Howard Kenty

[Adrianna Mateo, violin]

Louise Harris

Cara Haxo

Sara Corry

[Sorcha Barr, flute]

Mei-Fang Lin

Yiannis Christofides

Mark Zaki

[Mark Zaki, violin]

Christopher Cresswell

Lin Culbertson

Thomas Rex Beverly

Annea Lockwood

Howie Kenty, AKA Hwarg, is an award-winning Brooklyn-based composer.

His electroacoustic prog-rock contemporary artsound sometimes uses visual and theatrical elements, and he always strives for a conceptual unity to fully immerse the audience in his works. Besides regularly premiering his pieces internationally with amazing performers, helping organize the NYCEMF, teaching, and working with artists like DJ Spooky and Amanda Palmer, Howie plays guitar in the prog rock band The Benzene Ring. Having recently earned his MA in Composition from the Aaron Copland School of Music, he is beginning PhD studies at Stony Brook University. Music and more at http://hwarg.com.

We Have Less Time Than You Think deals with the fact that we humans do not really have long: on the smaller-scale, in terms of the things we attempt to immediately accomplish, and on larger scales, in the time we can spend with each other, the duration of our individual existences, and the collective lifespan of the human race. Time passes in a blur, fluidly and easily escaping attempts to stop or slow its flow, with certain events standing out in hindsight as demarcations of structural points. The longer I have existed, the more the passage of time seems to increase exponentially; I certainly feel like I have less time than I think.

Regarded as a lyrical, powerful, and emotionally raw performer, new music violinist Adrianna Mateo has performed as a soloist at the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with its first Artist-In-Residence DJ Spooky, and on tour in Europe. She has recently merged her roles as violinist and singer-songwriter for well-received performances at the Living Room, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, and in Africa and Southeast Asia. Ms. Mateo will perform a violin and electronics piece written for her at the 2014 Bang On A Can Summer Marathon. You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud, and through other social media.

Louise Harris is an electronic and audiovisual composer. She is also Lecturer in Sonic and Audiovisual Practices at The University of Glasgow. Louise specialises in the creation of audiovisual relationships utilising electronic music and computer-generated visual environments. She completed her PhD in music composition at Sheffield University, under the supervision of Adrian Moore, and previously studied composition at York with Nicola LeFanu and before that at Oxford with Robert Saxton. Louise’s audiovisual work has been performed and exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Sound and Music Expo, Leeds (2009), AV Festival, Newcastle (2010), Musica Viva Festival, Lisbon, Portugal (2011), International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), Huddersfield (2011), Naisa SOUNDplay festival, Toronto, Canada (2011), Strasbourg Museum of Modern Art, Strasbourg, France (2012), Piksel Festival, Bergen, Norway (2012), Sonica Festival, Glasgow (2013), International Motion Festival, Cyprus (2013) and the Linux Audio Conference, Graz, Austria (2013). Louise is a strong advocate of open source technology and her work typically employs a variety of open source software programmes and programming languages. Her particular research interests are the nature of the audio/video relationship in abstract audiovisual art and the creation of self-sustaining and symbiotic audiovisual systems.

A fuzee (fusee) is a cone-shaped pulley with a spiral groove used in chord or chain-winding clocks. fuzee is an 8-minute audio/video piece in which sonic momentum is translated into visual movement in a pre-defined and very specific way.

Cara Haxo earned her bachelor’s degree in composition at The College of Wooster, where she studied composition with Jack Gallagher and Peter Mowrey. She is the recipient of the 2013 NFMC Young Composers Award and the 2013 IAWM Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Prize and was awarded second prize in the 2012 OFMC Student/Collegiate Composers Contest. Her works have been performed by the PRISM Quartet, the Wooster Symphony Orchestra, the Eleventh Hour Saxophone Quartet, and the JCA Composers’ Orchestra. A native of Haydenville, Massachusetts, Haxo is currently pursuing a graduate degree in composition at Butler University, where she studies with Michael Schelle.

In du cœur (2013)—meaning “of the heart” in French—the electronic sounds work together to create a living, sonic organism. The piece opens with a heartbeat motif that crescendos as the sounds come alive, and that links the various sounds to one another. The additional sighs and pulsations used in the composition further suggest its “aliveness.” While writing this piece, I aimed to have one idea flow seamlessly into the next, so that the whole work would feel like a single, connected being.

Sara Corry's music is "a beacon of fiery light, crafted with an elevated degree of intelligence, and an inventive imagination," wrote the Sun Post News. As a composer of both electronic and acoustic works, she enjoys being a graduate assistant and teaching Music Technology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She also enjoys spending her summers teaching electronic music and theory at Interlochen Arts Camp. Sara Corry is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, and is currently working on her DMA at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Nepenthes (2014) Noun 1. (Also nepenthe) A drug described in Homer’s Odyssey as banishing grief or trouble from a person’s mind.
• Any drug or potion bringing welcome forgetfulness.

This piece explores three types of nepenthes through an interaction between solo flute and electronics.
I. Potion - 3' • II. Poison - 1' 42" • III. Draught - 1' 10"

Sorcha Barr is a junior at the University of Colorado Boulder pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Flute Performance. Originally taught by Dr. Cate Hummel, Sorcha then studied with Hideko Amano for five years, before moving to Boulder, CO to study with Christina Jennings at the University of Colorado Boulder. Most recently, Ms. Barr has given a solo recital in Boulder, CO, and performed at UMKC’s Composer’s Exchange in Kansas City, Missouri. She has premiered La Voyage by Chelsea Komlisches and Nepenthes by Sara Corry, both at Pendulum New Music Concerts through the University of Colorado Boulder. Ms. Barr also played principal flute in the Colorado Young Sinfonia, under the direction of Basil Vendryes, Principal Violist of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Ms. Barr was recently awarded 3rd place in the Colorado Flute Association's First Annual Collegiate Competition and has been a featured soloist with the Neuqua Valley Symphony Orchestra in 2011 and the Oistrach Symphony Orchestra in 2012. In April of 2012, she was a featured performer on Chicago’s Classic Music Station, WFMT, on their Introductions program for young performers.

Mei-Fang Lin is currently an Assistant Professor in Composition at the Texas Tech University. She received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley and her MA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she also taught as Visiting Assistant Professor in Composition. Supported by the Frank Huntington Beebe Foundation and the George Ladd Paris Prize, she studied with composer Philippe Leroux in Paris during 2002-2005 and participated in the one-year computer music course “Cursus de Composition” at IRCAM in Paris in 2003-2004. Lin’s music has received awards, performances and broadcasts internationally in 30 countries.

Figurations was composed at the University of Illinois Experimental Music Studios as part of a commission project in commemoration of the 50th anniversary celebration of the EMS. The materials for the electronic score come from granulations of a small collection of pre-recorded string sounds. They take the form of simple musical figurations such as running scales and arpeggios which serve as the core gestures for the piece. The evolution and buildup of these musical gestures form the larger architecture of the piece.

Born in 1985 in Nicosia, Cyprus, Yiannis Christofides is a composer, sound artist and sound designer currently based in Los Angeles, CA. His work integrates different media and theoretical tools, extending across a variety of disciplines, creative practices and media, and has been presented across Europe and in the US.

Nancarrow's Sting: Electroacoustic miniature piece in memory of Conlon Nancarrow. The piece was composed exclusively from recorded samples of one of Nancarrow's player pianos, recorded at the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel, where the complete archive of the composer and his two player pianos are currently located. The miniature was first presented as part of a London Sinfonietta concert at Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. The concert was part of the festival series "Impossible Brilliance: the music of Conlon Nancarrow," organized by the London Sinfonietta, Southbank Centre and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

Building on his many diverse interests, composer and violinist Mark Zaki’s work ranges from historically-informed and traditional chamber music to electroacoustic music, mixed-media composition, and music for film. In 2012-13, Mark was a visiting professor at the University of Sheffield as the recipient of a highly prized Fulbright Scholar Award to the United Kingdom. Currently on the faculty at Rutgers University-Camden, he is the director of the Music Program and the Rutgers Electro-Acoustic Lab (REAL).

reFRACTion is an object that reflects its own history. Revealed through iterations of fragmented material, its final form is realized through the accretion of layered sound over time. From a simple and transparent opening statement, a foundation is derived which subsequently remains below the surface. Fragments are captured, processed, and added to a slowly evolving fabric.

There's no attempt to apprehend any musical narrative directly, the piece only does so in retrospect. The ear chooses between current and past events as histories begin to emerge and compete with one another – often productively, but also in ways that can be unresolved. To a certain extent, reFRACTion could be viewed as metaphor – a palimpsest of existence, where the past is covered up but continues to visibly influence the present.

Originally from Cazenovia, NY, Chris Cresswell (b. 1988) is a young composer who is gaining recognition for his work in a wide variety of music genres, from large and chamber ensembles, solo works, vocal works, electro-acoustic works and collaborations with video artists. Graduating Magna Cum Laude from Syracuse University in 2011 with a Bachelor’s of Music in Composition. He currently lives in Astoria, NY and studies with Zibuokle Martinaityte.

Distorted Mirrors: The second in my Audifiler series, an ongoing project of works built using heavily manipulated digital samples. These works are created using small fragments of pop songs that are then heavily manipulated using a variety of digital music programs.

Musician and composer Lin Culbertson’s experience as an improviser greatly informs her sound work. Her compositions are comprised of synthesized sounds, field recordings, and conventional instruments, and incorporate aspects of indeterminacy in their arrangement and performance. The influence of her graphic design background is evident in the use of graphic scores and visual translation software to include non-musical elements in the sound creation process. She is a founding member of the improvisational unit White Out.

Secret of the Hive is an abstract interpretation of the complex and often mysterious nature of beehive activity. It draws stylistic inspiration from the experimental flicker films of the 1960s and 70s.The rapid disappearance of bee colonies around the world was the impetus to create a composition that pays tribute to the humble bee and the mystical symbiotic ecosystem of the hive. A fantastical bee's perspective is conveyed through a strobing hive light network that mesmerizes the viewer with its throbbing luminescent energy. An underlying mounting analog synthesizer drone swells to a climatic single pulsing tone that explodes onto the screen in a phantasmagoric rush of pattern and color.

Thomas Rex Beverly is a graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas where he received a bachelor’s degree in music composition. At Trinity, he studied with Timothy Kramer, David Heuser, Jack W. Stamps, and Brian Nelson. He has had pieces performed at the SCI Region VI Conference, the Electroacoustic Barn Dance Festival, the CFAMC National Conference, National Student Electronic Music Event at Temple University, 2014 Biennial Symposium for Arts and Technology at Connecticut College. He is currently attending graduate school at Bowling Green State University in their Master of Music Composition degree program where he is a Music Technology Teaching Assistant.

Telepresent Storm: Rita: In this piece, I routed historical weather data through software I built to create a graphical score. Then, I controlled a bank of samples with two iPads and interpreted the graphical score by freely assigning sound, harmony, rhythm, melody, and growth to the available weather parameters. As a result, the data in Telepresent Storm: Rita connects the audience’s visual and auditory experience with the actual data and energy of Hurricane Rita. Paradoxically, Rita was a massive show of destruction and grandeur and I hope this piece transports you to this time and place in September 2005.

Born in New Zealand in 1939 and living in the US since 1973, Annea Lockwood is known for her explorations of the rich world of natural acoustic sounds and environments, in works ranging from sound art and installations, through text-sound and performance art to concert music. Her music has been performed in many venues and festivals including: the Possibility of Action exhibition at MACBA Barcelona, De Ijsbreker, the Other Minds Festival-San Francisco, the Walker Art Center, the American Century: 1950 – 2000 exhibition at the Whitney Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum, Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Westdeutscher Rundfunk, CNMAT Berkeley, the Asia-Pacific Festival, Donaufest 2006 Ulm, the Donau Festival Krems, the 7th Totally Huge New Music Festival Perth, Ear To The Earth Festival - New York and Sonic Acts XIII. Her sound installation, A Sound Map of the Danube, has been presented in Germany, Austria and the USA. This is a surround 'sound map' of the entire Danube River, incorporating a wide variety of water, animal and underwater insect sounds, rocks from the riverbed and the voices of those whose lives are intimately connected to the river. Other recent projects include Ceci n’est pas un piano, for piano, video and electronics commissioned by Jennifer Hymer; Jitterbug, commissioned by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, a six channel soundscape with two improvising musicians; and In Our Name, a collaboration with Thomas Buckner based on poems by prisoners in Guantánamo. She was a recipient of the 2007 Henry Cowell Award. Her music has been issued on CD and online on the Lovely Music, Ambitus, EM, XI, Rattle, Lorelt, and Pogus labels.

Dusk (2012) incorporates the low frequency sounds generated by seafloor ‘black smoker’ hydrothermal vents, transposed bat calls, and percussionist William Winant playing a tam tam. The vent recordings were generously made available to me by Dr. Timothy Crone of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University and were recorded in the Main Endeavor Field on the Juan de Fuca mid-ocean ridge off the coast of Washington State; the bat recordings are from the library of Avisoft Bioacoustics, Berlin.