Spatial Audio Concert

EMPAC’s Spatial Audio Seminar was a gathering of composers and programmers discussing technologies such as Wave Field Synthesis and High-Order Ambisonics. Taking place over five days, this intensive seminar covered the technical, theoretical, and practical issues surrounding spatial audio platforms. A collaboration with IRCAM and Stanford University’s CCRMA, the program gave participants experience with hundreds of channels of audio, including EMPAC’s new 500+ speaker wave field array.

On the seminar’s second night, workshop leaders Markus Noisternig and Rama Gottfried joined with experimental cellist Okkyung Lee to perform a program of music composed for spatial audio systems. In addition to playback pieces by composers Natasha Barrett and Olga Neuwirth, Lee and Gottfried performed the latter’s piece, Fluoresce, and Lee improvised with Noisternig, who spatially manipulated the performance through an Ambisonic dome.