By ADAM SCHOENBERG

Juilliard's Music Division is known primarily for its conservatory tradition of acoustic classical music, the emergence of the Jazz Studies Program, the Music Technology Center, and new groups such as the Axiom Ensemble and the Juilliard Rock Club have turned the division into a veritable art mecca that embraces everything from medieval polyphony to film scoring and computer-designed sound sculpture. Students attending Juilliard today are exposed to some of the most adventurous music in all of New York. One example is Beyond the Machine.

For the past seven years, Juilliard's Music Technology Center has presented this annual series of electronic and interactive music. Each event features at least one premiere, and the programs cover the new-music gamut from experimental and multimedia to aleatoric and free improvisation. This year's concerts will include three world premieres, as well as works by leading professional composers, alumni, and students. But Beyond the Machine 7.0 marks a departure from past concerts in having a single unifying theme: "The Eye-Ear Collaboration." Each work features a projected visual element in the form of an original film, projection design, or live video interaction with the musicians. B.T.M. 7.0 will feature performances by the Axiom Ensemble, conducted by Vince Lee, and the Juilliard Electric Ensemble, along with professional video and film artists Luke DuBois, Kirsten Kelly, and David Norman.

The concert will begin with Neil Rolnick's Digits, a composition for solo piano and digital processing that features live video projection by Luke DuBois. Although the composition formally resembles a virtuoso piano sonata, Rolnick describes the effect of the piano as being "bent slightly out of shape, amplified, and multiplied," as the "images of the player's fingers are brought directly to the audience and manipulated to complement the music" by DuBois's live projections. Digits will be performed by master's degree candidate Vicky Chow.

Next on the program is Awaumi by Yui Kitamura, a master's degree candidate in composition studying with Robert Beaser. An eccentric composer, Kitamura has written in various styles encompassing classical, jazz, pop, and film, and collaborates regularly with dancers, actors, and animators. Awaumi—the Japanese mythological name for Biwako, the biggest lake in Japan—is an interactive Max/MSP piece for solo violin performed by Patrick Doane (B.M. '06, violin). The piece will be presented along with real-time Max/MSP projection so the audience can see the interaction between the violinist and computer.

Members of the Axiom ensemble will premiere Kenji Bunch's (B.M. '95, viola; M.M. '97, viola and composition) Ghost Reel for violin, viola, electronics, and video projection by Luke DuBois. Ghost Reel is based on music of the American Civil War era, and features prerecorded audio of traditional instruments of that time—jaw harp and open-back banjo. Bunch describes the work as suggesting the "disembodied echoes of music performed at an army campfire the night preceding a battle that would take the lives of both soldiers and musicians." Both the violin and viola feature different scordatura that emphasize the traditional Appalachian sonorities.

Continuing the tradition of performing Steve Reich's music in honor of his 70th-birthday year, B.T.M. 7.0 will present Tokyo/Vermont Counterpoint for marimba performed by Michael Caterisano with multiple tracks of previously recorded marimba. Tokyo/Vermont Counterpoint (2001) is a new arrangement of Vermont Counterpoint (1982), originally scored for flutes, alto flutes, and piccolos, and is based on compositional techniques employed by Reich since 1967. Reich says that the "compositional techniques used are primarily building up canons between short repeating melodic patterns by substituting notes for rests and then playing melodies that result from their combination." In approximately 10 minutes, the piece travels through four sections and four different keys.

Beyond the Machine 7.0 Clark Theater Wed., April 11-Fri., April 13,  8 p.m. Please see the Calendar of Events for more information.

John King's Trilogic Unity is scored for two violins, viola, cello, bass, two bass clarinets, piano, and soprano, and will feature the Axiom Ensemble, soprano Charlotte Dobbs, and live video projection by Luke DuBois. King has received commissions from the Kronos Quartet, Albany Symphony, Bang on a Can All-Stars, to name a few, and was the music curator at the Kitchen from 1999-2003 and is currently a co-director of the music committee at the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Trilogic Unity will involve chance operations, improvisation, and traditionally composed sections all interacting and blending with live electronics.

Finally, the B.T.M. 7.0 concert will close with Lucid Dreams by Edward Bilous. Bilous, the founding director of the Music Technology Center, is a nationally recognized composer and leader in the field of arts education. Bilous describes Lucid Dreams as a "multimedia work that explores hidden feelings underlying human relationships, which emerge in our dreams." It features the choreography of Alison Chase, an original film by David Norman, and will be performed by vocalist Lori Cotler and the Axiom Ensemble.

After the concert, guests are invited to stay for the New Music Gallery, which features groove-oriented music by current students of the Juilliard Music Technology Center and curated by Daniel Goldman. We look forward to seeing you there!

Adam Schoenberg is a doctoral candidate in composition.