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At Beyond the Machine, Computerized Creativity on Display By MARI KIMURA
Beyond the Machine, Juilliard's annual festival of electronic and interactive music, was presented by the Music Technology Center on April 9 in Room 309. The concert featured a wide range of works integrating music, video, live painting, and interactive computers. The pieces were performed and composed by the students of the M.T.C., the Electric Ensemble at Juilliard (under the direction of Edward Bilous, chairman of L&M and director of the M.T.C.), and the students in my Interactive Computer Music Performance class. (Most of the works used the interactive computer music system MaxMSP.)
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| A drawing by Kevork Mourad, created and projected during the performance of Kinan Azmeh’s Gilgamesh. |
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Flutist Andrea Fisher opened the concert with Steve Reich's Vermont Counterpoint, performing in front of a video projection of her playing in the woods in Vermont (while standing next to the trees, in between them, and on top of one of them). The music and video were rhythmically synchronized, and the beautiful scenery elegantly matched Reich's colorful music. The audience chuckled as Andrea was seen briefly holding a branch, pretending to play it like a flute. It was a beautiful and striking visual ensemble.The Electric Ensemble (violinists JoAnna Farrer and Michelle Satris, violist Jeanann Seidman, and cellist Natalie Haas) presented a stunning Electric String Quartet by Spencer Topel. The work starts with a string quartet that slowly transforms into a "multiple quartet," through digital delays and effects using MaxMSP. Topel gradually and carefully merged the live processing with the quartet; it was one of the most skillful and beautifully integrated electronic quartets I have ever heard. I hope that he will continue working in this milieu, and I look forward to hearing more of his work with electronics.Nadia Sirota performed Justin Messina's The Space Between, an interactive work for viola and MaxMSP. Using sampled contrabass sounds mixed with Sirota's prerecorded viola sounds, Messina created the electronic part that seamlessly extends the viola, morphing the musical texture and vocabulary. Using MaxMSP, the computer listens to the violist (what note she is playing, and how loud), triggering the prerecorded sound files by reacting to the cues of particular pitches and Sirota's loudness. Since Messina created what he calls this "interactive flexible tape part," Sirota could take subtle liberty in timing and expressive gesture, without having to follow the timing of the tape.Jean-Claude Risset's Eight Sketches for Disklavier was performed by pianist Nicholas Ong. Commissioned by M.I.T.'s Media Laboratory in 1988, Eight Sketches is a highly effective work showcasing eight different kinds of interactivity between the pianist and the Disklavier. The work has become one of the most frequently presented pieces at interactive music concerts using Disklavier. This virtuosic work requires that the performer must hit the right notes at the right time—otherwise, those "trigger notes" would not be sent to the computer to interact with the Disklavier. Ong was in complete command and at ease, both on the piano and with the intricate MaxMSP system. Max programming was revised and reworked by Ong and his collaborators at Peabody Conservatory.Andrea Fisher also presented Thea Musgrave's Narcissus (1987), originally written for flute and an obsolete digital delay unit. Using MaxMSP on the computer, we reworked and rebuilt the delay effects specified in the score by Musgrave. In Narcissus, the performer must match the tempo of the digital delay precisely. Fisher was able to master this synchronizing technique (quite different from standard acoustic ensemble technique), without any help of "click-track" or metronome. This is the kind of performance practice unique to electronic music.The Electric Ensemble also presented Improvisation, a string quartet with digital delays and effects. Under the direction of Edward Bilous, they rehearsed intensively with a structured improvisation, discussing some details beforehand such as tempo or rhythmic character. The computer was programmed to enhance these characters beforehand as well. But the music itself unfolded according to moment-by-moment collective decisions by all players in an extraordinary performance, with the first violinist triggering the effect change with a foot-switch. Their performance exposed all of us to the world of improvisation, rarely experienced in conservatories.To close the concert, Kinan Azmeh, a talented clarinetist from Syria, mesmerized the audience with his original work Gilgamesh for clarinet and MaxMSP, in collaboration with the live drawing and projection by a Syrian painter, Kevork Mourad. Azmeh created a multi-layered virtual ensemble using an intricate panning scheme, recreating the sound environment similar to that of the mosques of Damascus. While improvising freely in different Arabic modes on top of his own ensemble, he also wove in an exhilarating Syrian drumming soundtrack. Mourad made more than 10 drawings while Azmeh played, projecting them live on video. The most stunning moment came when the music was reaching the climax, and Mourad's painting turned into a brilliant, prerecorded animation. The audience held its breath as the characters in the painting danced, violently battled, then made peace and walked away hand-in-hand, while coordinating carefully with Azmeh's music. Azmeh and Mourad created a powerful storytelling that was one of the most magical moments of the evening.The performers and composers presented here are among the most disciplined and committed musicians, with solid foundations in classical music training. When these young people try their hands in computers and electronics, using them as tools to actualize their creativity, the results are phenomenal. They don't put acoustic research, computer programming, or music theory ahead of their musical imagination and visions of creative process. Though it uses the latest technology, their music is truly beyond the machine.Mari Kimura (D.M.A. '93, violin) teaches interactive computer music performance and has been on the faculty since 1998.
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