Composer Chris Cerrone was in residence with video director Mark DeChiazza and percussionist Ian David Rosenbaum to shoot a video for Memory Palace, a 23-minute composition for percussion and electronics. The piece’s title refers to an ancient technique of memorization that helped orators remember very long speeches by placing mental signposts in an imaginary location and “walking” through it.

The majority of the instruments in Memory Palace are fashioned by the percussionist. These included a cheap guitar, fourteen slats of wood (to be played like a marimba), ten metal pipes, and wine bottles filled with varying amounts of water. The percussion- ist also triggers a series of electronic drones using an foot pedal, creating a resonant background aura that enhances the live music throughout.

Laurel Halo was in residence to record material for her album, Dust, released in 2017 on Hyperdub Records. Laurel Halo is a producer and live electronic musician from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Influenced by her Midwestern roots, Halo’s music speaks to new club ecologies explored through abstract rhythms, chaotic ambience, and moody jazz elements. “Techno is a meditative force that can process darkness and remove problems… in their place, the ideal of a non-threatening, transcended, sexually charged headspace emerges,” she told The Wire. Physical process and temporal drift are recurring motifs in Halo’s discography.

Dust was released by Hyperdub Records in 2017

The viola and bassoon are not typically brandished in the pursuit of free improvisation and noise, but the duo Architeuthis Walks on Land brings fierceness and energy to these typically “orchestral” instruments. By way of extended techniques, bass amplification, and rich textures, Amy Cimini and Katherine Young create a space where composition, indeterminacy, and immediacy intersect. Contrasting—yet complementing—the duo with a fluid elegance and grace, violinist Miranda Cuckson presented a set of complex and microtonal works for solo violin. Cuckson, a well-known performer in the new music scene, has built her reputation on technical refinement and beautiful tone. She presented music by Xenakis, Ferneyhough, and Haas. 

Amy Cimini and Katherine Young have been performing together as Architeuthis Walks on Land since 2003. The duo developed their approach to improvisation in the rich experimental music communities of Chicago and New York City, and have collaborated with artists such as Anthony Braxton and the Tri-Centric Orchestra, Peter Evans, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jessica Pavone, and Hans Joachim Irmler from Faust. Violinist and violist Miranda Cuckson is acclaimed for her performances of a wide range of repertoire, from early eras to the most current creations. She studied at the Juilliard School, where she received her BM, MM, and DMA degrees and won the Presser and Richard F. French awards. She is in demand as a soloist and chamber musician, appearing in major concert halls, as well as at universities, galleries, and informal spaces, and is on the violin faculty at Mannes College the New School for Music.

Program

Miranda Cuckson, violin

Iannis Xenakis - Mikka S (1976)

Georg Friedrich Haas - de terrae fine (2001)

Brian Ferneyhough - Intermedio alla Ciaccona (1986)

~interval~

Architeuthis Walks on Land

Amy Cimini, Viola + Katherine Young, Bassoon +

from The Surveyors (2014)

The Speculators 84°03′N 174°51′W

The Assayers 82°06′S 54°58′E

The Surveyors

The Mivos Quartet was in residence at EMPAC to develop and perform a new work for string quartet and electronics by American composer Eric Wubbels. Titled being time, the work explores the psychological experience of time through aural effects. Using a ring of eight loudspeakers specifically positioned in the room, the piece builds on Maryanne Amacher’s pioneering work with otoacoustic sound, deploying high sine waves to create vivid psychoacoustic illusions. These electronic sounds blend with the acoustic sounds of the string quartet, fusing them together into a tangled, sonically complex knot. The Mivos Quartet is devoted to performing the works of contemporary composers and presenting new music to diverse audiences, appearing at such venues as the Guggenheim Museum, Kennedy Center, Zankel Hall, MoMA, the Stone, Issue Project Room, and Roulette. Eric Wubbels is a composer, pianist, and executive director of the Wet Ink Ensemble, a New York collective devoted to creating, promoting, and organizing adventurous contemporary music.

Students of the Arts Department Chamber Music program present their work on Tuesday, Nov. 19. Student ensembles to perform include The Dominant Five String Quintet, Circle of Fifths Wind Quintet, Rensselaer Chamber Brass, MSC Trio, Nason String Duo, and other duos and trios performing music from Handel to Ravel.

Steve Goodman, otherwise known as electronic musician Kode9, presented a rare talk on his investigations into the weaponization of sound. How can sound produce discomfort, become threatening, or create an ambiance of fear? Goodman mapped the many different ways vibrations in air can be transformed into force, combining philosophy, science, fiction, aesthetics, and popular culture. Taking examples from police and military research into acoustic crowd control, corporate uses of sonic branding, and intense works of sound art and music culture, Goodman revealed a startling new dimension of sound in society. 

Steve Goodman is a lecturer in music culture at the School of Sciences, Media, and Cultural Studies at the University of East London, a member of the CCRU (Cybernetic Culture Research Unit), and the founder of the record label Hyperdub.

During two production residencies, Stavros Gasparatos—a composer and digital sound artist—preapared for the world premiere of Expanded Piano, an EMPAC commission. Working in residence, the artist concentrated on finalizing the audio composition for the electronically prepared piano, testing and creating the sound design for the 24-channel speaker setup, as well as doing final audio mastering of the performance. For Expanded Piano, an acoustic piano is wired with both regular microphones and contact microphones attached to the body of the piano, its strings, and mechanisms. Each microphone’s signal is manipulated in real time through a computer and then routed to its own loudspeaker, creating a multi-channel space around the audience that puts the listeners “inside” the piano.

Gasparatos is a composer and digital sound artist who lives and works in Athens, Greece. He composes music for dance, theater, cinema, and frequently works on solo music projects. His work has been performed internationally in London, Macao, Naples, Berlin, Toronto, Amsterdam, Paris, and Sofia. Gasparatos is a frequent collaborator of the National Greek Theatre.

One of the most influential and iconic DJ/producers working today, Kode9 presented a solo set of new and experimental electronic works as part of the 10th year of the Hyperdub Tour. 

Also known as Steve Goodman, Kode9 founded the influential record label Hyperdub and has been a pioneer in the electronic music scene since the early 1990s. Kode9 has performed at Sonar Festival, Sonar Tokyo, Mutek, Glastonbury, Unsound, Melt, and Coachella and in clubs across Europe, Asia, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.