April 22, 2010
Electronic, computer music coming from DXArts April 28
The Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media will present an evening of new electronic and computer music, featuring Swedish guitar virtuoso Stefan Ostersjo, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 28, in Meany Hall.
The evening will feature works by Ostersjo as well as by School of Music Director and founding director of DxArts Richard Karpen; Associate Professor Juan Pampin, graduate student Daniel Peterson and musician and composer Paul Dolden.
Program selections will be:
- Viken (2005) for guitar, banjo and computer, by Ostersjo with Love Mangs.
- Mindless Collusion (2010) for computer realized sound, by Daniel Peterson.
- Strand Lines (2007) for amplified guitar and live computer interaction, by Richard Karpen.
- UOM (2000) for computer realized sound, by Juan Pampin.
- Who Has the Biggest Noise? (2009) for electric guitar and computer realized sound, by Paul Dolden.
Karpen wrote that Strand Lines “continues my exploration of collaboration processes for music composition. There is no musical score for Strand Lines. Instead the composition was worked out over an extended time of collaborative exploration and rehearsal with guitarist Stefan Ostersjo, for and with whom the work was realized.”
He said the work also “explores the extension of musical instruments and performance through live computer enhancement and processing. It is a work not so much for guitar as for guitarist. The merging of person and instrument interests me greatly.” Karpen added that along with Ostersjo’s integral role in the development of guitar material for Strand Lines another key contributor was Joshua Parmenter who developed much of the key underlying control code for sound processing and synthesis in Supercollider.
Pampin wrote that UOM came from an invitation to write a piece “for an unusual venue in Buenos Aires called “La Fabrica” (The Factory), a metallurgic factory that becomes an alternative cultural center after hours. UOM, which takes its name from an acronym of the Argentine metal workers’ union, “explores the sound of metal in an allegorical way, using digital samples deployed in space as a representation of the ‘metallic’ without mass, as the sonic essence of metal. The distance between what is represented and its representation, somewhat similar to the one between the metal workers and their union, constitutes the dialectic core of the work.”
Peterson, a graduate student studying with Pampin, wrote that his piece “began as an exploration of the sonic possibilities of guitar recordings and expanded into an experiment of wavelet analysis and synthesis.”
Love Mangs collaborated with Ostersjo on Viken, which was commissioned by the Swedish Arts Council. “The idea was a rich sounding live piece where the soloist would be fairly free to shape the breadth of the piece within the framework of the form.”
Music by Paul Dolden has been described as the “missing link” between jazz and rock and the high-brow concert tradition. Critics have called it “music for the information age, enlisting noise, complexity and beauty in its quest for excess,” and characterized it as “apocalyptic hyper-modernism.”
Tickets are $10 for general admission, $5 for students and seniors. For more information call 206-543-4880.
