Afrouzeh
In the Persian language, Afrouzeh is a form of illumination. It is also a collective of three electro-acoustic improvisers. The group is comprised of laptop (composer Seamus Cater), woodwinds (instrumentalist and composer Petre Radu Scafaru) and drums + laptop (percussionist and composer Qasim Ali Naqvi) who first came together to perform a series of concerts in Amsterdam. The uniqueness of this ensemble lies in the ability to structure improvisations around different sonic ideas, retaining spontaneity where new forms can be introduced. Sound worlds are built from melodic structures, algorithmic synthesis, granular synthesis, self-referential live sampling, and sparse drum techniques are juxtaposed with more dense rhythmic ideas.
Aleatory Grammar
The duo's electronic minimal approach creates an ambient but highly-charged sound universe built upon each of the two musicians, long-time experience in the more adventurous realms of the musical spectra as well as their shared history linked to collaborations in and around Barcelona since the early nineties. Draminsky takes advantage of the possibilities of the Pluggo software synth/efx inside the MAX/MSP environment running on a Laptop. The sample-material in use consists of personal recordings of self played acoustic instruments mainly from the woodwind-, percussion- and string family. No specific pre-sets are programmed; all choices are made on the fly. Cunningham plays and processes live trumpet through the Korg KaossPad II.
Pedro Barboza
With studies in guitar and composition (Berklee College of Music, Boston, 1996) and a Master in Electroacoustic Composition (Hertfordshire University, UK, 1998), Pedro Barboza shares his time between composition and the electric guitar. He recently started working in free improvisation with musicians and dancers. He is the founding ember of the collective T�cTiL, devoted to the research in interdisciplinary works.
Ross Bencina
Ross Bencina is a composer, performer and software developer with a strong interest in improvised electroacoustic music. Born in Melbourne, Australia, since 2002 Ross has performed together with composers Steve Adam and Tim Kreger as the Simulus improvising electroacoustic ensemble. Recent solo appearances include the Queensland International Music Festival (Brisbane), The Zoo (Manchester), and Metr�nom (Barcelona). Ross is the creator of AudioMulch, a software for real-time electronic music performance.
The Bent Leather Band
The music of Joanne Cannon and Stuart Favilla is both unique and bizarre in its approach. Their desire to improvise a new and original music together has developed an approach that considers all aspects of music making. "We both play conventional instruments, improvise and compose. We realized early on that we didn't just want to push conventional instruments into new areas. We wanted to use technology, in its own right, not to synthesize existing sounds but to play new sounds- yet unheard of. Carrying this approach over into live performance forced us to invent new instruments. [Stuart F.]"
Joanne and Stuart have constructed a number of instruments including a serpentine leather electronic bassoon and Light Harp. The leather instruments were made by the late Tasmanian artist Garry Greenwood in collaboration with Joanne and Stuart. Other instruments have been made with the help of instrument maker David S. Brown and interface developer Robin Whittle.
Marc Behrens
Born in Darmstadt, Germany, Marc Behrens has lived and worked in Frankfurt since 1991, during 2003 also in Grimacco, Italy. He studied communication and product design and has always been present in more than one artistic area at the time. After beginning his musical studies in experimental jazz and rock groups in the late 1980s and pursuing a series of tape releases, acoustic feedback recordings, and multimedia works throughout the 1990s, today Behrens is perhaps best classed as a 'sound artist', working across performance, installation, and recorded media (audio and video). He has performed and exhibited extensively across Europe, in Japan, the Middle East, and North America. He is a member of the Frankfurt Association for Contemporary Music (FGNM), the German Association for Electroacoustic Music (DEGEM), and a citizen of�The Kingdoms of Elgaland-Vargaland since 1997.
Chris Brown
Chris Brown, composer, pianist, and electronic musician, creates music for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics, for computer networks, and for improvising ensembles. He has performed and recorded extensively with "The Hub", "Room" and collaborated with John Zorn and Wadada Leo Smith.
Thomas Ciufo
Thomas Ciufo is a composer, improviser and a sound, media and installation artist, active also in music technology education. Recent works include "eighth nerve", for prepared guitar and computer, and the series "sonic improvisations #N".
Coeval
Coming from M�laga is this electronic duo formed by Juan Carlos Blancas and Jos� Alberto Gaspar. Self-taught in the field of sound and computer music, Coeval have been working in these areas for the past ten years. Their music mixes field recordings with a sound design that makes use of computer errors, an approach that situates them half way between soundscape artists and digital musicians.
Nick Collins
Nick Collins is a pianist who, investigating too much computer music has fallen increasingly into the habits and mannerisms of an audio programmer. This has extended to his live performances, where he uses the interpreted language SuperCollider to manipulate algorithmic music on-the-fly. When not live coding, Click lives with a trowel and four chiliasts in Dorset, Essex.
Convolution Brothers
Watch TV with the Convolution Brothers. You don't have to just sit down and take it. Now you can RESPOND to what comes in over the TV set. The Convolution Brothers will demonstrate the new technique of Convoluted Channel Surfing (CCS). Our patent lawyers are starting to drool. The Convolution Brothers are:
- CB #1. Cort Lippe. Sometimes plays banjo if he can find it.
- CB #2. Zack Settel. Speaks pretty good French.
- CB #0. Miller Puckette. You can't beat his price.
Electroliving + Autonom�a
Electroliving + Autonomia is a live performed play, supported by digital technology and object oriented programming. Electroliving + Autonomia develops the concept of sonic space, visual autonomy and their influence on the audience. While ambient everyday sounds acquiring a musical intention when processed with digital tools, images, either synthesized or taken from photography and videos, acquire an autonomous live, by means of programming, thus symbolising the autonomy of the individual. As the set progresses, the audience starts identifying the symbols which are formed by the sounds and the images.
Envyloop
ENVYLOOP is the dynamic live-electro-improv-acoustic-meltdown duo formed by composer/performers Ulrich Maiss (cellos, electronics, vocals) and Butch Rovan (reeds, laptops, vocals). With their combination of acoustic instruments, live electronics, interactive video and found objects, Rovan and Maiss create an eclectic mix of musical styles and persona that is ENVYLOOP. Forging together the bleak landscapes of rural Texas with the urban soundscapes of Berlin, ENVYLOOP's music ranges from ambient glittering soundscapes to hardcore noise attack to Zappa-esque humor. The internationally-known Maiss and Rovan orbit the outskirts of the avant-garde and the popular, aided in concert by real-time computer processing, interactive video projections, some serious musical chops, and lots of strange noises. Ingredients like Asian folk music, rock or noise melt into the musical moment.
EPY
epy produce computer music and computer video. epy are programming their own software tools. At present epy musicians operate in Vienna, Hamburg, Barcelona and Berlin. epy musicians synchronize their work by using network technologies and environments. The outcome of this collaboration is determined by the inserted technology and the participating musicians. Errors in the synchronization process add up as an equal part to the resulting aesthetics. Human and technological factors and operations fuse into the audiovisual works of epy.
eRikm
With a background in visual arts, the virtuoso turntablist and electroacoustic music composer eRikm, has been pursuing since 1992 a solo practice in experimental music, which epitomizes the relationship between popular music and academia. Frequent collaborator of Voice Crack, Christian Marclay or the very recently deceased Luc Ferrari, among others, eRikm is currently approaching a new, more abstract and at the same time simpler and more readable electronic position, freer of technical or intellectual posturing.
Kanta Horio
Born in Hiroshima in 1978, Kanta Horio is one of a new generation of young unique performing artists in Japan. He builds various junk gadgets and contraptions with or without electric devices, and presents sound/visual performance with them and a laptop computer.
IUA Master Students
Four live electronic music performances by students of the 2004-2005 Master in Digital Arts (UPF). In the module "Interaction and real-time musical and visual generation", Sergi Jord� and G�nter Geiger, focuses both on the technical and on the conceptual aspects of interactive and real-time music creation and the use of software tools such as PD or GEM.
Recall (Helena Fortunato Figueiredo, Maribel Pozo Ruiz, Matteo Sisti Sette, Coia Valls)
airicca (Oriol Mu�oz, Ana Rueda and Santos Miguel)
No �s perm�s que...(Edgar Barroso, Berio Molina, Ricard Marxer, Alejandra Pombo)
sic~ (sonidos inestables convertidos) (David Dalmazzo, Eric Arreola, Laurie Bender, Rebecka Bir�)
Jasch
Double bass-player, composer and digital artist, active in electronic and improvised music, jazz and contemporary music, performance and installation art, Jasch has composed pieces for chamber-ensembles, music for theatre and film. Main focus on works combining digital sound and images, abstract graphics and digital video, electro-acoustic music or mixed-media projects for the stage and in installations. Invited as guest-artist and lecturer to various cultural and academic institutions. installations, performances and concerts in galleries, clubs and festivals throughout Europe, North America and Japan.
Sergi Jord�
Digital luthier (FMOL, reacTable*...) and improviser (FMOL Trio, Gianni Gebbia...) Sergi Jord� (1961), likes to invent new digital musical instruments without forgetting to make music with them. His music has been released on various labels and compilations (Hazard Records, SGAE, MIT Press...), he has composed for different instrumental setups (including a brass band) and for films, but he prefers the immediacy and volatility of free improvisation. During the 1990s, he worked extensively in performances and installations in collaboration with other artists (La Fura dels Baus, Marcel.l� Ant�nez...). He holds a PhD in digital communication from Pompeu Fabra University, where he teaches computer music, audio programming and interactive systems, and is codirector of the Master in Digital Arts.
Ulrich Maiss
Ulrich Maiss (cellos, electronics, vocals) works out of Berlin, Germany. Well known as a performer of contemporary European chamber music, he also performed with various rock and folk acts throughout Europe. His solo projects in the field of experimental music led him to Japan, the U.S. and Canada. Musicians and ensembles he has performed with include Lou Reed, Canadian Juno-Award winner Lynn Miles, Element Of Crime, German goth-star Alexander Veljanov, vocalist/percussionist Vinx (Sting, Lou Reed) and Maria Farantouri (Mikis Theodorakis). Ulrich is currently working with Lou Reed to finalize a Cello-Solo version of Lou's Metal Machine Music entitled CelloMachine.
Wade Mattews + Ingar Zach
Two musicians compromised with free improvisation as a process of collective creation, the North American Wade Matthews (software synthesis) and the Norwegian Ingar Zach (percussion), both work the sonic material from a deep research of their respective instruments.
Mathews, saxophone and clarinet player and doctor in electroacoustic composition (Columbia University) has played among others with John Butcher, Phil Durrant, Peter Kowald or L� Quan Ninh.
Zach, who works regularly with Derek Bailey or Jon Balke among others, co directs the label of improvised music SOFA (http://sofa.norcd.no/index.html), and combines his activities between Norway and Spain.
Pleasurehorse
Shawn Greenlee is a composer and performer of experimental music. His work centers on freestyle performance with computer systems for both sound and image. Since 1992, Greenlee has been standing at the epicenter of Providence's (Rhode Island) panicked music scene, and is best known for his solo electronic music, under the moniker Pleasurehorse, as well as for founding and performing in the frenetic rock group, Landed (1997-2003).
Gert-Jan Prins
Gert-Jan Prins presents a version of the audiovisual piece "GLOW", for homemade electronics, customized transmitters, and television-tube. In the tradition of David Tudor's manipulated circuit boxes, Prins' machines feed back on themselves, spitting out rhythmic patterns of analogue buzz and fragments of speech and music. Prins (b. 1961, IJmuiden) began his career as a drummer. Over the last several years the Dutch artist has established himself as one of the most active figures in improvised electronic music. In addition to his solo work, current collaborations include The Flirts with Cor Fuhler and MIMEO, the 11-piece Music in Movement Electronic Orchestra, E-RAX with Peter van Bergen, Thomas Lehn, and filmmaker Petra Dolleman.
Paulo Raposo
Paulo Raposo is a sound and media artist based in Lisbon, Portugal. Born in 1967, after studies of philosophy and cinema in Lisbon, he has been working in the medium of live electronic and computer sound, performing, recording and exhibiting works in France, Germany, UK, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Baltic States and United States. His work explores the inter-relationships and displacements between digital process and architectural spaces, using computer and custom-built software to create abstract and delicate soundscapes. Since the late nineties, he started also exploring intersections between sound and image taking advantage of the digital medium real-time possibilities, both in solo performances and collaborative work. Raposo performed and collaborated with numerous artists, including Janek Schaefer, Jason Kahn, Kaffe Mathews, Marc Behrens, Jgrzinich, Zbigniew Karkowski, Matt Rogalski, Carlos Santos, Carlos Z�ngaro, Christopher Murphy, Koji Asano, Sara Kolster, among others
Butch Rovan
Butch Rovan [reeds, laptops, vocals] is a composer and performer on the faculty of the Department of Music at Brown University, where he co-directs meme@brown (Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments @ Brown) and the Ph.D. program in Computer Music and Multimedia. Prior to joining Brown he directed CEMI, the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia, at the University of North Texas, and was a compositeur en recherche with the Real-Time Systems Team at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris
Diemo Schwarz / Mean Time Between Failures
Mean Time Between Failures is the noisy ambient project of Diemo Schwarz, who was able to incorporate his interest in music and sound (with participation in various electronic or acoustic projects) with computer science research. Diemo works on real-time interactive sound synthesis applications at Ircam, Paris.
Solu
SOLU is a Finnish visual agitator and cultural activist based in Barcelona. Her style ranges from minimal abstractions and strongly processed material to multilayered ambient landscapes, processing her raw material with the help of software such as MAX/MSP/NATO or JITTER Recent international performances include the opening of Transmediale 04 (Berlin), Sonic Acts (2002 & 2004, Amsterdam) and Sonar (2003 & 2004, Barcelona) and her experimental music videos have been widely exhibited in festivals around the world.
S�nreel
S�nreel (Maja Cerar, Douglas Geers, Liubo Borissov) is an international electroacoustic collective creating alternate mnemonic realms by the corruption and reconstitution of sound. S�nreel's music combines elements of avant-garde experimental music, hip-hop, techno, jazz, and various ethnic influences into a bristling, imaginative sonic environment that amalgamates beats, twisted samples, and improvised instrumental material.
Teleson / reacTable*
Teleson constitutes the word premiere of the reacTable, the instrument developed by Sergi Jord�'s team at UPF. "TeleSon" is a collaborative piece that crosses the boundaries of composition, improvisation, and instrument-building. Since our compositional purpose includes freeing all sound to become part of music, instrument-building becomes a necessary component of the compositional process. And as with any new instrument, composition cannot proceed independent of improvisation. In this performance four musicians are playing two networked "reacTables", one each in Barcelona and in Linz, Austria. Performers: Chris Brown and G�nter Geiger (Barcelona); Martin Kaltenbrunner and Marcos Alonso (Linz).
Ge Wang
Ge Wang enjoys food and computer music research. Ge and Perry Cook (Ge's advisor) created the ChucK programming language (http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu), which Ge employs (and sometimes debugs) during live performances to create and manipulate synthesis programs on-the-fly. Currently, Ge is investigating, among other things, the potentially nutritious combination of live coding and eating.