Joel Gressel

Antonio D’Amato

Ken Paoli

[Linda Pehrson, dance]

Rob Voisey

Angelo Bello

Joshua Marquez

[Amy Campbell & Dani Harris, dance]

Michael James Olson

Brian Schorn

Milica Paranosic / Carmen Kordas

[Margaret Lancaster, flute]

John Oliver

[Linda Pehrson, dance]

John Bock

Taylor Brook

[Amy Campbell & Dani Harris, dance]

Joel Gressel (b. Cleveland, 1943) received a B.A. from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. in music composition from Princeton University. He studied composition with Martin Boykan and Milton Babbitt, and computer music with Godfrey Winham and J.K. Randall. His computer music has been recorded on the Odyssey and CRI labels. He currently lives in New York, working as a computer programmer, maintaining and extending software that models tax- exempt housing-bond cash flows.

The Public Option was composed in 2010 on my home computer using an updated version of the Music 4BF program. All the sounds were digitally synthesized. There are just five basic 12-tone melodic strands in the piece. The rhythms of these strands are shaped (by force of habit) by ratios that expand or reduce successive measures as well as the beats within these measures. The normal 12-tone square of 48 row forms has been distorted. The title was chosen as the piece tries to be relatively accessible and adheres to a 10-minute maximum.

Antonio D’Amato graduated from conservatory in piano, harpsichord, music for multimedia, instrumental music teaching, and electronic music. He also studied composition for eight years, bassoon for three years, baroque organ and audio engineering. In 2010 he was an Ondes Martenot student in Strasbourg and Paris. At university he was a student in Media and Communication. Currently, his main interest is joining traditional composition procedures and the wide opportunities of computer-based music. Some of his instrumental works are published by Forton Music, U.K. His first electronic composition was selected for a performance during the ICMC 2012 Conference.

Lignes et Pointes étude pour la décomposition en deux parties d’ une oeuvre de Joan Miró comes from research about the possibility of maximizing the transmission of emotions through a synesthetic transposition of abstract paintings into music. The piece is a personal transposition into music of a gouache included in the first set of Constellations by Joan Miró, chosen by reason of a deep and personal study on chromatic relationships and of abstract geometrical forms conducted by Miró himself. Lignes et Pointes is formally conceived in two parts, intended as an étude on simple elements, grouped into two basic categories, each part focusing on different families of graphical elements. Long and slow elements are exclusively dominant in the first part, while impulsive sounds build up the second part. These elements are selected and extensively overlapped in order to develop an abstract study on basic elements of a music vocabulary. Here the goal is to attempt forcing the merging of communicative strengths from different art forms through the extraction of the overall shape of each graphical element and a successive superimposition of their general traits to sound elements through intensive dsp.

Ken Paoli received his undergraduate training at DePaul University, studying composition with Phil Winsor. His graduate degrees are from Northwestern University, where he studied composition with M. William Karlins. He is currently the Professor of Music at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, IL. During his tenure at College of DuPage Ken has established a state of the art recording facility and computer-teaching classroom. Ken resides in Wheaton, IL and maintains a busy schedule of teaching, performing and writing in the Chicago-land metropolitan area.

Analogic makes use of virtual analog software synthesizers for the majority of the sound sources. These instruments have created a renewed interest in the sound of early electronic music. While they closely emulate the sound of "classical" synthesizers of the 1960s and 70s, they are much easier to work with. This is especially true when combined with the power and convenience of digital effect processing and hard-drive multitracking. Analogic takes these rich and undervalued sounds and reshapes them with digital signal processing.

Linda Pehrson has danced to electronic music in New York, St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia. Trained in ballet, modern and jazz she enjoys dancing and choreographing operas, Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Saint of Bleecker Street”, plays, Tom Frey’s adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” and on 60x60 events, Dance Parade, Composers Concordance and International Street Cannibals concerts. Recently she performed Joseph Pehrson’s “Vienna Dreams”, David Taylor’s music with the New York Trombone Consort and Kat Wildish’s adaptations of classical ballet variations at The Ailey Citigroup Theater. Thank you, John Oliver and Ken Paoli, for composing these inspiring pieces, and thank you, Rob Voisey and David Morneau, for encouraging me to dance to them.

“With few opportunities and much competition,...composers show creativity in just getting heard.” And in Chris Pasles’s article in the Los Angeles Times, Robert Voisey is highlighted as one of those composers. Composing electroacoustic and chamber music, his aesthetic oscillates from the Romantic to the Post Modern Mash-Up. His work has been performed in venues throughout the world including: Carnegie Hall, World Financial Center Winter Garden Atrium, and Stratford Circus in London. Voisey has been profiled and music broadcasted on HEC-TV public television in St Louis, Elektramusik in France, as well as radio stations all around the world including: Cityscape NPR St. Louis Public Radio; Arts & Answers & Art Waves on WKCR, Upbeat with Eva Radich on Radio New Zealand; and Kol Yisrael Israeli Radio. Rob Voisey is currently experimenting with overtone singing.

Trials and Tribulations - feeling out the landscape with a little personal throat singing and miscellaneous electronics.

Angelo Bello is a sound artist and composer primarily focused on electroacoustic music and algorithmically defined works. He studied at Université Paris VIII with composer Horacio Vaggione and Les Ateliers UPIC (now CIX, Centre Iannis Xenakis), with Gerard Pape and Curtis Roads. Professionally emplo yed at the United Nations in New Y ork as an information analyst directing the UN's digital media asset management systems. Formal training in composition, digital signal processing, and information theory.

Cluster Study No. 4 (2014) is a work created with the Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis algorithm (Iannis Xenakis, 1991), as realized with Peter Hoffmann’ s implementation called The New Gendyn Program (2000). The New Gendyn Program permits one to develop an entire sonic work from a “blank slate”, building timbres with probability distributions. Cluster Study No. 4 is one of a series that explores the multi-layered stochastic nature of the algorithm, and resulting forms that are developed through the realization of both granular synthesis techniques and linearly expanded timbres.

Joshua Marquez (b. 1990) is a Filipino-American composer currently pursuing a PhD in composition at the University of Iowa. Joshua holds degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (MM '13), and Campbell University (BA '11). He has studied with David Gompper, Mark Engebretson, Alejandro Rutty, Ran Whitley, and Milen Parashkevov with private lessons from Derek Bermel, Samuel Adler, Michael Harrison, Roshanne Etezady, David Biedenbender, and Zae Munn. Marquez's music has been performed by ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Contemporary Chamber Players (Stony Brook), Center for New Music (University of Iowa), Akropolis Reed Quintet, and Quintet Sirocco.

Putrefaction: the act or process of putrefying; the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter by bacteria and fungi that results in obnoxiously odorous products; rotting. The few sounds that make up the source material of Putrefaction were broken down into smaller segments, stretched, and disintegrated until harsh sonorities were produced.

Amy Campbell lives in Brooklyn where she dances and makes work for the stage, nightlife, bands, and anyone else who will let her put on a show. A native Ohioan, she received a BFA in dance and choreography from the Ohio State University, taught and choreographed competitive studio dance, and performed with multiple modern and dance theatre companies. She currently makes work with her super talented friends via Crooked Mouth, performs with Inclined Dance Project, and is associated with many variety/theatre shows. She has also performed and made work with Backspace Performance Ensemble, Davon Chance, aemp:dance/Amiti Perry+Dancers, Kelly Donovan & Dancers; and musicians Fashion Week, Kendra Morris, Yula and the extended family, and Hi Fashion. When not dancing she can be found tending bar, stranded in Bed Stuy, and/or trying to keep up with all the things.

Dani Harris is a dancer and choreographer from North Carolina. She lives and works in New York City.

Michael James Olson is a composer, producer, and musician currently residing in Florida. Michael’s concert music has been performed throughout the world, including the Beijing Science Museum (China), SEAMUS National Conference (Miami), II T T echFest (Mumbai), and Noisefloor Festival (UK). Michael has received numerous awards including Finalist for the ASCAP/SEAMUS Commission, and First Prize at the Georgia Southern Research Awards. Michael holds a M.M. from Georgia Southern University, and a Doctorate from Ball State University. Michael currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music at Jacksonville University where he teaches classes in music theory and commercial music, and is the Director of the Dolphinium Records label.

Before Reminiscence explores a Cageian conception of time. Throughout, layers of sonic events are organized either through indeterminacy or strict methodical control. As these layers combine, split and merge, they ebb and flow over a vast sonic landscape.

Brian Schorn received a MFA in Electronic Music and Recording Media from Mills College where he studied composition with Pauline Oliveros, Fred Frith and Alvin Curran. Schorn’s music has been performed in France, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, New Y ork and elsewhere throughout the United States. He has performed with composers and artists such as Cecil Taylor, Maryanne Amacher, Steina Vasulka and Ken Butler. Schorn’s music appears on numerous compilation CDs and is available through Cyclene Records (www.cyclene.com). His graphic scores have been published in Notations21 and Deep Listening Anthology II.

Down Arming: Moog Modular software, field recordings, sequencing, digital processing, vocals, words. T ranslating from English to English, visual and aural associations of letters and words are used to create a new, emotionally- and poetically-charged text. The vocal recording is enhanced by audio-controlled synthesis providing a deep resonance for the words. Additional ambient layering supplies further context.

Critically acclaimed composer Milica Paranosic has established herself as one of New Y ork’ s finest and most daring composers, performance artists, producers, and technologists. Her music was described as “Amazing...astonishing,” (The New Y ork Times), “Like liquor-filled pralines,” (Germany’s Morgenpost), and “A painter, musical Jackson Pollack,” (SEAMUS). Milica’s works range from one-woman multimedia shows and sound installations to operatic and symphonic works. Inspired by her travels and international collaborations, Milica imaginatively incorporates music of her Serbian homeland in addition to cross-continental muses such as Brazil, Ghana and China, always striving to create new sound worlds in which contrasting concepts vividly coexist in unique textures.

Carmen Kordas: Coming out of video installations and painting, her work now developed in a widely range of different disciplines for multimedia art and video projection for theater, opera or performance. Her goal became to collaborate with different artist. She showed her work with the award-winning interdisciplinary performing collective, VisinIntoArt (VIA) director Paola Prestini, the Austrian Culture Forum NYC, PS 122, Time Warner Center, Joe’s Pub, Galapagos Art Space, The Stone, Performing Arts Residency the Whitney Museum, Symphony Space NYC, Carnegie Hall, Bay Chambers Rockport, Bemus Belgrade Yugoslavia, Gessnerallee Zurich and Museum der Moderne Salzburg Austria.

“New-music luminary” (The New York Times) and “leading exponent of the avant-garde flute” (Village Voice), Margaret Lancaster has built a large repertoire of new works composed for her that employ extended techniques, multi-media, and electronics fusing music, theater and movement. Performance highlights include Lincoln Center Festival, Spoleto Festival USA, Ibsen Festival, Santa Fe New Music, Edinburgh Festival, Tap City, New Music Miami, and Festival D’Automne. A member of Either/Or and Fisher Ensemble, she has been a guest of many groups including Argento, Counter)induction, and the New Y ork Philharmonic. She has recorded on New World Records, OO Discs, Innova, Naxos and Tzadik, and was selected for Meet the Composer’s New Works for Soloist Champions project. Noted for her interdisciplinary performances, Lancaster, who also works as an actor, dancer, and amateur furniture designer, presents solo and chamber music concerts worldwide. Recent collaborations include playing Helene in the 7- year worldwide run of OBIE-winning Mabou Mines Dollhouse, BMP’s Kocho, and Fables on Global Warming with Karole Armitage’s ArmitageGone!Dance...www.margaretlancaster.com.

Mrak is a piece I wrote for Margaret Lancaster and myself several years ago as a part of a larger (still in progress) larger project, focusing on sonorities of Margaret’s stunning, lush and diverse flute soundscapes layered over beats and vocals. It is accompanied by video art by a long-time collaborator Carmen Kordas. 'Mrak' is 'darkness' in Serbian, often used for 'cool' or 'awesome' in Belgrade slang.

Award-winning composer John Oliver writes opera, orchestra, chamber and electroacoustic music; performs chamber music as a guitarist; and presents his own immersive music playing special guitars into computer software which then distributes the music through loudspeaker orchestras that surround the audience. Performed extensively in his native Canada, Oliver's music has also been performed in Europe, Asia, and the Americas & heard worldwide on recordings from empreintes DIGIT ALes, earsay, Centrediscs, CBC Records, ZaDiscs, among others. Oliver holds a doctorate from McGill University.

Just Inference was commissioned to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the Group of the Electronic Music Studio (GEMS) Ensemble of Montréal – which Oliver co-founded with Claude Schryer and alcides lanza – and was first performed at the Clara Lichenstein Recital Hall on October 23, 2003.

John Bock was born in New Y ork state in 1984. As young as 3 or 4, he already knew how to work MS-DOS and used it to play computer games. His growing up with computers for his entire life has played a profound influence on him as an electroacoustic music composer. He studied music at Nassau Community College and Queens College, which he later dropped out of. In 2007, he moved to The Netherlands to study Sonology at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. He later moved to Chicago in 2010, where he studied composition with Chris Mercer. He moved to Santa Cruz, California to study with algorithmic computer music with Peter Elsea and David Cope. He is currently unemployed and living in New York.

Jaw Harp Transmutations: When I first heard Charles Ives's Washington's Birthday from his Holidays Symphony, I was particularly struck by his use of the jaw harp. This experience inspired me to create an electronic piece that solely consists of sound material deriving from the jaw harp. The piece, in its entirety, will be made up of multiple contrasting movements to explore this sound source in many different ways. It is currently an incomplete work, and it will be years before I return to it. For this concert, you will hear one of the movements that I have completed.

Taylor Brook studied composition with Luc Brewaeys, Richard Carrick, Brian Cherney, Georg Haas, George Lewis, and John Rea. Taylor has also studied Hindustani musical performance in Kolkata, India, with Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya. Taylor writes concert music, music for video, and music for theater and dance. His music is often concerned with finely-tuned microtonal sonorities. Taylor is currently pursuing a doctorate in music composition from Columbia University where he serves as the assistant conductor to the Columbia University Orchestra.

Coil is a piece that was created by my virtual microtonal guitar program: the rhythms are strictly predetermined while the pitches are improvised according to probabilities. A key aspect of this virtual improviser is that it understands pitch in terms of frequency ratios rather than discreet frequencies. Throughout this work, the virtual improviser cycles through different sets of probabilities of wavering harmonic complexity in order to provide a slowly shifting harmonic tensing and relaxation. However, it may be interesting to note that in this work the key never changes and the tonal center is always an A.