ICMC Keynote Address: "The Democratization of Computer Music"

For the International Computer Music Conference in Perth this year, I was one of the 5 keynote speakers.  The others were Agostino di Scipio, Haco, Alvin Curran and David Toop.  It was a pretty amazing collection of talks, and I felt honored to be part of it.  Here's my keynote, slightly revised from the live reading, with all the photos and sound files from the Power Point now included in the lecture, and with an expanded concluding section.  I hope you like it - it took a lot of effort to summarize all those years of work and all those thoughts into a presentation like this, and I think the effort was worth it.  Here's a link to a PDF copy of the talk, which you can downloade HERE.  Enjoy.

Sample IV for Orchestral Samples - 2008-2013 - from the ICMC2013 album

For the International Computer Music Conference, the keynote speakers were invited to contribute a piece to the conference album, which was distributed only to the delegates to the conference.  As I'm not sure if the album will eventually be made available to the public, I'd like to post my contribution to the album here.  Samples IV is a piece, like all of my "Samples" series, that is made with orchestral samples, to make music that orchestras wouldn't be able to make.  This one uses that Composers' Desktop Project software and ArtWonk to make sequences of 1000 notes.  The sequences of 1000 notes are them played with the same patterns of notes that generated the original sequence, thus making textures of 1,000,000 notes.  As you may imagine, the texture gets rather thick.  There are some lovely transitions from sequences of recognizable orchestral sounds, some microtonally tuned, into very thick noisebands, and then back to recognizable orchestral sounds.  This occurs several times throughout the piece.  I started the piece in 2008, but then got stuck, then got sick.  In the recovery period, the piece got lost in the shuffle.  Finally, earlier this year, I got it out and dusted it off, and after five years, realized the few things that were necessary to complete the piece.  So here it is - 19 minutes long - now available for you.

 And if you like it, you can download it HERE.

Without Glue - Performance at ICMC 2013, Perth, August 11, 2013

My piece "Without Glue," for improvising jazz musicians and live electronics, (the earlier performance by Craig Schneider and myself is HERE), was performed on the Keynote Concert at the International Computer Music Conference in Perth on August 11, 2013.  The performers were Sean Little, sax, and Stuart James, piano, as well as myself on electronics.  Sean and Stuart did an amazing and wonderful job performing the piece - I couldn't wish for a better performance.  I did pretty good too - shaping phrases of electronic modification in response to the guys' wonderful performing.  Catherine was sitting in the front row of the concert with the Zoom recorder, and got a really good recording.  Which I'm sharing with you now.

And as usual, you can download it HERE.

Experience of Marfa - Recording from Astra June 1 performance now available here

Things have been busy, so I'm just getting around to posting the recording from the June 1, 2013 performance of "Experience of Marfa" by Catherine Schieve and myself.  This recording was made by Michael Hewes, and is a mixdown of a 16 track recording of the live performance by the Astra Choir, the Astra Improvising Choir, Catherine Schieve on Sruti Boxes and Gong; and Warren Burt on live electronics.  The choir was prepared by John McCaughey, music director of the Astra Chamber Music Society, and the Improvising Choir was prepared by Joan Pollock.  I hope you enjoy it!

 

And you can download it HERE.