Browsing the most recent issue of the SEAMUS newsletter, I noticed a link to a recorded version of Kevin Austin’s lecture on Stockhausen’s Kontakte. In this lecture, Austin breaks down Kontakte, and tries to make the piece listener-friendly. At SEAMUS 2009, he also handed out a packet, which contains his listening [...]

50th Anniversary of UofI Experimental Music Studios

At the end of his presentation on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the University of Illinois Experimental Music Studios, Scott Wyatt handed out a 4-CD set of music produced in the studios. It’s a pretty comprehensive collection, containing tracks from composers like Lejaren Hiller, Herbert [...]

The final event of SEAMUS was a musical demonstration of a pair of tesla coils. It was an amazing demo, and it was lightened up by an interruption from a streaker.

Video by Nate Edwards

This is Christopher Ariza giving an interesting talk on a pioneer of algorithmic composition who was previously unknown to me: Sister Harriet Padberg

And this is Scott Wyatt speaking on the 50th anniversary of The University of Illinois Experimental Music Studio.

And here is just another sound check.

At the 10am concert, one of the more interesting pieces was Tae Hong Park’s ViPer. The piece was scheduled for a live performance, but at the last minute, the performers were unable to be there. So we listened to a recorded version, which was still quite compelling.

This piece has no program notes, [...]

In this video, I talk with Michael Pounds, one of the creators of Displaced Resonance, an installation at SEAMUS 2009.

This is an excerpt from Calligraphy of Dynasties by Lorelei Tong. The full piece was presented at the 10am concert.

Calligraphy of Dynasties is an 8-channel electro-acoustic composition for Chinese calligraphy of Han dynasty, Tang dynasty, and Ming dynasty. The music tries to capture the drama of the characters being written, which are hypothetically [...]

Art by SEAMUS members.

and the main performance theatre.