Stanford’s laptop orchestra, with their Mac books programmed to create sound, notes, and music, performed last Tuesday night, April 29th, at Stanford University in a musical collaboration with China. Assistant Professor Ge Wang, brought the idea of a laptop orchestra to Stanford this year. Previously a graduate student at Princeton, where the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) was founded, Professor Wang developed a new music programming language called ChucK, which has been used extensively by PLOrk. The language allows the performers to develop new code in performance. Continue reading

RASTER-NOTON SHOWCASE :: Thursday, May 15, 2008 :: SIGNAL + solo sets by Alva Noto, Frank Bretschneider, and Byetone :: Presented by Non-Event, Basstown, and the Goethe-Institut, Boston ::Middlesex Lounge :: 315 Massachusetts Avenue :: Cambridge, MA :: (617) 868-MSEX :: Doors: 9pm, Show: 10pm :: 21+ Admission: $10

SIGNAL is a Raster-Noton supergroup, featuring Carsten Nicolai (aka Alva Noto), Olaf Bender (aka Byetone), and Frank Bretschneider. The trio performs intense, hypnotic music to a spectacular backdrop of graphical information that reveals the complex geometry of the sounds in play. Most of their sound sources are taken from a huge memory bank of music from long jamming sessions dating from the earlydays of Raster-Noton. These are processed and folded into a taut and energetic web of rhythmic clicks, bristling static, and deep bass pulses that are unexpectedly sensuous and undeniably funky. Their most recent album, Robotron, was released in 2007 on Raster-Noton. This will be SIGNAL’s Boston debut.

mp3 of Signal, Robotron: http://www.raster-noton.net/download/rn-69_robotron/02_Ermafa.mp3 Continue reading

Symposium On Sound :: April 26 - 27, 2008 :: Exhibition: On the Sensations of Sound :: April 27 - June 29, 2008 :: Scheltema, Leiden (Netherlands).

On Saturday 26 April and Sunday 27 April 2008, the Veenfabriek and the Art History Department of Leiden University organise the Symposium On Sound. This symposium is a gathering of scientists, performers and artists, who will focus on the issue of mutual influence between art and science, more specifically with regard to sound. The exhibition On the Sensations of Sound, which is organised in cooperation with Museum De Lakenhal in Scheltema, will be opened during the symposium. Continue reading

Join us, and nations all over the world for International Noise Awareness Day - Hear for the Future :: April 16, 2008 :: Twisted Village 12b Eliot St., Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Beginning at 2:00 pm there will be in-store hearing tests administered on an audiometer :: 2:15 – 2:16 (EDT) International Minute of Silence :: 8:00 pm Concert – Brendan Murray, Asher, Jed Speare.

The concert will feature an investigation into the earliest known recording, from 1860, predating Edison’s by 28 years. A recent article in the NY Times on Edourard-Leon Scott de Martinville’s phonautogram included the sound file of this recently played-back recording. Continue reading

Shawn Greenlee: Augur - Solo Concert :: April 8, 2008; 8:00 PM :: Grant Recital Hall, 1 Young Orchard Avenue, Providence (behind Orwig Music Bldg., corner of Hope Street and Young Orchard Avenue).

In this concert Greenlee will perform two sets with his drawn sound performance system, Augur. Augur is a system for solo audio performance that uses the action of drawing as a performance gesture in conjunction with methods for generating digital sound from graphic patterns stored within the computer. There are two primary activities: 1) The live action of drawing sensed and mapped to signal processing, and 2) the manipulation of previously composed graphics as the instructions for sound synthesis. Continue reading

Horatio Oratorio - A concert & sound installation by Recording Angels (Aleks Kolkowski and Stephan Mathieu) :: July 11 & 12, 2008 :: Sprawl, The Shunt Vaults, Joiner Street, London Bridge tube station, London SE1.

Horatio Oratorio is an exploration through the history of recorded sound. The earliest recording and playback technologies and rare mechanical-acoustic string instruments are combined with vintage and state-of-the-art electronics. A magnificent array of acoustic horns and custom-built loudspeakers project sound from historic wax cylinder phonographs, gramophones and stroh violins, layered and transformed by live digital sound processing. Continue reading

Atau Tanaka Concert :: April 2, 2008; 8:00 pm :: Grant Recital Hall (behind Orwig Music Bldg., corner of Hope Street and Young Orchard Avenue), Brown University.

The Brown Music Department and MEME (Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments) presents… Atau Tanaka, a concert of interactive computer music and video featuring Japanese / American artist Atau Tanaka. Tanaka creates music for sensor instruments, wireless network infrastructures, and democratized digital forms; his work bridges the fields of media art, experimental music, and research. Also featuring new works by current and former MEME students.

Call for Works for the first Canadian 60×60 Project (2008) :: Deadline: March 31, 2008 (postmark).

Vox Novus, in collaboration with the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC), is inviting composers to submit recorded works 60 seconds or less in duration to be included in the first Canadian version of the annual 60×60 Project. 60 compositions will be selected to be played continuously in a one-hour concert. The Canadian 60×60 concert season will begin with a debut in Montréal and continue throughout Canada in venues to be announced. Concerts may also include a visual component (a clock, video clips, spectrographs, dance, etc.). Continue reading

GASP Gallery Presents: STEVE LEHMAN :: March 14, 2008; 8:00 pm :: GASP Gallery, 362-4 Boylston St., Brookline, MA.

“Probing the furthest frontiers of rhythm science, alto saxophonist Steve Lehman represents some of the most advanced compositional thinking in jazz today. A child of the avant-garde, he’s a former student and bandmate of Anthony Braxton and a member of Fieldwork, the collaborative trio with piano visionary Vijay Iyer. Lehman’s 2005 outing Demian as Posthuman, featuring Meshell Ndegeocello, is a study in splintered soundscapes and mind-altering beats.” - Philadelphia Weekly Continue reading

From the website: “The Telematic Circle is an interest group that uses and develops applications for telepresent music performances. The group supports the creation of new art that specifically addresses broadband transmission systems as a new medium.

The interest of the Telematic Circle goes beyond the requirements of mono-located music performances, for example musical solutions that address the unavoidable latency between two co-located sites. Continue reading