Computer technology mixes with timeless classical harmonies in an electro-acoustic concert this weekend presented by ASU's iChamber Players.
"Computer Music International" is a program of four recent works combining acoustic instruments and computer-generated sounds. The concert will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Digital Arts Ranch in Tempe.
"The program gives the Valley a taste of the activities being developed in some of the world's most active computer music centers," says JB Smith, managing director of iChamber and director of percussion studies at ASU.
The iChamber Players, made up of graduate students and ASU School of Music staff, started in 2000 as a way to bring together artists from the school and the Institute for Students in the Arts. Sixteen of the group's musicians will perform in "Computer Music International."
Robert Spring, an ASU music professor who plays the clarinet for iChamber, says that the group was formed as a way to bring music to ASU that normally would not be heard.
Electro-acoustic music is something that many students might have never seen or heard before, and may never get to again, says program conductor Gary Hill.
Smith adds that this type of music is "rarely performed because it takes special musicians and special technology."
Though this is one of the first concerts at ASU to put computers and musicians on the same stage, the concept is one that has been around for nearly a century.
"Composers are constantly wanting to experiment with new sounds," Hill says. At the beginning of the century, "people all through the country were experimenting with electric music and computer music," he adds.
Smith says that, "as music technology has evolved, so have the spectra of possibilities for live musicians interacting with digital media."
After the synthesizer was invented in 1920, Hill says that computer-generated music took off. One of the earliest pieces to use electric sounds was "Deserts" by Edgard Varèse in 1954, with sounds based on radio technology.
"This is a concert of some of the latest pieces of that genre," Hill says. "[The pieces] show how technology and the arts are woven together."
Smith describes the music as contemporary classical: "It's classical in that it's dealing with a very high-level language. It's contemporary in that it's using very modern syntax."
Each of the four pieces in the concert was created by composers at different computer music centers around the world: ZKM in Germany; IRCAM in Paris; Kunitachi College in Japan; and the University of California at San Diego.
The concert opens with Tomoko Nakai's "Whirlpool," a 10-minute trombone solo. This is the only piece that requires the instrument to actually be hooked up to the computer. The sounds from the trombone are sent to the computer, which will process and alter them. The finished sound is then projected through the speakers.
Ludger Brümmer's "Medusa" unites two percussionists with the prerecorded soundtrack of a DVD. "Medusa" is accompanied by visual images that follow the same algorithmic processes as the music.
"Dream-like, abstract images will be dancing behind the players," Smith says.
During Marita Bolles' "What Exit," Hill says the audience will feel like it's "in the middle of a huge argument."
During the piece, multiple dialogues from computer-generated interview fragments are played, sometimes at the same time, creating layers of voices.
For "What Exit," Andrew Campbell, iChamber pianist, says that he has to "prepare" his piano ahead of time. To prepare the piano, objects such as metal bolts are inserted between the piano strings. This changes the piano's sounds and creates "sounds like distant church bells and eerie percussion sounds," Campbell says.
The program ends with Tristan Murail's "L'esprit des Dunes." The complex piece mixes the sounds of 11 musicians with those of a programmed synthesizer. The synthesizer creates more than a 100 different sounds, Campbell says.
"The variety of sounds is unlimited," he adds.
Though the group has been practicing weekly since spring, there's always an element of helplessness when dealing with technology, Campbell says.
"[Adding computers] brings a new color into the mix," he says. "With live musicians it's under control, but here there's an element beyond your control."
The computer could crash, the power cord could get pulled or a program could not respond, Campbell says. Although, Hill says he isn't worried about technical difficulties.
"With technology, there's always the potential for something to malfunction," Hill says. "But you just stop and try to fix the malfunction, and then you go on."
Reach the reporter at jaime.schneider@asu.edu.
|
'Computer Music International' a concert by the iChamber Players at Digital Arts Ranch, southeast corner of University Drive and Myrtle Avenue. 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Free. Reservations recommended. 480-965-9438. |
