Join Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for Storytelling & Memory, a concert featuring Tanglewood Music Center’s Fromm Quartet. The event, free and open to the public, includes works by composers Tania León and Steven Mackey, as well as a conversation on the latest advances in Alzheimer’s research, and on translating memory into music, with Rensselaer faculty Dr. Chunyu Wang and Dr. Robert Whalen.

Tania León and Steven Mackey serve on Tanglewood's composition faculty and are co-directors of the Festival of Contemporary Music. Chunyu Wang is professor in the School of Science at Rensselaer, and is nationally recognized for his research in Alzheimer’s. Robert Whalen is Lecturer of Music and Conducting at Rensselaer, where he directs the Rensselaer Orchestra, Concert Choir, and Chamber Music Activities.

Amadeus Julian Regucera, music curator at EMPAC, introduces the program’s discussion.

• Fromm Quartet
• James Gikas, violin
• Tiffany Wee, violin
• James Cunningham IV, viola
• Benjamin Lanners, cello

Program

• CUARTETO NO. 2 (2011) — Tania León (b. 1943)
• I. Soy (I am)
• II. De vez en cuando (Once in a while)
• III. Son retazos (They are fragments)
• THE GIFT OF TIME
• A conversation between Dr. Chunyu Wang and Dr. Robert Whalen on the latest advances in Alzheimer’s research and translating memory into music. Introduction by Dr. Amadeus Julian Regucera.
• ONE RED ROSE (2013) — Steven Mackey (b. 1956)
• I. Five Short Studies
• II. Fugue and Fantasy
• III. Anthem and Aria

Brushing Improvisation – N°2 is the latest work in an ongoing brushing project that has utilized brushes in electronic music improvisation performances. While the previous performances of Brushing Improvisation focused on the nuanced materiality of the brush and translated brushing gestures into musical/sonic expression through specific mediated technology, a process formulated through continuous interaction between myself as both an instrument maker and performer, this particular piece also delves into the cultural universality inherent in the brush. This exploration fosters theatricality, gestural performance, and an organic integration between composition and improvisation.

Jlin and Florence To will be in residence in Studio 1—Goodman to workshop and develop the visual language for Jlin’s upcoming tour for the new album Akoma.

Pioneering electronic musicians John Driscoll and Phil Edelstein will be in residence with Rensselaer Arts Department undergraduates from Professor Matthew Goodheart’s electronic music course to mount a new version of David Tudor’s Rainforest IV—a seminal work of transducer-based art which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023. Over the period of a few weeks, Driscoll and Edelstein, who developed Rainforest IV with Tudor in the 1970s, will coach RPI students on how to prepare and mount Tudor’s work in EMPAC’s Studio 2 as part of the Reembodied Sound 2024 symposium and festival.

µ (mu)—whose title refers to the physics equation for friction—considers the physical genesis of sound. A visual and sonic inquiry into a turntable dubplates’ (material) grooves. Rosenfeld will record a microscopic region of the dubplate through sound and video. 

In January in the EMPAC Theater, Rosenfeld will undertake research and early-stage production for µ (mu).

In April, Rosenfeld will return to work on the post-production for the new video of µ (mu). 

Pianist Conrad Tao will be in residence in the EMPAC Concert Hall to record works for solo piano and perform a brand new program of piano repertoire in a public recital.

Pioneering electronic musicians John Driscoll and Phil Edelstein will be in residence with Rensselaer Arts Department undergraduates from Professor Matthew Goodheart’s electronic music course to mount a new version of David Tudor’s Rainforest IV—a seminal work of transducer-based art which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2023— as part of the Reembodied Sound 2024 symposium and festival.

Reembodied Sound 2024 concludes with a concert of transducer-based works which span performance practices and genres, showcasing the breadth of musical possibilities for the technology.

Program

• Assemblage No. 1
• Matthew Goodheart
• Assemblage No. 1 is an interactive work for transducer-actuated metal percussion and solo improviser. Assembled from bits of code, mapping techniques, generative algorithms, and performer-generated samples taken from reembodied sound compositions of the last decade, the work reshapes, recontextualizes, and reframes this history within a new and unpredictable improvisational environment.
• Coefficient: frictional percussion and electronics, David Tudor
• Reconstructed by Stuart Jackson, percussion
• Coefficient is an electronic work, the product of electroacoustic transducers and special microphones. A variable feedback system between the two elements is influenced and changed by the performance of frictional sounds by a percussionist. A distinction is made between those sounds produced by friction, and those produced by impact.
• the interior of objects
• Seth Cluett
• the interior of objects explores the drum as a site-specific acoustic space. In this work, a tactile transducer is placed on the underside of the drum head opposite a piezo microphone. Tones derived from the physical acoustics of the membrane set the head in motion, these tones are joined by feedback frequencies whose amplitude is restrained by a limiter. The nodes and antinodes of the drum head become a performable topography the performer can explore through the compositional form.
• Doubt is a way of knowing
• James O’Callaghan
  Sara Constant, Flute
• Doubt is a way of knowing, co-commissioned by Jeffrey Stonehouse and Mark McGregor, is part of a series of pieces for soloists where electronics are diffused through a double of the soloist’s instrument. The piece is an examination of counterfactuals and simultaneous emotional reactions where one experiences a split self.
• Shitatari
• Keita Matsumiya
• This composition is a mixed music piece created by orchestrating the sound of water droplets recorded in the field. It involves using transducers to resonate the piano soundboard and live modulation of the piano and electronic acoustics through a pickup microphone, resulting in a live electronics/chamber music composition, aiming to integrate the strengths of both descriptive, recording, and improvisational elements.
• ——INTERMISSION——
• reciprocal response
• Moon Ha
• reciprocal response is a musical system based on the (re)cycling idea, which has been my inspiration for creative works for over a decade. This is designed to be executed by my students at new_LOrk, New York University’s Laptop Orchestra, to utilize the tactile transformation of energy into signals and sounds. The members of new_LOrk include Ahmir Phillips, Chloe Yang, Jerry Huang, Devin Park, and Jailen Mitchell.
• Music Stands
• Cathy van Eck
• What normally stays silent during a musical performance—a music stand—is creating the sound in this performance. Two music stands are unfolded at the start of the performance. Both are amplified using a contact microphone glued onto the stand and a small loudspeaker, placed on the floor. During the performance, the loudspeakers are placed on the stands. The vibrations of the loudspeakers are transmitted through the metal of the stands back to the contact microphones and in this way an acoustic feedback loop occurs. By changing the altitude of the stands, the distance between microphone and loudspeaker changes, and therefore, the acoustic feedback sound changes as well. The music stands are “played” by the performer similar to how commonly musical instruments are played. The performer is searching for the sound behind the score.
• Bionico
• Gadi Sassoon
• Bionico was originally created as an installation at Sónar in Barcelona, and later developed into a quadraphonic piece at Elektron Musik Studion in Stockholm, where Gadi used a prepared metal plate with a large transducer to create feedback loops for physical models and strings. The live performance of Bionico uses four resonating sculptures attached to transducers that augment Gadi’s live electric violin. The cuts on the plates change the resonating modes of each sculpture.
• The Netted Resonance of Tide Pools
• Alyssa Wixson
  June Cummings, Percussion
• The sounding objects used in this piece are connected in a web of resonance and feedback analogous to the intricate ecosystems present in tide pools. It took shape over many hours of sonic exploration with percussionist June Cummings; creating the piece with her has been a joy.

A selection of stand-alone transducer-based installations will populate EMPAC’s interstitial areas. Visitors will have the opportunity to experience these evocative pieces as they run throughout the symposium’s duration.

Works

• Level 6 Mezzanine
• What is Your Emergency? (2024)
• KS Brewer
• Plastic, rubber, and silicone; bone conduction transducer, amplifier and audio player; metal conduit; paper on clipboard
• You see the face of the original CPR manikin, Resusci-Anne, mounted like a death mask—in plastic purgatory, she spends eternity helping you help you. She calls you to put your forehead against hers, and plug your ears. Just like that—now, you will be saved.
• Level 7 Main Lobby
• watershed (2023)
• John Eagle
• Transducers, contact microphones, PVC pipe, vinyl tube, plexiglass, aluminum foil, super absorbent polymers, water, wood, steel, glass bottles, plastic, salvaged metal, slate, water pump
• At the center of this water cycle, the path splits via a bell siphon mechanism and diverts some water across the surface of a sheet of aluminum foil, which is shaped by the changing water flow. This flow is further affected by super absorbent polymers (SAPs), which absorb water and gel together, thus adding weight and slowing the flow. An array of paired surface transducers and contact microphones suspended below the foil start feeding back when the foil becomes depressed above the contact mics, effectively closing the circuit. As the feedback increases, the sonic energy transferred through the transducers tends to increase the local flow of water as it pushes the water down the slope.
• Level 6 spine—EMPAC Concert Hall bridge
• Fenestra
• Jenn Grossman
• Five acrylic panels (18 x 32 in, 1/8th in thick), surface transducers, amplifiers
• Fenestra is a 5-channel spatial sound installation made with transparent acrylic panels and surface transducers. It references a connective tissue membrane of the inner ear, a transparent spot, and the Latin term for window. Tonal and found sounds move from panel to panel, like a sonic skin. The piece evokes the embodiment of looking and listening through physical surfaces; muting and resonating sound while drawing attention to the environment around it.
• Level 6 Mezzanine
• Women's Labor: Embedded Iron (2021)
• Jocelyn Ho, Margaret Schedel
• Embedded iron, ironing board, coat rack, miscellaneous textiles
• Embedded Iron is part of Women’s Labor, a feminist-activist project that repurposes domestic tools to become new musical instruments. Based on an early-20th century wooden ironing board and antique iron, Embedded Iron uses spectroscopy, ultrasonic, LIDAR sensors, and machine learning to see the color, feel the texture, and sense the position of any fabric, to play different timbres and pitches. Audio quotes from a 19th-century marriage manual are mapped to the ironing of a special white apron. Women's Labor is the winner of the 2021 International Alliance of Women in Music Ruth Anderson Prize.
• Level 6 Mezzanine
• We were away a year ago (2023)
• Kazuhiro Jo, Paul DeMarinis
• Turntable with customized coils
• We were away a year ago is a work in which sound is produced through the flow of electronic current in a coil, generated by the magnetization of magnetic ink on a thin film caused by a magnet. There is no physical contact between objects in this work.
• Level 5 spine—EMPAC Concert Hall bridge
• apterygota (2022)
• Pascal Lund-Jensen
• Sound installation with exciters
• The installation represents a community of beings whose individual and group dynamics are fluid and constantly evolving. These dynamics of group behavior are continuously changing. A scenario is presented in which some entities behave similarly, while others exhibit different patterns. Communication, conflict, and chaotic interactions unfold among the ground-dwelling insects, creating a continuous evolution of shape-shifting, evolving abilities and intuitive transformations.
• Level 5—EMPAC Theater Lobby
• Summerland (2019–20)
• Matthew Ostrowski
• 24 telegraph sounders
• Summerland explores the interconnections between the electromechanical technology of the telegraph and the spiritual technology of mediumship, closely linked throughout the infancy of the electrical era. It seizes from the ether the voices of two individuals at the tangled nexus of 19th-century information technology: Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, and medium Kate Fox, a founder of the Spiritualist movement. A generative computer system attempts to reproduce their words through taps and clicks, using 21st-century synthesis techniques applied to 19th-century technology. All sounds in the piece are derived from Morse’s writings and Fox’s mediumistic encounters with the dead inhabitants of the Summer Land, materializing their voices in an electromagnetic séance of digitized speech.
• Level 6
• Untitled 12 (2021)
• Marianthi Papalexandri
• Twine, mic stands, rosin, foam board, motor
• Papalexandri’s practice stretches basic principles of how sound is produced and how we explore resonances and sounds by suggesting a new paradigm, which can be thought of as programming with material. By awakening micro-sounds within materials through physical interactions like friction, the work creates minimal but rather complex organic sounds and textures. The sound installation proposes a refined and focused exploration of everyday materials and sounds, carefully shaped and placed at different distances, without any post-processing.