At the forefront of the classical and jazz worlds respectively, Mariel Roberts (cello) and Nate Wooley (trumpet) each performed solo sets, along with a duo improvisation. Both artists have quickly developed international reputations: Wooley for his iconoclastic, expectation-defying playing, and Roberts for a fearless technical prowess. Roberts is a dedicated interpreter and performer of contemporary music. She holds degrees from the Eastman School and the Manhattan School of Music, where she specialized in contemporary performance practice. She has appeared as a soloist and with ensembles such as Signal, Wet Ink, Dal Niente, S.E.M., the Nouveau Classical Project, and the Wordless Music Orchestra. Wooley is one of the most in-demand trumpet players in the burgeoning Brooklyn jazz, improv, noise, and new music scenes. He has performed with John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith, Peter Evans, and Mary Halvorson.

program

Performed by Mariel Roberts:

SIMON STEEN-ANDERSON Study for String Instrument No. 2

ALEX MINCEK Flutter

IANNIS XENAKIS Kottos

Performed and composed by Nate Wooley: 

For Kenneth Gaburo: TCACNO

Peradam was a new audio and visual performance that intertwined voice with synthetic sound and image. Created in residence over three weeks, the artists worked in collaboration; using real-time synthesis, Ratté modified live video while Lowe used his voice as the source of his sonic manipulations. Inspired by René Daumal’s novel Mount Analogue, the first work of literature to use the word peradam to describe “an object that is revealed only to those who seek it,” Lowe’s composition for the modular synthesizer focused on the texture of a consistent equilibrium between the peak and valley of a sound wave to create a heightened experience akin to ecstatic music. 

Robert Lowe is a Brooklyn-based artist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist working with long-form improvisation utilizing voice and modular synthesis. The creation of ecstatic forms has been the focus of collaborations with Doug Aitken, Tarek Atoui, Lee Ranaldo, Ben Russell, Ben Rivers, Lucky Dragons, and many others.

Sabrina Ratté is a Montréal-based visual artist whose videos create virtual environments where architecture and landscapes fall into abstraction. Her work is also inspired by the relationship between electronic music and the video image, and she often collaborates with musicians.

The contemporary music ensemble ECCE was in residence in EMPAC’s Concert Hall to make video and audio recordings of works by composer Per Bloland. Best known for his compositions using the electromagnetically-prepared piano, Bloland’s music fuses acoustic instruments with electronic sound, creating a richly unified whole that neither element alone could produce. Bloland has received awards and recognition from IRCAM, ICMA, SEAMUS/ASCAP, and ISCM, among others. His music can be heard on the TauKay (Italy), Capstone, Spektral, and SEAMUS labels, and through MIT Press. ECCE has interpreted works by composers such as Georg Friedrich Haas, Philippe Hurel, Lee Hyla, Helmut Lachenmann, Fabien Levy, Hanspeter Kyburz, Louis Karchin, and many others.

Sound artist Sabisha Friedberg’s work explores perceptual thresholds, focused sub-sonic compositions, and low-frequency levitation. It pulls together concepts from the perceptual, phenomenological, and phantasmagorical to create thought-provoking, mystifying pieces. During her residency, Friedberg offered a talk and a work-in-progress installation/performance. For Chasing the Phantasmagorical: Challenges and Process, Friedberg discussed her past practice as well as the elements investigated during her time at EMPAC. Continuing her explorations into sound and frequency, the performance Strange Cloak–Sub-Flight Infinity investigated the relationship of levitation, suspension, and low-end thresholds through metaphor, pseudo-science, and real physics. The piece was built around bass-frequency sonic levitation with objects made to float and flutter as a ghostly effect of the sound waves themselves.

Born in South Africa and currently based out of Brooklyn and Paris, Friedberg has performed and presented installations widely in Western and Eastern Europe, Russia, Japan, and Northern America.

Peradam was a new audio and visual performance that intertwined voice with synthetic sound and image. Created in residence over three weeks, the artists worked in collaboration; using real-time synthesis, Ratté modified live video while Lowe used his voice as the source of his sonic manipulations. Inspired by René Daumal’s novel Mount Analogue, the first work of literature to use the word peradam to describe “an object that is revealed only to those who seek it,” Lowe’s composition for the modular synthesizer focused on the texture of a consistent equilibrium between the peak and valley of a sound wave to create a heightened experience akin to ecstatic music.

Robert Lowe is a Brooklyn-based artist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist working with long-form improvisation utilizing voice and modular synthesis. The creation of ecstatic forms has been the focus of collaborations with Doug Aitken, Tarek Atoui, Lee Ranaldo, Ben Russell, Ben Rivers, Lucky Dragons, and many others. Sabrina Ratté is a Montréal-based visual artist whose videos create virtual environments where architecture and landscapes fall into abstraction. Her work is also inspired by the relationship between electronic music and the video image, and she often collaborates with musicians.

Canadian pianist Vicky Chow is known for her innovative programming and fearless technique. A member of the New York City-based ensemble the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Chow was in residence to record Surface Image by Tristan Perich. A work for solo piano accompanied by 40 channels of 1-bit electronic sounds, Surface Image is a 60-minute composition that juxtaposes acoustic human performance and the sounds of hand-built electronics.

Chow has performed extensively as a classical and contemporary soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble member; she has worked with leading composers and musicians such as John Adams, Louis Andriessen, Bryce Dessner (the National), Philip Glass, Glenn Kotche (Wilco), David Longstreth (the Dirty Projectors), Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth). In addition to performing, she also produces and curates Contagious Sounds, a music series focusing on adventurous contemporary artists and composers in New York City.

The newly formed Rensselaer Orchestra, under the direction of Nicholas DeMaison, presents its first concert this Saturday, November 23rd, at 4:00 pm in the Concert Hall. The program will feature Beethoven’s Coriolon Overture, pieces by Pauline Oliveros and James Tenney, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2 (“The Little Russian”).  Arts Department graduate students Brian Cook & Kelly Michael Fox will also collaborate with the orchestra to develop live surround sound components for two of the works being performed.

British electronic musician Mark Fell was in residence to create three site-specific audio and light installations and an immersive performance in the Concert Hall. Each of the installation pieces used the same algorithm to generate different effects: a cube of color-scrolling lights; a three-floor, haze-filled room permeated by vibrantly oscillating light and sound; and a massive, dark space filled by a strobe-lit skydancer. Fell’s invitation for the audience to explore the places less traveled culminated in a performance with a 50-channel audio and 84-channel light work, during which each panel of the fabric ceiling in EMPAC’s Concert Hall was independently lit. Fell is a multidisciplinary artist based in Sheffield, UK. The variety of institutions that present his work from large super clubs, such as Berghain (Berlin), to the Hong Kong National Film and Sound Archive—speak to the diversity of Fell’s work. He received an honorary mention in the digital music category at Prix Ars Electronica, and was shortlisted for the Quartz award for his contributions to research in digital music. Fell has also been involved in a number of academic research projects ranging from computer science to musicology and, as a curator, he is recognized for his contributions to the development of experimental electronic music in Europe.

Oneohtrix Point Never—aka Daniel Lopatin—is a Brooklyn-based composer who creates electronic music that is often described as “cinematic” and “orchestral.” While broad in range, Lopatin does not ignore the small stuff; his sound engineering crafts and controls every detail and effect. Pulling from a wide range of influences—synth sounds, television commercials, classical minimalism, and high-end audio production—Lopatin condenses the disparate sounds to form music that slopes forward with self-contained narratives. In preparation for the performance, Lopatin was in residence in the Concert Hall with visual artist Nate Boyce developing the live touring show for his album R Plus Seven.

Lopatin’s work deftly balances the experimental with the accessible, having produced albums under his Oneohtrix Point Never moniker on independent labels as well as a large catalogue of mini-album tape releases. In addition to his work as OPN, Lopatin has built live soundscapes at the MoMA, collaborated with Montréal-based ambient electronic music composer Tim Hecker, and provided production and arrangement work for Antony Hegarty, Doug Aitken, Fennesz, and Hans-Peter Lindstrøm, among others.

Violist Amy Cimini and bassoonist Katherine Young have been performing together as Architeuthis Walks on Land since 2003. The duo is known in the free improvisation and noise scenes for their jagged and kinetically transfixing works and performances. Cimini and Young were in residence to record, mix, and master their album The Surveyors.

The duo developed their approach to improvisation in Chicago and New York City’s experimental music communities, where they have collaborated with artists like Anthony Braxton, Peter Evans, Jessica Pavone, Hans Joachim Irmler from Faust, and the Tri-Centric Orchestra.