Aaron Rourk - Warding Off Evil Sprits

This performance will make use of live recorded audio samples as fodder for spontaneous music making between improvisers using tools that are different in constitution, but who are engaged in the same process of instantaneous creation, blurring temporal lines as the past is returned to the present, setting a new course of events spiraling into the future.

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Christopher Jette - Fluor Sonoescence

Fluor Sonoescence started as a series of sustained tones on a brass instrument that were visualized as smoke clouds by placing smoke into the horn. The smoke was then illuminated by a laser and the image was captured with a high frame-rate camera and then transcribed into a movie format. Using the spectral centroid of the smoke mass, the video serves as the basis of pitch content for the trombone. Using blob detection, the movie is used as a generative source for a layer of the fixed electronics. In performance, the trombone is presented along with the video, fixed electronics and the trombone is processed in realtime. The realtime processing is used to create continuity between the electronic timbre and the trombone timbre. The live processing uses many of the same processes (including waveshaping, spectral bin shifting, a feedback loop, pitch shifting and convolution) that were used in creating the fixed elements. In concert the performer is provided with a Max patch that which realizes the live processing while providing playback of the fixed video and sonic materials. Fluor Sonoescence begins as sound and through transformations into and out of the visual domain, the concert work is sculpted. The audience is presented with a series of visual and sonic artifacts which combine in the translation process and in the moment of performance.

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Sam Wells - Light is Like Water

Strange Pilgrims is an on-going series of works for trumpet and interactive electronics based on Gabriel García Márquez’s short story collection of the same title. In one story, "Light is Like Water," two brothers discover that they can fill their room with light by turning on a faucet, as one can do with water. This liquid light becomes a surreal environment in which they swim and dive. The musical interpretation of this experience begins with volatile, electric sparks of energy that cohere into a glassy and fluid texture that trumpeter explores.

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Jeffrey D Boehm - Riots

RIOTS was written as a contribution to the book, Find Another Bath, which is a compilation of artworks from several artists in Bath, United Kingdom. The artwork in the book was created by the artists' in reaction to various times and events throughout Bath's long history. This piece is my reaction to the period of the Luddite Rebellions which occurred throughout the UK at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Bath's woollen mills were among the more advanced mills in the country, so worker acceptance of the machines against which the Luddites were rebelling was well in hand. However, mill owners, whose lives were threatened, from violent surrounding areas moved to Bath which had a safer environment as well as a militia. Riots is intended to reflect the contradictions of the environment of Bath and the surrounding communities, therefore there are sections of repose and sections of riot. The article that I read in my initial research spoke of three mill owners in Bath, hence three repose sections. The role of the trumpet in each repose section changes from the forefront to the background. This change is intended to reflect the changing environments as the riots began to dissipate and people began to accept the changes being foisted upon them.The end of the piece is meant to illustrate both the fading of the intensity of opposition and the melding of new technologies into the daily and work life of the Industrial Age.

Sounds heard at the beginning and in transition sections are from recordings done in the last woollen mill in Bath in 1953. Many thanks to the Museum of Bath at Work for allowing me to utilise these recordings in my piece. The multiple rhythms in the riot sections are derived from these recordings, programmed into numerous iterations of drum machines and then run through synthesisers. The piece was composed and produced entirely in Propellerhead’s Reason, the only non-Reason instrument used was a Minibrute from Arturia. The flugelhorn ensemble was recorded by me.

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Jacob Elkin - Things That Might Have Been

Things that might have been is an improvisational work which challenges the performers to express themselves in a vulnerable and candid way. The live electronics are programmed to vary greatly with each performance in timbre and spatialization. This provides a unique opportunity for improvisers to interact with the concert space and connect individually with audience members. The improvised part may be performed on any instrument or by any vocalist. The Supercollider patch can be edited to work for any number of channels. However 8 monitors in a circle around the audience is ideal.