Retrospective

Multi-instrumentalist composer and electronic music historian Tara Rodgers produces a retrospective concert of selected works from the past 20 years, diffused in an immersive 4.1 sound system.

Rodgers’ research and music explore electronic sound as material and metaphor, with studio practice as a hands-on parallel to study of the long history of electronic music and sound. Her music is described as combining “rigor and reverence... bold in the precision and subtlety it takes to mix such signals with thrill and grace and restraint” (NPR Music), “carrying her listeners along through deeply felt, deeply connected sonic energy that embodies joy, transcendence, and positivity” (Routledge).

The concert juxtaposes her wide-ranging work across styles and methods, from generative computer music written in SuperCollider, to electroacoustic compositions featuring piano improvisation, to pulsing ambient and techno tracks.

As a historian and multidisciplinary scholar, Rodgers has also published essays in foundational volumes in contemporary studies of music, sound, technology, and culture. Her book Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound (Duke University Press, 2010) brings together twenty-four interviews with women in electronic music and sound cultures who expand notions of who and what counts in matters of invention, production, and noise-making.

After the concert, Rodgers is joined by Rensselaer Arts graduate student and renowned DJ Rekha Malhotra for an onstage conversation and Q&A.