On Feb. 22, 2015, Jack Van Geem and Yi David Yang gave a virtuoso performance of my "Library of Babel", on a recital at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The program ranged from Bach's Chaconne to arrangements of Super Mario Brothers video game themes!
News
This page contains postings on compositions, performances and press.
30 years of spatial music for computer
I will be giving a colloquium and concert at the Center for Computer Music in Research and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University; March 4th 2015. Click here for further info.
Abstract
In the mid-1950s American composer Henry Brant wrote that “single-style music can no longer evoke the multi-directional assaults of contemporary life on the spirit.” In pursuit of a framework for music based on simultaneity, he made a series of experiments and compositions exploring the physical position of sounds as an essential compositional element. David A. Jaffe met Brant in the mid-1970s and became a life-long friend and advocate. In 1979, at CCRMA, he began applying the principles of acoustic spatial music to the computer domain. In this colloquium/concert, Jaffe discusses and presents three of his spatial works, spanning a thirty-year period.
"Silicon Valley Breakdown" for synthetic plucked strings (1982) will be heard in a newly-restored form, a rare opportunity to hear this well-known work in its original 4-channel format. "Impossible Animals" (1986) for live performers and computer-synthesized voices creates a hybrid human-bird vocalise, as if the brain of a bird were transplanted into the body of a wildly-gifted soprano. Finally, "The Space Between Us" (2011), an acoustic spatial work with interactive computer control, uses twenty-one robotic mechanical instruments created by Trimpin, positioned around and above the audience. A video of this work will be presented, featuring CCRMA alumnus Andrew Schloss performing on a new version of the Boie/Mathews Radiodrum, accompanied by eight string players distributed throughout the hall.
UA at NAMM, 2015
On the technical front, Universal Audio announced at NAMM what I've been working on for the last year: "apollo expanded" allows mix/match multi-unit with all audio busses over thunderbolt, as well as a new GUI and other enhancements. More info here.
Video and Violin Virtuosity
Karen Bentley Pollick's performance of "Cluck Old Hen Variations," performed in conjunction with Fred Kolouch's specially-created fanciful video, at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University, November, 2014.
Early music
In the early 1970s, I was involved with a New York-based experimental bluegrass music scene that was remarkable in its energy and unbridled creativity. The music was Ivesian in its dynamic freedom and wealth of ideas, freely crossing stylistic boundaries while still having at its core a roots music soul. The time I spent playing, jamming and hanging out with these musicians made a lasting impression on my musical approach, though it was only after I worked with Henry Brant that I started to see a way to integrate it into my own compositions.
One of the musicians with whom I performed and recorded at that time was banjo virtuoso Tony Trischka. I just discovered that several tracks from his 1975 album "Heartland" are available as MP3 downloads at this link. I played on tracks 15, 16 and 22.* Other LPs I played on during this time period include "Bottle Hill - Light our way along the highway" (with whom I toured from 1973-1975) and "Stacy Philips - All Old Friends" (Stacy is an amazing dobro player), but neither of these recordings is apparently on line currently.
(*) The other musicians on these tracks are Andy Statman, John Miller, Harry Orloff, Barry Mitterhoff and Dave Schwartz, and (track 22) Kenny Kosek, Russ Barenberg, Andy Statman, Roger Mason and Richard Crooks.