Gene Pritsker

[Peter Krysa, violin]

Yiannis Christofides

Robert Voisey

Linda Antas

Hubert Howe

Sabrina Peña Young

Whitney George (score & sound design) 2015

Frans Zwartjes (1970)

[Melinda Faylor, piano]

Tomás Henriques

Dave Seidel

Composer/guitarist/rapper/Di.J. Gene Pritsker has written over five hundred compositions, including chamber operas, orchestral and chamber works, electro-acoustic music and songs for hip-hop and rock ensembles. All of his compositions employ an eclectic spectrum of styles and are influenced by his studies of various musical cultures.

He is the founder and leader of Sound Liberation; an eclectic hip hop-chamber-jazz-rock-etc. ensemble and co-director of Composers' Concordance. Gene's music has been performed all over the world at various festivals and by many ensembles and performers, including the Adelaide Symphony, MDR Symphony, The Athens Camarata, China Philharmonic Orchestra, Brooklyn, Shanghai and Berlin Philharmonic, Sinfonietta Riga, Orchester des Pfalztheaters, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Anhaltische Philharmonie as well as such soloists as Anne Akiko Meyers, Lara St. John, Kathleen Supove, Sarah Chang, Martin Kuuskmann and Simone Dinnerstein. He has worked closely with Joe Zawinul and has orchestrated major Hollywood movies, Including 'Cloud Atlas', for which he wrote additional music and composed his ''Cloud Atlas Symphony', to be released in 2015

As a Di.j., Gene Di.J. 'Noizepunk' Pritsker re mixes strange and unusual sounds. Using His computer, thus the name Di.J.- Digital Jockey, he manipulates in real time contemporary classical music, Jazz and samples various sounds not usual to the groove oriented DJ sound. Thinks of a modern composer who imposes techno, hip-hop, house, etc. beats on to an eclectic array of the worlds sound. Some re mixes he has done include: Xenakis Remix, CompCord remix, Earl Hines Remix and Stevie Wonder remix

The New York Times described him as "...audacious...multitalented." Joseph Pehrson, writing in The Music Connoisseur, described Pritsker as "dissolving the artificial boundaries between high brow, low brow, classical, popular musics and elevates the idea that if it's done well it is great music, regardless of the style or genre". Classical Music Sentinel writes: "modern day renaissance man.

He is the co-director of Composers' Concordance (CC Records), co-founder/guitarist of Absolute Ensemble and artist-in residence at the Austrian Outreach Festival.

Peter Krysa’s music studies began in Moscow with his father, Oleh Krysa, a distinguished soloist and student of David Oistrakh who is currently on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music. In 1989 Peter moved to North America where he attended the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, University of Toronto and the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. Peter Krysa resides in Vancouver, Canada. He is a full time member of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra in Seattle, WA and regularly performs with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. He is also the Artistic Director of Music at Whistler, a concert series in Whistler, British Columbia. http://www.wix.com/peterkrysa/violin

Yiannis Christofides (b. 1985, Nicosia) is a composer, sound artist and sound designer. Much of his work investigates our experience of place through the use of field recordings as principal material. His particular interest in field recording is in relation to the contextual aspects of sound and the inter-sensory experience that it affords. Thus, it often extends beyond the auditory in order to take into consideration the interdependences and interactions between different sensory faculties, the multitude of subjective interpretations, memories and personal narratives associated with a particular soundfield and its social and political context. Yiannis' work for art installations, stage and performance pieces, new media art, curatorial and multimedia productions has been presented at various festivals, galleries and venues all over Europe and the US. More information: www.yiannischristofides.com

Part of an ongoing series of "postcard" pieces, Postcards: Manitou Ave. was completed during my two-month stay on Manitou Avenue, situated in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles, CA. The piece is dedicated to Jeff Cain, Christopher O'Leary and Michael Kontopoulos.

“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.

Lament and Sorrow – In Memory of Liana Alexandra and dedicated to Serban Nichifor; two of my dear colleagues, composers, and friends.

Linda Antas is a composer, digital artist, flutist, and educator. Her compositions have been broadcast around the world and are published on the Ablaze, TauKay, Centaur, EMS, and Media Café labels. A Fulbright Fellowship recipient, Antas has also been recognized by the Musica Nova International Electro-acoustic Music Competition, the International Music Contest Città di Udine (Taukay Edizioni Musicali), and has received commissions from the International Computer Music Association, and various internationally-renowned performers. She regularly collaborates with scientists and visual and sound artists for creative and educational projects. Her current research involves audiovisual works, real-time interactive signal processing, and physical computing. She serves on the faculty of Montana State University, teaching music technology, interdisciplinary multimedia courses, and composition, and is currently Vice President for Membership of SEAMUS. In addition to (and sometimes in combination with) musical activities, she spends time in the wilderness and practices Buddhism.

All that glitters isn’t treasure (but it glitters nonetheless). Not everything that goes bump in the night does us harm. Many things are nearly equal parts glitter and bump. All That Glitters and Goes Bump in the Night is a reflection on our often distorted perceptions of the objects, situations, and people around us, and how these distorted perceptions cause undue negativity, unfounded positivity, and overall confusion about the causes of happiness and suffering.

On a technical level, the work explores the parallels between moving image and audio art, including the creative process itself. The parallels between the basic elements of the two media (texture, layer, color/timbre, density, and the scaling of time and frequency), and methods for transforming the digital data were investigated in creating this work. The audio was created using CSound, SuperCollider, and MetaSynth. The visuals were created with a Canon 5D Mark III and Adobe AfterEffects.

Hubert Howe was educated at Princeton University, where he studied with J. K. Randall, Godfrey Winham and Milton Babbitt, and from which he received the A.B., M.F.A. and Ph.D. degrees. He was one of the first researchers in computer music, and Professor of Music at Queens College of the City University of New York, where he served as Director of the Aaron Copland School of Music for over ten years. He also taught at the Juilliard School from 1974 to 1994. He is currently Director of the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival and Executive Director of the New York Composers Circle. Recordings of his music have been released by Capstone Records (Overtone Music, CPS-8678, Filtered Music, CPS-8719, and Temperamental Music and Created Sounds, CPS-8771), Ravello Records (Clusters, RR 7817) and Ablaze Records (Electronic Masters, Vol. 2, AR00013).

Inharmonic Fantasy No. 2 is based entirely on sounds containing inharmonic partials, that is, overtones that do not so much create a timbre for the sound as they create a kind of cluster above the fundamental. The overtones have the same relationship, entering in the same rhythm and in the same pitch relationship, as all of the notes in the passage in which they occur. Thus, they are a kind of fractal. Sounds are presented in two ways: continuously, as a complex envelope, and attacked separately. Underlying everything is a very slow vibrato that expands from zero to a perfect fourth in the middle of the piece, making just one cycle over each entire section. The piece opens with a soft, slow passage unfolding the basic idea, and this underlies most of the piece, except for the middle. This is followed by faster and denser passages until the attacking tones are introduced. After a short pause, a climax occurs that uses both instruments together, after which the underlying tones are left by themselves. The work was composed in 2007 and synthesized with the csound program.

Award-winning composer, futurist, and obsessive sci-fi buff Sabrina Peña Young composes experimental works presented at the Beijing Conservatory, the International Computer Music Conference, Miramax’s Project Greenlight, the Athena Festival, the New York International Independent Film Festival, Art Basil Miami, Turkey’s Cinema for Peace, El Instituto Cubana de la Musica, Pulsefield International Exhibition of Sound Art and other arts events. The Holland Animation Festival premiered her “groundbreaking” machinima work Libertaria: The Virtual Opera. In 2014 Young presented a TED Talk on Libertaria and "Singing Geneticists and EPIC Machinima Opera"at TEDx Buffalo. Young recently released the album A Futurist Music Anthology: The Electroacoustic Mind of Sabrina Pena Young 2001-2014, produced the premier Urban Night: Sounds of the machinima group Nano Ensemble 21 at the upcoming IAWM Congress 2015, and is part of the social media opera event The Village by UK-based composer Scott Lee, premiering this spring.

Singularity: The point in time which accelerated technologies will cause a runaway effect in which artificial intelligence will supersede human intelligence and control, forever and irreversibly transforming society. Estimated year of Singularity: 2045. Enjoy your humanity while you can.

Whitney George is a composer and conductor who specializes in the use of mixed media to blur the distinctions between concert performance, installation art, and theater. Utilizing a wide variety of material including literary texts, silent film, stock footage, and visual arts, George's compositions are characterized by an immersive theatricality that thrives on collaboration in all phases of the creative process. Her affinity for the macabre, the fantastic, and the bizarre frequently gives rise to musical programs that evoke the traditions of phantasmagoria and melodrama, challenging musicians to experiment liberally with their stage personae, and audiences to widen the scope of their attention.

Melinda Faylor, a native of Queens, New York, began piano at the age of four at the School for Strings. She received her BM from the Oberlin Conservatory in the studio of Robert Shannon, where she was the recipient of the Dean’s Talent Award. She received her MM in piano performance at the Manhattan School of Music, with help from a Masonic scholarship, in the studio of Dr Arkady Aronov. Ms Faylor has experience as an accompanist, chamber musician, orchestral pianist and solo pianist. She has also studied with John Nauman and Elyane Laussade. Summer festivals include the Mannes College of Music IFCP and IKIF Festivals, as well as the Orford, Las Vegas, Tibor Vargas, and Ecole Normale de Musique festivals. She has worked extensively with electronic music and has performed with electronics as part of the SEAMUS and OCEAN festivals, the NYC International Fringe Festival, the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, Hofstra University, the Great Hall at Cooper Union, and at the University of Akron in Ohio. Her passion for contemporary music led her to join Oberlin’s CME (2000-2001) and the New York based TACTUS and Delancey ensembles (2003-2006) as well.

In the ​film Seats Two (1970​) two women, Zw​artjes'​ regular actresses Moniek Toebosch and Trix Zwartjes, are sitting side by side on a couch​, looking at a photo of a mountain landscape. The physical attraction between the two is clearly perceptible, but the two conceal their mutual craving. Sexuality is suggested through the ​odd cuts and splices of the film's editing and the tactile quality of the images. All is suggested, but nothing happens. Fascinated by the highly rhythmic nature of the films, and the obscured narratives, ​Seats Two is George's 5th re-scoring of a silent film by Frans Zwartjes. Her other compositions include scores to Spare Bedroom, Spectator, Sorbet III, and A Fan which have been performed both by Ensemble Mise-en and The Curiosity Cabinet.

Tomás Henriques is a composer and researcher who obtained a Ph.D. in Music Composition in 1997, from the University at Buffalo, NY USA. Dr. Henriques' research is multi-disciplinary, crossing the artistic and scientific fields. It focuses on using sensor technologies to create innovative electronic instruments as well as digital controllers that explore sound and visual data for medical applications, etc. Dr. Henriques won First Prize at the 2010 Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, with the invention of his “Double Slide Controller,” a slide trombone-like electronic instrument. His "Sonik Spring", a hand-held device that translates force and gestural information into sound and visual data, was granted a full US patent.

From 2010-2013 he was the Principal Investigator of the “See-Through-Sound” project, an international research project aimed at helping visually impaired individuals ‘see’, using sonic cues. Recently Dr. Henriques teamed up with Yamaha engineers to develop a hybrid AFC+52.1 surround sound system, unparalleled in the USA, which has been installed at SUNY Buffalo State's music department. At this university, Dr. Henriques is the head of the Music Theory and Composition and also the Director of the Program in Digital Music.

Trois Rêves (presque insolites) is a sonic narrative of a dream like experience where a group of events dwell in a loose but recurring manner exploring three main psychological threads that relate to the notion of memory, motion and nostalgia. The piece is electro-acoustic. Most of the concrete sounds are recognizable “found objects” such as those of unfazed children at play, the overpowering sound of jet planes or the anxious sound of an old train. They evoke unsettling memories that bounce off a contrasting and ethereal harmonic background. This distant but ever present background is based on the overtone series of the 'A' pitch, and appears as a subtle call that echoes a lost stability. The electronic sounds on the other hand are less complex and point-like, but formally relevant, cyclically appearing in the work and delineating the overall structure. The suggestion of a dream state is further explored with the use of sounds associated with sleeping.

Dave Seidel (http://mysterybear.net) is a composer/performer based in New Hampshire who works with electronics in improvised and composed idioms, emphasizing long tones and purely-tuned intervals. His CD ~60 Hz was released by Irritable Hedgehog in 2014. George Grella in The Brooklyn Rail rated it the “best electronic music” of 2014. Doug DeLoach wrote in Creative Loafing Atlanta that “a transcendently wondrous hum permeates this simple yet richly varied meditative exercise in sine wave manipulation.”
Seidel also collaborates with singer Laurie Amat in the duo Palimpsest. He participated as an electric guitarist in the 1980s downtown New York music scene as a member of ensembles led by composers Scott Johnson, Lois V Vierk and Guy Klucevsek ensembles and in the bands La Guapa Papa and People Falling. His premiere recordings of Vierk’s Go Guitars and Red Shift were released on the XI and Tzadik labels, respectively.

Prism, Mirror, Lens is a meditative piece consisting of a sequence of chords that grow out of pairs of notes from a Bohlen-Pierce scale in just intonation. Each pair becomes a slowly-evolving multi-tone cluster with a complex, beating spectrum. The dyads are played on a Shnth, a recently-invented electronic instrument, and processed in real time by Csound, which is in turn controlled by the performer using a device called a rePatcher. The title of the piece comes from the first chapter of Samuel R. Delany's novel Dhalgren.