The Arraymusic ensemble is an eight-member performing group from Toronto recognized worldwide for its innovative programming and virtuosic performance. Their extensive repertoire includes a library-like collection of pieces they have commissioned from composers with highly individual voices from around the world. They will perform a program of Canadian composers whose works were composed specifically for the ensemble: Claude Vivier’s Et Je Reverrai Cette Ville Etrange, James Tenney’s Spectrum 1, and a selection of recent Arraymusic Miniatures.

Maryanne Amacher and The OpenEnded Group collaborated on plans for a new, immersive multimedia performance with the working title Lagrange: a Four Part Mini Series. The piece was inspired in part by the evolutionary novels of British author and philosopher Olaf Stapledon that reflect on both humanity’s past and possible futures. Amacher and The OpenEnded Group drew on their respective histories in technological and perceptual innovation to consider how advances in media and performance technologies—performed in real-time—could generate a new kind of non-literal narrative, populated by visual and sonic characters. Their goal was a serialized narrative that would be experienced by audiences over a period of several weeks in a non-traditional space where, by moving from location to location, they would explore the story in a physical way. The collaboration reflected the artists’ mutual interest in immersive experiences.

The OpenEnded Group (Paul Kaiser, Marc Downie, and Shelly Eshkar) has worked to define a new kind of 3D space that does not aspire to photorealism, while until her death in 2009, Amacher explored the acoustic dimensions of sound propagated through walls, floors, rooms, and corridors (as opposed to sound projected by loudspeakers only).

Per Tengstrand is one of today’s most exciting pianists and already a legend in his native Sweden. For this unique solo recital he will perform works chosen specifically for three of EMPAC’s grand pianos: Salonen's Dichotomie on the deep clarity of the Bösendorfer, a selection of Ravel’s Miroirs on the delicate precision of the Fazioli, and Liszt’s Apres une lecture de Dante on the massive sound of our Hamburg Steinway.

Per Tengstrand regularly performs with orchestras in Gothenberg, Malmö, Helsingborg, Stockholm, Tapiola, with the Huarod Chamber Orchestra, and Swedish Radio Orchestra. He has appeared as soloist with the Orchestre National de France, French Radio Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestra National de Lille, National Symphony of Taiwan, Singapore Symphony, New Japan, and Osaka Philharmonic Orchestras. As recitalist, he has performed internationally in such venues as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Zurich’s Tonhalle, Paris’s Salle Gaveau and the Nice Opera House, as well as in Geneva, Bordeaux, Bergen, Norway, the Montpellier Festival, Poland’s Chopin Festival and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall.

Throwdown at our late-night party capping the first day of EMPAC’s public opening. Starting at 11:00 PM and going into the wee hours, dance and hang out under our 360° screen (suspended overhead) with Madlib’s fused strata of encyclopedic beats, the turntable mastery of J. Rocc, the 8-bit hip-hop antics of Juiceboxxx, and live video projections by lmnopf. Be sure to catch a nap somewhere in the midst of the packed schedule of the EMPAC opening, or at the very least save that third wind so you can see what the crew at Open Late are cooking up for you.

About MADLIB:

From the unlikely beach town of Oxnard, 40 miles north of Los Angeles, the multi-dimensional Madlib rose to prominence as one of the most interesting figures in late-’90s. In particular, his expansive style and deft touch for composition made him one of hip-hop’s most sought-after producers. With each year Madlib has continued to expand his abilities beyond the core of hip hop, creating projects ranging from remixes of Indian pop to a jazz record where he plays every instrument (with deep reverence for the 1960s Blue Note releases).

Robert Normandeau will explore for the first time the Concert Hall’s ideal design for multichannel electronic music. Using an orchestra of over forty loudspeakers hung from the ceiling and surrounding the audience both horizontally and vertically, he will perform an evening of his recent work, rarely heard in the United States.

About:

Normandeau is one of the most celebrated living composers within the “acousmatic” strand of electronic music: a compositional and performative approach that started in France during the 1950s and has been evolving since with a particularly vibrant scene in Montreal. Normandeau has been central to this community and Canadian electronic music in general. He was a founding member of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community, the national organization for electronic music composers, and a founding member of Réseaux (1991), a concert society who has produced innumerable concerts and festivals of multichannel electronic music, including the Akousma festival of acousmatic music held for the past four years. He has been Professor of Electroacoustics Composition at Université de Montréal since 1999.

Between a Rock and a Tiny Bell is a night of bands and solo performances whose work creates unlikely, powerful, and in many cases loud, synergies between divergent musical legacies.

The Lineup:

• Black Moth Super Rainbow
• Han Bennink + Peter Brötzmann
• ZS
• Blarvuster
• Health

These are people who have gone beyond “fusion” or “polystylism” to create a new identity from seemingly irreconcilable forces. Spend an evening with new alchemies of punk, heavy metal, complexity, Scottish traditional music, 70s psychedelia, and (gasp) gritty minimalism. This concert is part of Rensselaer’s celebration of the 50th Anniversary of granting degrees in the Humanities.

Data Speaks. Are you listening? is a lecture, that will share Berger’s latest research and discuss the creative potentials for experiencing and analyzing data with our ears rather than our eyes.

To honor the music, innovation, and good humor of Rolnick’s 30+ years of activity as a composer and educator, EMPAC brings you an evening of his compositions. » Times Union article on Neil by Joseph Dalton Rolnick holds a unique place in the American musical landscape not only for the ingenuity of his work, but also for its showmanship and post-show “hummability”. In addition to his work as a composer, Rolnick founded and developed the Integrated Electronic Arts (iEAR) program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as the first interdisciplinary electronic arts program in the country.

EMPAC in conjunction with the Arts Department at Rensselaer and the iEAR Presents! series present Custom Control, an evening of three performances where artists have built their own personal audio and video performance tools.

The artist duos hail from San Francisco, Mexico City, and New York and include Sue Costabile + Laetitia Sonami, Luke Dubois + Manrico Montero, and Benton Bainbridge + Bobby Previte. In the 1970’s, in tandem with pioneering organizations like the Experimental Television Center in New York, artists began developing electronics for their live and installation-based video art. In this tradition, the artists in Custom Control all have personally crafted some aspect of their hardware or software for their performance tools.

The first performance, I.C.You, is a live film by Sue Costabile and Laetitia Sonami, Based on a script by poet Tom Sleigh, I.C.You follows the road-based travels of a truck driver delivering ice for the Universe Company. His job is to keep America cold. Sonami and Costabile open windows into his existence through a suitcase-sized foley stage, photographs, drawings, videos, shadow theater, and miniature lighting rigs.

By way of a specifically programmed Max/Jitter patch, guitarist Manrico Montero AKA Karras and video artist R. Luke Dubois create an improvised collaboration of sound and video entitled Night Breeze. Montero’s washes of layered guitar interact with DuBois’ live-camera-based imagery to create experience that translates the rich sonic language of Montero’s playing into a cinematic event.

The meeting of two mad scientists, composer Bobby Previte and video artist Benton-C Bainbridge, inspired the performance Dialed In. Dialed In is a true dialog between sight and sound—a live audiovisual performance and a collection of music movies. Previte’s music is an ambitious live solo electronic drum work—14 movements will be performed in real time, with no loops, no laptops, and no overdubbing. Bainbridge responds by freely grabbing from personal archives of video obscura, altering them beyond recognition, then recomposing them in a real-time process much like Previte's kit-triggered music. Each using obsolete and forgotten technology scavenged from the tech dump, Bainbridge warps video into strange shapes while Previte elevates raw sound into listenable music.

World-renowned saxophonist and composer Anthony Braxton, with his 12-piece ensemble the 12(+1)tet, will perform and conduct from his most recent series called Ghost Trance Music.

The performers play and conduct, taking different roles, as they collage compositions from Braxton's Ghost Trance catalogue. As a collective, the group moves freely between the performance of compositions and improvisations, between solos and ensemble playing – and yet create a magical unity full of sparks. This is unusual music that carries away all those willing to let go into its mystery. Come experience this optimistic and surprising frontier of contemporary music, performed under the inspiration and direction of Anthony Braxton, one of America's most dynamic musical forces.