SPLICE Institute 2024 Concert 3 Program

featuring

SPLICE Faculty and Guests

Wednesday June 26, 2024
7:30pm EDT
Dalton Recital Hall, Western Michigan University
Livestream simulcast on SPLICE YouTube (unique link)

Joo Won Park : Singaporean Crosswalk
  Electronic Ensemble

Kyong Mee Choi : Slight Uncertainty is Very Attractive
  Robin Meiksins, flute

Gabriel Bolaños : los minisculos
  Dana Jessen, bassoon

Becky Brown : Etude
  Becky Brown, mixer

Joo Won Park : Large Intestine
  Joo Won Park, no input mixer

Kyong Mee Choi : too bright to see
  Drew Whiting, saxophone

Sam Pluta and Dana Jessen : Improv
  Dana Jessen, bassoon
  Sam Pluta, electronics

## Notes

Joo Won Park: Singaporean Crosswalk
Singaporean Crosswalk was inspired by my trip to Singapore in 2010. The sound of the traffic light in the city was quite different from that of the United States and Korea. It was fun, effective, and musically intriguing. During the day, this sound was a theme song for the people in a metropolis. During the night, it became part of the flora and fauna surrounding the city.
back to program

---

Kyong Mee Choi : Slight Uncertainty is Very Attractive
The attractiveness of somewhat unfocused images in photography served as the inspiration for this piece. The flute and electronics are blended in such a way that it is not always clear which is sounding. Pitch bend, airy sounds, whistle tones, and other extended techniques enhance this “fuzzy” effect.
back to program

---

Gabriel Bolaños : los minisculos
Los Minúsculos​ is an homage to the over 300 victims who have been killed by the Nicaraguan government since April 2018, and to all my fellow Nicaraguans who have suffered under Daniel Ortega’s regime. The first lady and vice president disparagingly calls protesters "minúsculos grupos alentadores del odio” (miniscule groups inciting hatred). As a reaction, hundreds of thousands of self-proclaimed minúsculos have repeatedly taken to the streets in protest, demanding justice for the victims of oppression. This piece, for bassoon and electronics, was written in close collaboration with Dana Jessen and performed at SPLICE institute. It is an examination of collective movement and growth, a study on how multiple small things can converge, grow and develop into a larger, cohesive, even uncontrollable whole. Many thanks to Dana for the brilliant performance and a fruitful collaboration, and to SPLICE institute.
back to program

---

Becky Brown: Etude
As per the title, this piece is meant to be performed by its engineer, and to a lesser degree by anyone else who may happen to be in the space concurrently. Maintain attention on everything you can: the room, its walls, the speakers, the cables, the stage, your neighbors, your body, the air. You may find this difficult, as many parts of "everything" will attempt to become forgettable.
back to program

---

Joo Won Park: Large Intestine
In no-input mixing, a performer controls an audio mixer by creating and manipulating a feedback loop without an external sound source. With proper patching and some practice, a no-input mixer becomes a powerful and expressive electronic instrument. Large Intestine uses the said instrument to narrate the following story: I am a taco on a journey in a man’s digestive system, and this is what I heard inside the bowel.
back to program

---

Kyong Mee Choi : too bright to see
too bright to see is based on theme of Gustav Mahler's "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" whose poem was written by Friedrich Rückert.

I am lost to the world
with which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long
that it may very well believe that I am dead!

It is of no consequence to me
whether it thinks me dead;
I cannot deny it,
for I really am dead to the world.

I am dead to the world's tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song.
back to program

Bios

Gabriel José Bolaños (b. 1984 Bogotá, Colombia) is a Nicaraguan-American composer of solo, chamber, orchestral and electroacoustic music. He frequently collaborates closely with performers, and enjoys writing music that explores unusual structures and timbres. He is interested in computer-assisted-composition, auditory perception, linguistics, and modular synthesizers. He enjoys listening to music by Saariaho, Romitelli, Grisey, Gubaidulina, Harvey, León, Os Mutantes, Ciani, Wishart, Simon Diaz, Yupanqui and Sabicas.

Recent projects include a grant from the AZ Commission on the Arts to deveop computer-assisted-composition tools for the creation and realization of polytemporal music, a residency at CIRM with a commission for ensemble C. Barré for festival MANCA in Nice, France, a collection of audiovisual vignettes titled The Grand Transparents, a collaboration with Bassoonist Dana Jessen for solo bassoon and electronics called Los Minúsculos, and Charity and Love, an album with jazz pianist Frank Carlberg inspired by the music and voice of Mary Lou Williams.

Bolaños received a BA in Music from Columbia University and a PhD in Music Theory and Composition from UC Davis. His principal composition teachers include Mika Pelo, Pablo Ortiz, Laurie San Martin, Fabien Lévy and Sebastian Currier, and he studied orchestration with Tristan Murail. He also attended the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau (France), SICPP (Boston), Atlantic Music Festival (Maine), New Music on the Point (Vermont), Festival Mixtur (Barcelona) and SPLICE Institute (Michigan).

Bolaños is Assistant Professor of Music Composition at Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, where he teaches courses in composition, music technology, analysis, and acoustics. Bolaños serves as the coordinator of the ASU electronic music studios, and is co-director of annual the PRISMS contemporary music festival. Before coming to ASU, he was visiting lecturer at Bates College for the 2018-2019 academic year and taught courses in music theory and music technology. As a 2016-17 Fulbright Visiting Scholar in Nicaragua, he was composer-in-residence and visiting conductor for the UPOLI Conservatory Orchestra, and visiting professor at the UPOLI Conservatory of Music. He was co-founder and artistic director of Proyecto Eco, Nicaragua’s first new-music ensemble. He has also helped organize artistic and cultural exchanges between US and Nicaraguan musicians. Beyond his work as a teacher and composer of concert music, he has also written music for film, theater and dance, and has experience performing as a flamenco dance accompanist.
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, and is an audio engineer at NPR.
back to program

---

Kyong Mee Choi, composer, organist, painter, poet, and visual artist, received several prestigious awards and grants including John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, Robert Helps Prize, Aaron Copland Award, John Donald Robb Musical Trust Fund Commission, Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, First prize of ASCAP/SEAMUS Award, Second prize at VI Concurso Internacional de Música Eletroacústica de São Paulo among others. Her music was published at Ablaze, CIMESP (São Paulo, Brazil), SCI, EMS, ERM media, SEAMUS, and Détonants Voyages (Studio Forum, France). She is the Program Director of Music Composition, Music and Computing at Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in Chicago where she teaches composition and electro-acoustic music. Samples of her works are available at http://www.kyongmeechoi.com.
back to program

---

Hailed as a “bassoon virtuoso” (Chicago Reader) and 2023 Cleveland Arts Prize winner, Dana Jessen tirelessly seeks to expand the boundaries of her instrument through original compositions, improvisations, and collaborative work with innovative artists. Over the past decade, she has presented dozens of world premiere performances throughout North America and Europe while maintaining equal footing in the creative music community as an improviser. Her solo performances are almost entirely grounded in electroacoustic composition that highlight her distinct musical language. As a chamber musician, Dana is the co-founder of the contemporary reed quintet Splinter Reeds, and has performed with Alarm Will Sound, Amsterdam’s DOEK Collective, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the Tri-Centric Ensemble, among many others. A dedicated educator, Dana teaches at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and has presented masterclasses and workshops to a range of students from across the globe. More at: www.danajessen.com
back to program

---

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.
back to program

---

Joo Won Park (joowonpark.net) makes music with electronics, toys, and other sources that he can record or synthesize. He is the recipient of the Knight Arts Challenge Detroit (2019) and the Kresge Arts Fellowship (2020). His music and writings are available on ICMC DVD, Spectrum Press, MIT Press, PARMA, Visceral Media, MCSD, SEAMUS, and No Remixes labels. He currently teaches Music Technology at Wayne State University.
back to program

---

Sam Pluta is a Baltimore-based composer, laptop improviser, electronics performer, and sound artist. Though his work has a wide breadth, his central focus is on using the laptop as a performance instrument capable of sharing the stage with groups ranging from new music ensembles to world-class improvisers. By creating unique interactions of electronics, instruments, and sonic spaces, Pluta's vibrant musical universe fuses the traditionally separate sound worlds of acoustic instruments and electronics, creating sonic spaces which envelop the audience and resulting in a music focused on visceral interaction of instrumental performers with reactive computerized sound worlds.

As a composer of instrumental music, Sam has written works for Wet Ink Ensemble, the New York Philharmonic, International Contemporary Ensemble, the Warsaw Autumn Festival, Yarn/Wire, Timetable Percussion, Mivos Quartet, Spektral Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, Mantra Percussion, TAK, Rage Thormbones, and Prism Saxophone Quartet. His compositions range from solo instrumental works to pieces for ensemble with electronics to compositions for large ensemble and orchestra. In addition to acoustic and electro-acoustic works, Pluta has written extensive solo electronic repertoire ranging from multi-channel acousmatic compositions to solo laptop works with video to laptop ensemble compositions for up to 15 players.

Sam is the Technical Director for the Wet Ink Ensemble, a group for whom he is a member composer as well as principal electronics performer. As a performer of chamber music with Wet Ink and other groups, in addition to his own works, Sam has performed and premiered works by Peter Ablinger, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Katharina Rosenberger, George Lewis, Ben Hackbarth, Alvin Lucier, Chiyoko Szlavnics, Alex Mincek, Kate Soper, and Eric Wubbels among others.

As an improviser, Sam has collaborated with some of the finest creative musicians in the world, including Peter Evans, Evan Parker, Ikue Mori, Craig Taborn, Ingrid Laubrock, Anne La Berge, and George Lewis. Sam is a member of multiple improvisation-based ensembles, the jazz influenced Peter Evans Ensemble, the free improvisation-based Rocket Science (with Evan Parker, Craig Taborn and Peter Evans), the analog synth and laptop duo exclusiveOr (with Jeff Snyder), and his longstanding duo with Peter Evans. Sam has also performed with the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. With these various groups he has toured Europe and America and performed at major festivals and venues, such as the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, the Moers and Donaueshingen Festivals in Germany, Bimhuis in Amsterdam, and The Vortex in London.

Dr Pluta studied composition and electronic music at Columbia University, where he received his DMA in 2012. He received Masters degrees from the University of Birmingham in the UK and the University of Texas at Austin, and completed his undergraduate work at Santa Clara University. His principal teachers include George Lewis, Brad Garton, Tristan Murail, Fabien Levy, Scott Wilson, Jonty Harrison, Russell Pinkston, Lynn Shurtleff, and Bruce Pennycook.

Sam is Associate Professor of Computer Music and Music Engineering Technology at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where he directs the Peabody Computer Music Studios. From 2011-15 he directed the Electronic Music Studio at Manhattan School of Music and from 2015-2020 he directed the CHIME Studio at the University of Chicago. For 16 years he taught composition, musicianship, electronic music, and an assortment of specialty courses at the Walden School, where he also served as Director of Electronic Music and Academic Dean. He now teaches at the Walden School Creative Musicians Retreat, a summer program for adult sonic artists.
back to program

---

Saxophonist Drew Whiting has established himself as a champion of new and experimental music, specializing in performing works of the 20th and 21st centuries in solo, chamber, and electroacoustic settings. Drew is described as having “superb musicianship” (The Saxophonist), “remarkable versatility” (Computer Music Journal), and is a “superb advocate of the music he champions” (Fanfare Magazine).

Drew currently serves as Associate Professor of Saxophone at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. He received his Bachelors and Masters of Music degrees from the Michigan State University College of Music and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Drew is a proud Yamaha Performing Artist and Vandoren Artist-Clinician, performing exclusively on Yamaha saxophones and Vandoren woodwind products.
back to program

Thursday June 29, 2023
5:00pm EDT
Multimedia Room, Western Michigan University
Livestream simulcast on SPLICE YouTube (unique link)

Panel Discussion : Improvisation with Electronics

Panelists:

Roderick Coover
Aurie Hsu
Erin Rogers
Dennis Sullivan

Moderator:

Adam Vidiksis

Bios:

Roderick Coover is film director/media artist and the creator of experimental and emergent cinematic arts work exhibited in art venues and public spaces such as the Venice Biennale Hyper-Pavilions, The Nobel Peace Prize Forum, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Documenta MadridHe lives in Pennsylvania, USA, and Drôme, France.
back to program

---

Aurie Hsu is a composer, pianist, and dancer. She composes acoustic, electroacoustic, and interactive music, performs her own prepared/extended piano music, and collaborates often with musicians, choreographers, and musical robots. She received her Ph.D. in Composition and Computer Technologies from the University of Virginia and holds degrees in piano performance from Oberlin Conservatory (BM) and Mills College (MFA). She also holds a degree in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College (MFA).

Aurie’s works have been performed by the Da Capo Chamber Players, Relâche, NOW ensemble, and the Talujon Percussion Quartet among others. Her works have been presented around the U.S. at ICMC, SEAMUS, SIGCHI, Pixelerations, Third Practice Festival, Acoustica 21, and abroad at the Logos Tetrahedron Concert Hall (Belgium) and the Cite International des Arts (France). In 2010, Aurie won the International Computer Music Association (ICMA) Student Award for Best Submission for Shadows no. 5, part of a series of pieces for modern-tribal belly dancer, electroacoustic music, and RAKS (Remote electroAcoustic Kinesthetic Sensing) system. The RAKS system is a wireless sensor interface designed specifically for belly dance in collaboration with composer Steven Kemper.

As a pianist, Aurie has premiered many pieces including works by Peter Swendsen, Maggi Payne, and Ted Coffey. Sarah Cahill of the San Francisco Classical Voice has described Aurie’s playing as “incendiary” and having “dazzled the audience.” Aurie is a former member of Fire in the Belly Dance Co. (2005-2012), the only professional contemporary belly dance company in central Virginia and completed Rachel Brice's 8 Elements(TM) Phase 1: Initiation with Recognition in 2015. Aurie has taught at the University of San Diego and the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Aurie is currently Assistant Professor of Computer Music and Digital Arts at the Oberlin Conservatory.
back to program

---

Erin Rogers is a Canadian-American saxophonist and composer. She is Co-Artistic director of NYC-based ensembles thingNY, Popebama, New Thread Quartet, Hypercube and a core member of LA-based WildUp. Her music has been performed worldwide at the Prototype, Ecstatic, and MATA Festivals, Celebrity Series (Boston), Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Centro Nacional de las Artes (Mexico City), and NYmusikk Bergen (Norway). Rogers is faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music Contemporary Performance Program, a Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Teaching Artist, and a D’Addario Woodwinds and Conn-Selmer endorsing artist. Described as "a richly expressive display of stentorian brilliance" (The Wire) she has recorded two solo albums for Relative Pitch Records and can be heard on New Focus, New World, INNOVA, GoldBolus, Infrequent Seams, and Edition Wandelweiser. erinmrogers.com
back to program

---

Born in Akron, Ohio, Dennis K. Sullivan II is a percussionist, composer, improviser and electronicist based in Queens, NY. Dennis explores cross-genre coalescence between acoustic, electronic and timbral sound alchemy. As a percussionist, Dennis is a founding member of the performance duo, Radical 2 with percussionist/engineer, Levy Lorenzo and Popebama, a high octane experimental percussion/saxophone duo with composer/saxophonist Erin Rogers. In addition, Dennis is the percussionist and co-director of the Wavefield Ensemble and has shared the stage with The International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble ECCE, Ensemble Court Circuit, Either/Or, Ensemble Pamplemousse, The Argento New Music Project and others.
back to program

---

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. 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, Inc., the American Composers Forum, New Music USA, NEA, Chamber Music America, and ASCAP. His works are available through HoneyRock Publishing, EMPiRE, New Focus, PARMA Ravello, Fuzzy Panda, Scarp, and SEAMUS Records. Vidiksis recently served as composer in residence for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and was selected by the Japan-US Friendship Commission to serve as a Nichi Bei Collaborator Artist during the 2020 Olympics in Japan. Vidiksis is Assistant Professor of music technology at Temple University, President and founding member of SPLICE Music. He performs in SPLICE Ensemble and the Miller-Vidiksis-Wells trio, conducts Ensemble N_JP, and directs the Temple Composers Orchestra and BEEP.
back to program

SPLICE Institute 2023 Concert 3 Program

featuring

Popebama

  Erin Rogers, saxophone
  Dennis Sullivan, percussion

Wednesday June 29, 2022
7:30pm EDT
Dalton Recital Hall, Western Michigan University
Livestream simulcast on SPLICE YouTube (unique link)

download program pdf (does not include notes/bios)

Dennis Sullivan : Prelude to Substructure (2021)

Kittie Cooper : Edgewise (2020)

Erin Rogers : Basket Case (2021)

Varun Kishore : this used to be something else (II) (2023)

Ess Whiteley : inter[ ARE] (2023 - world premier)

Popebama : Remote Cipher (2023 - world premier)

Notes

Dennis Sullivan : Prelude to Substructure
Prelude to Substructure is an intentional organization of unintentional and unavoidable sonic events. The amplification of the tenor saxophone and percussion highlights more of the instrument "doing its job" as opposed to the aural product of the action (though this is also unavoidable). A series of over-driven, self oscillating distortion pedals provide a layer of multiphonic noise to act as an adhesive between sometimes disparate sound worlds. Maintenance Hum is equal parts product and byproduct of instrumental sound. back to program

---

Kittie Cooper : Edgewise
Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVPs) are recorded sounds that are interpreted as the voices of ghosts, spirits, and other paranormal entities. EVPs can be recorded unintentionally or can be intentionally requested and recorded, usually via human-conducted conversation in supernaturally active spaces. During this process, people speak to and record the space, and then listen to and edit recordings later, interpreting any replies. EVPs provide the text and much of the sonic material for edgewise.

edgewise engages with the relationship between humans and space in the documentation of EVPs, as well as the power dynamics at play when humans seek to project meaning onto sound and space. This piece creates an environment in which humans, recordings, and spaces struggle to be heard amidst conflicting modes of communication and interpretation.
back to program

---

Erin Rogers : Basket Case
During a Popebama road trip, it became apparent through the constant dashboard drumming, that Dennis Sullivan knew the drum fills to nearly every 90's hit that landed on the randomized playlist. The fills in Green Day's Basket Case (Dookie, 1994) are rhythmically simple yet, when played at top speed, present a perfectly crisp noise. The song deserves a 30-year anniversary tribute. Paired with 0-Coast semi-mod desktop synth, freeze and ring modulation pedals, a peaked-out vocal mic, and a catalog of soprano multiphonics, Basket Case encounters its next-generation self.
—Erin Rogers
back to program

---

Varun Kishore : this used to be something else (II)
Phonetic text scores originally created for exploratory drone improvisation using electric guitar, ebow, and synthesizers are reimagined for saxophone and percussion. Performers interpret short fragments of text as sound, ranging from recognizable vowels to abstract groups of letters, creating textures that offer a different perspective on the idea of the drone.
back to program

---

Ess Whiteley : inter[ ARE]
This piece is a sonic and visual meditation on synthetic-organic hybridities, inter-material entanglements, cross-species kinship. The term “more-than-human worlds” (David Abrams, 1996) has been used to call attention through the senses to what exists beyond what is conventionally considered in Western paradigms to be human. In such a way, this piece orients us towards environmental sonic and visual fields melded with technological ones, bringing into being a speculative “more-than-human" audiovisual world made up of cross-species cyborg-organism assemblages and inter-material becomings.
back to program

---

Popebama : Remote Cipher
Remote Cipher is an exploration of spontaneous sound, light and resonance. It is in a constant state of becoming and actualization.
back to program

---

Bios

Popebama is a New York-based experimental duo that focuses on exciting performances of unconventional works. Described as “Noisily Virtuosic” (clevelandclassical.com), Erin Rogers (saxophone) and Dennis Sullivan (percussion) are composer-performers who apply text, electronics, and high-energy instrumental writing to freshly-squeezed sounds. Specializing in works conceived by Rogers and Sullivan, Popebama has championed composers such as Merche Blasco, Paul Pinto, Jenna Lyle, Rick Burkhardt, Seong Ae Kim, Kittie Cooper, Ryan Carraher, Varun Kishore, Chin-Ting Chan, Chelsea Loew, Daniel Silliman, S Whiteley, and Alex Christie. The duo has collaborated with yarn/wire (NYC), Tøyen Fil Og Klafferi (Oslo), Brandon Lopez (Brooklyn), Anne La Berge (Amsterdam), Merche Blasco (NYC), Jessica Pavone (Queens), Ogni Suono (Cleveland), Rage Thormbones (LA), and DECODER (Hamburg). Popebama has been featured at the Elbphilarmonie (Hamburg), NYmusikk Bergen (Norway), The Shed (NYC), Edmonton Fringe Festival (Canada), Splendor (Amsterdam), Diabolical Records (Salt Lake City), VU Symposium (Park City), Bodies-As-Technology (Brooklyn), ReSound Festival (Cleveland), The Stone (NYC), SPLICE Festival (Kalamazoo), New School of Music (Boston), Studio Loos (Den Haag), Chance & Circumstance Festival (Long Island City), and The Walden School (New Hampshire), with lauded performances at the 2017 New Music Gathering, and NASA 2018 Biennial (Cincinnati).
back to program

---

Kittie Cooper is a sound and intermedia artist, performer, and educator based in Vancouver, BC. She makes work that explores the spectrum between silliness and seriousness, and in particular where those two things overlap with spookiness. Much of Kittie’s work looks at the messy insides of people, places, and things. Their work has been called ""highly original and wonderfully fun"". They are interested in text and graphic scores, improvisation, and DIY electronic instruments. They have performed and presented at a variety of festivals across the United States and Canada, and perform regularly as a guitarist, electronic musician, and improviser.

Kittie’s music has been commissioned and performed by International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Ensemble Dal Niente, Splinter Reeds, Popebama, and Warp Trio. She serves as Director of Composers Forums and Faculty for The Walden School Young Musicians Program. They hold a BM from Northwestern University in music education and guitar performance, and an MEd in teaching students with visual impairments from George Mason University. They are currently working toward an MFA in interdisciplinary arts at Simon Fraser University. They also like ghost stories, chili, and cats.

You can find more information and documentation of Kittie’s work at kittiecooper.com.
back to program

---

Varun Kishore is a guitarist and composer from Kolkata, India. His work explores interdisciplinary approaches to music technology, literature, and the audiovisual, with a focus on designing frameworks for composition and improvisation to investigate what he sees as the ‘apocalyptic’ nature of creative practice. Varun's recent work has been performed by the Tokyo Gen’on Project and Popebama, and presented at SEAMUS, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, and the South Bend Museum of Art. His current areas of interest include drone and experimental electronic music, metal studies, digital instrument and interface design, alternative notation, and video. Varun is a graduate of the University of West London (BMus Popular Music Performance, 2012) and Goldsmiths, University of London (MMus Creative Practice, 2019). He is currently a PhD student in the Composition & Computer Technologies program at the University of Virginia. www.varunkishore.net
back to program

---

Erin Rogers is a Canadian-American saxophonist and composer. She is Co-Artistic director of NYC-based ensembles thingNY, Popebama, New Thread Quartet, Hypercube and a core member of LA-based WildUp. Her music has been performed worldwide at the Prototype, Ecstatic, and MATA Festivals, Celebrity Series (Boston), Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Centro Nacional de las Artes (Mexico City), and NYmusikk Bergen (Norway). Rogers is faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music Contemporary Performance Program, a Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Teaching Artist, and a D’Addario Woodwinds and Conn-Selmer endorsing artist. Described as "a richly expressive display of stentorian brilliance" (The Wire) she has recorded two solo albums for Relative Pitch Records and can be heard on New Focus, New World, INNOVA, GoldBolus, Infrequent Seams, and Edition Wandelweiser. erinmrogers.com
back to program

---

Born in Akron, Ohio, Dennis K. Sullivan II is a percussionist, composer, improviser and electronicist based in Queens, NY. Dennis explores cross-genre coalescence between acoustic, electronic and timbral sound alchemy. As a percussionist, Dennis is a founding member of the performance duo, Radical 2 with percussionist/engineer, Levy Lorenzo and Popebama, a high octane experimental percussion/saxophone duo with composer/saxophonist Erin Rogers. In addition, Dennis is the percussionist and co-director of the Wavefield Ensemble and has shared the stage with The International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble ECCE, Ensemble Court Circuit, Either/Or, Ensemble Pamplemousse, The Argento New Music Project and others.
back to program

---

Ess (‘S’) Whiteley (they/them) is a San Diego-based multimedia composer and improvisor working primarily with electronics and intermedia. They are interested in cyborg consciousness, embodiment, formations of the self, and Deep Listening in the context of virtually entangled, post-internet life.

They have toured Europe, the UK, and North America with various bands, had their music featured on publications like Pitchfork and The Wire and released labels like Not Not Fun, 99Chants, Topshelf Records, and Touchtheplants. Their work has been performed at the MATA Festival (NYC), Dublin Music Current Festival (Dublin, Ireland), MA/IN Matera Intermedia Festival (Matera, Italy) [Honorary Mention Award], SEAMUS National Conference (NYC), WOCMAT 關於 (Hschinchu, Taiwan), Mise-en Festival (Brooklyn, NY), Echofluxx (Prague, CZ), Int-Act Festival (Bangkok, Thailand), Festival di Nuova Consonanza (Rome, Italy), N_SEME (Denton, TX), University of Pittsburgh Music & Erotics Conference (Pittsburgh, PA) and others.

S has held residencies at the I-Park Inc. Foundation Artist Residency, Dublin Sound Lab, and the Labo de Musique Contemporaine de Montréal. Their work, creative practice, and Deep Listening practice is heavily informed by the 2 years they spent studying Buddhism and practicing meditation intensively in residential monastic retreat at several different Zen Buddhist Monasteries in Oregon, the Bay Area, and New Mexico.

They received their BM in Composition from McGill University and are currently a PhD student in Composition at the University of California San Diego. Their mentors have included Melissa Hui, Philippe Leroux, Marcos Balter, Rand Steiger and Michelle Lou.
back to program