Feedback

Feedback is a concert performance of charged electro-acoustic music by the duo of composer-performers Charmaine Lee and Conrad Tao. Lee and Tao combine spontaneity and playfulness with virtuosic and rigorous musicianship to create an energetic and hyper-sensorial world of electronic sounds and voice spanning genres from pop to ambient to feedback-based noise music. Surrounded by a battery of electronic, acoustic, and found instruments, the artists premiere new material designed especially for the EMPAC Studio 1—Goodman venue that expands upon sonic themes explored throughout their eight-year collaboration.

Charmaine Lee is a Cantonese Australian vocalist based in New York City, whose risk-taking practice combines extended voice techniques, feedback, and live vocal processing. Comfortable both in the concert hall and DIY basement shows, Lee’s sound is both brutal and refined. Drawing from aspects of free jazz, European improvised music, noise, ASMR, and non-music art forms, Lee channels these inspirations through the emotional and timbral immediacy of the human voice.

Pianist, electronic musician, and composer Conrad Tao has performed and curated concerts across the globe as a solo musician, as a member of the Junction Trio, and in collaborations with artists such as Charmaine Lee, the brass ensemble Westerlies, and members of the JACK string quartet. As a curator, Tao’s programming deftly and thoughtfully combines repertoire from the canon with contemporary works to create a dynamic relationship between the past and present.