Happenings

Monday, April 22 @ Noon to 2pm – Experimental Sound Studio

John Bischoff will present a Powerpoint presentation featuring his work with the computer network band, The Hub, as well as a detailed discussion of two recent solos—”Visibility Study” and “Bitplicity.” Both solos feature homemade analog circuits in performance with software synthesis elements generated by a laptop.

The solos share the following software structures, although they sound quite different:

– circuit tones sound at the loudspeakers and also trigger digital synthesis responses via the laptop

– the most prominent circuit events are analyzed for spectral content and elapsed time between events

– the pitch and timing of subsequent digital synthesis is driven by this performance-acquired data—no pre-performance data is employed

John Bischoff (b. 1949, San Francisco) is an early pioneer of live computer music. He is known for his solo constructions in real-time synthesis as well as the development of computer network music. His recent performances combine hands-on analog circuitry and digital synthesis in open dialog. Sonic attributes in one domain inform music unfolding in the other. The ebb and flow of discontinuity in these systems spontaneously generates form. He has been active in the experimental music scene in the Bay Area for over 40 years as a composer, performer, and teacher. He is a founding member of the League of Automatic Music Composers, the world’s first computer network band, and co-authored an article on the League’s music that appeared in “Foundations of Computer Music” (MIT Press 1985). Recordings of his work are available on Artifact Recordings, Lovely Music, Tzadik, 23Five, Centaur, and New World Records. He was on faculty for many years in the legendary Music Department at Mills College.

Monday, March 18 @ Noon to 2pm – Experimental Sound Studio

Jonathan Snipes is a composer and sound designer for Film and Theater living in Los Angeles. He teaches sound design in the theater and film departments at UCLA, and is a member of the rap group clipping. Jonathan will talk about his practice and show breakdowns of a few projects. Topics to include Field Recording, Film Composition, Sound Design, Beatmaking, Modular Synthesizers.

Monday, October 30 @ Noon to 2pm – Experimental Sound Studio

Chris Brown composer, pianist, and electronic musician, makes music with self- designed sonic systems that include acoustic and electroacoustic instruments, interactive software, computer networks, microtonal tunings, and improvisation. His compositions are designs for performances in which people bring to life the musical structures embedded in scores, instruments, and machines.

His early work featured electroacoustic instruments he invented and built, like the Gazamba (1982), an electric percussion piano featured in Alternating Currents (1984), for the Berkeley Symphony and three soloists. He designed and built his own computer-controlled analog signal-processing system for the environmental sound piece Lava (1992), for brass, percussion, and live electronics. Talking Drum (1995-2000), was a MIDI network installation that explored polyrhythm, distance, and resonance in large architectural spaces. He is a member since 1986 of the pioneering computer network music band The Hub, which received the 2018 Giga-Hertz Award for Lifetime Achievement in Electronic Music from ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany. Throughout his career he has composed solos for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics using software he writes for his compositions and improvisations. Since 2005 he has written music in just intonation, often integrating rhythmic structures that parallel the proportions used in their tunings.

Recordings of his music are available on New World, fo’c’sle, Tzadik, Pogus, Intakt, Rastascan, Ecstatic Peace, Red Toucan, Leo, and Artifact Recordings. He has also performed and recorded music by Henry Cowell, Luc Ferrari, José Maceda, John Zorn, David Rosenboom, Larry Ochs, Glenn Spearman, and Wadada Leo Smith; as an improvisor he has performed and recorded with Pauline Oliveros, Fred Frith, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, William Winant, and Frank Gratkowski..

From 1990-2018 he taught electronic music, theory, composition, world music, and contemporary performance practice as Professor of Music and Co-Director of the Center for Contemporary Music (CCM) at Mills College in Oakland. 

Monday, October 2 @ Noon to 2pm – Experimental Sound Studio

Terminal Moraine will be talking about their creative process as a collaborative duo working on compositions, performances, and installation works. They’ll also be bringing in a performance setup and talk through how they improvise together and create scores for our live performances.

Terminal Moraine is an experimental noise duo founded by Abigail Johnson and Andrew Dyet in 2020. They perform improvisations guided by graphic scores, time constraints, or predetermined restrictions. They have been featured as an Ensemble in Residence for the Re:Sound Festival 2023 in Cleveland, OH and as artists-in-residence for the 2022 Chateau Orquevaux Artist Residency in Orquevaux, France.

Monday, May 2 @ Noon to 2pm – Experimental Sound Studio

Gabby Fluke-Mogul is a New York based violinist, improviser, composer, & educator. Fluke-Mogul exists within the threads of improvisation, the jazz continuum, noise, & experimental music. Their playing has been described as “embodied, visceral, & virtuosic” & “the most striking sound in improvised music in years…” Gabby is humbled to have collaborated with Nava Dunkelman, Joanna Mattrey, Fred Frith, Daniel Carter, Ava Mendoza, Jessica Pavone, Luke Stewart, Zeena Parkins, & Pauline Oliveros among many other musicians, poets, dancers, & visual artists. gfm holds a MFA in Music Performance & Literature from Mills College, a BA in Music & Early Childhood Education from Hampshire College, & a Deep Listening certificate from The Center for Deep Listening at Rensselaer.

Monday, April 18 @ Noon to 2pm – Experimental Sound Studio

Bob Bellerue is a sound artist, experimental musician, sound/video curator, and creative technician based in Ridgewood NY. Over the last 30+ years he has been involved in creating and presenting a wide range of sonic activities – experimental music, sound art, noise, junk metal percussion ensembles, soundtracks for dance/ theater/ video/ performance art, and sound / video installations. Bob’s electronic sound work is focused on resonant feedback systems, using amplified instruments, objects, recordings, and spaces, in combination with electronics and software written in the Supercollider audio synthesis programming language.

Monday, April 11 @ Noon to 2pm – Experimental Sound Studio

Countercoding
a few thoughts about data ethics and music (or: are your algorithms healthy?)

How can music, sound art, and creative coding practices reflect, consider, and denounce social injustices and dominating power structures? In this forum, I will address basic concepts of data ethics by discussing the creative processes of a selection of socially engaged works.

Michael Winter is a composer and sound artist whose work ranges from music created for digital and acoustic instruments to installations and kinetic sculptures. Each piece typically explores one simple process and often reflects various related interests of mine such as phenomenology, mathematics, epistemology, and algorithmic information theory. His work has been presented at venues and festivals throughout the world such as REDCAT, in Los Angeles; the Ostrava Festival of New Music in the Czech Republic; Tsonami Arte Sonoro Festival in Valparaiso, Chile; the Huddersfield New Music Festival in the United Kingdom; and Umbral Sesiones at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Monday, April 4 @ Noon to 2pm – Experimental Sound Studio

Lewis Keller is a performer, composer, engineer, artist and educator. He builds drumming robots, creates sound installations, designs experimental animation systems and builds his own noise synths as well as touring the world as a pop/rock musician and gigging locally playing jazz and indy musics. He’s been heard on numerous TV shows playing bass and drums at the same time and not heard in many small DIY spaces making all sorts of noises. His work often combines sophisticated technology with crude humble structures, inviting listeners to question their relationships with time, technology, space, sound and silence.

Monday, February 28 @ Noon to 2pm – Experimental Sound Studio

Corey Fogel (b 1977) is a composer, drummer, and artist based in Los Angeles. He works across genre and medium to explore many facets of improvisation. He approaches sounds, textiles, collaborators, gestures, and objects as viable materials for spontaneous, strategized, time-based experimental performance, often incorporating sculpture, video, music traditions, theatricality, and ritual.

Monday, February 7 @ Noon to 2pm – Experimental Sound Studio

Franck Vigroux is a multifaceted artist whose works range from experimental electronic music to modern composition and music theatre. Franck Vigroux‘s music is made of tectonic tensions, beats, electronic textures and a very personal approach to sonic exploration. He is equally prolific as a solo artist and as a collaborator, he has worked with musician such as Elliott Sharp, Mika Vainio, Reinhold Friedl, Ars Nova… Vigroux’s uniqueness comes from his artistic approach that integrates new media and performance arts. He designs transdisciplinary shows and audiovisual concerts, collaborating with visual artists such as Antoine Schmitt and Kurt d’Haeseleer.