or without humans, repeat performances produce unique results each time—sometimes subtle, sometimes drastic—while maintaining a recognizable identity. Recordings of his music are available on New Focus Recordings, Innova, Ein Klang, and other labels; many of these recordings feature his long-time collaborators, the new music ensemble Zeitgeist (whose albums he also produces). His music is published by the American Composers Edition, Tetractys, and Jeanné. His most recent albums include COINCIDENT (FCR337), Havona (#SR002), Lab Rat (ekr 070).
Miller is a Professor of Music at St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, where he teaches composition, electroacoustic music and theory. He is Past-President (2014—18) of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the U.S. (SEAMUS) and presently Director of SEAMUS Records. He holds degrees from The University of Minnesota, The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill and the State University of New York at Oneonta, and studied composition at the Czech-American Summer Music Institute and the Centre de Création Musicale Iannis Xenakis.
Miller has been named a McKnight Composer Fellow three times (2001, 2013, 2018), a Fulbright Scholar (2014—15), and his work has been recognized by numerous state, national, and international arts organizations. He has been the featured artist at several festivals, including the Chicago Electro-Acoustic Music Festival, the Lipa Festival, and the Estonian Academy of Music’s Autumn Festival, Sügisfest.
Eric Souther (b.1987, Kansas City) holds an MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and an BFA in New Media from the Kansas City Art Institute. Souther is an Assistant Professor of Kinetic Imaging in the Gwen Frostic School of Art at Western Michigan University.
Adam Vidiksis is a drummer and composer based in Philadelphia who explores social structures, science, and the intersection of humankind with the machines we build. His music examines technological systems as artifacts of human culture, acutely revealed in the slippery area where these spaces meet and overlap—a place of friction, growth, and decay. Vidiksis is a sought-after champion of new works for percussion and electronics, performing as a featured artist in venues around the world. 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, serving as Director of Arts Technology for a performance of a new work during the 2020 Olympics in Japan. Vidiksis is Assistant Professor of music technology at Temple University and President of SPLICE Music. He performs in SPLICE Ensemble and the Transonic Orchestra, conducts Ensemble N_JP, and directs the Boyer College Electroacoustic Ensemble Project (BEEP).