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Concert to Mark 40 Years of Electronic Music, Nov. 3
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press Contact Only: Richard Selden |
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 Margaret Schedel, composer |
Performers Will Interact With Computers, Light Sculpture, Speakeroids
October 28, 2009, Baltimore, MD: A free multimedia concert by the Peabody Computer Music Consort on Tuesday, Nov. 3, will celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Electronic Music Studio at Baltimore’s Peabody Conservatory. The concert, 40 Years of Looking to the Future, will take place at 7:30 pm in Peabody’s Miriam A. Friedberg Concert Hall.
The highly unusual, even daring, event will feature surround sound, dance, video projection, improvisation, live computer interaction, interactive light sculpture, and Speakeroids (two-way acoustical transducers) in combination with the virtuoso instrumentalists and singers for which the Peabody Conservatory is known.
“When Dr. Jean Eichelberger Ivey founded the studio in 1969, it was the first to be located in an American conservatory,” said Geoffrey Wright, Peabody’s director of computer music and the concert’s artistic director. “Though much has changed in the field, chiefly because computers have evolved from huge mainframes to far more powerful and portable instruments, the spirit of visionary innovation continues.”
This year’s anniversary concert features alumni of Peabody’s Master of Music degree program in Computer Music, which was launched 20 years ago. All of the composers and many of the performers are Peabody alumni who have gone on to highly successful careers and are returning for this anniversary performance.
One of the most ambitious works to be performed is Windcombs/Imaq by Matthew Burtner, a University of Virginia faculty member. Inspired by the native culture of Alaska, Burtner’s home state, this dramatic piece features a nine-piece instrumental ensemble, male vocalist, dancers, video, interactive computer music, and a light sculpture called the Wind Tree, which responds to the dancers’ movements and gestures.
Electronic Music Studio founder Jean Eichelberger Ivey, to whom the concert is dedicated, will be represented on the program by her score to the 1965 film Montage V: How to Play Pinball. This experimental film by Wayne Sourbeer is scored using sounds recorded from vintage pinball machines, manipulated by Ivey using tape-manipulation techniques then considered cutting-edge. A new digital print of the film with restored digital sound has been created for this performance.
The concert will also include the world premiere of notmare by Chris Mandra, one of the first graduates of Peabody’s computer music master’s program. Mandra, a former National Public Radio webmaster, is best known in the Baltimore area for his performances with the experimental rock band Telesma. In this new piece, he collaborates with another alumna, soprano Bonnie Lander.
McGregor Boyle, a computer music faculty member who chairs Peabody’s composition department, will present his piece As It Was for violin, piano, and computer, with Peabody faculty member Courtney Orlando, violin, and alumnus Michael Sheppard, piano. Margaret Schedel, a computer music alumna now teaching at SUNY Stony Brook, will offer her haunting Only the Beautiful Lack the Wound, performed by alumnus David Brooke Wetzel on basset horn and multi-channel electronics.
Other works on the program by Peabody computer music alumni are: Ichos, a new video by Charles Kim, whose compositions were performed at Peabody’s New Years Eve 2000 project in Times Square; and Errata by Matt Diamond, a setting of a Charles Simic poem to be sung by Lander. Diamond was the first student to receive Peabody’s new Bachelor of Music degree in Computer Music in 2008.
As if the department’s creativity could not be contained within the concert hall’s dimensions in space and time, two installation pieces will also be on view. When audience members enter Friedberg Hall, they will encounter Sketches, a video installation by Wright and pioneering computer graphic artist Michael O’Rourke. At the post-concert reception in Peabody’s Bank of America Lounge, guests will experience Speakeroids 3: the Relabi Wave by Empty Vessel. Empty Vessel consists of John Berndt and Peabody alumnus Samuel Burt, who are known for their work with Baltimore’s annual High Zero Festival of experimental and improvised music.
The highly regarded music school of The Johns Hopkins University, Peabody is located at 17 East Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore. For complete concert information, visit www.peabody.jhu.edu/events.
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McGregor Boyle, composer
Margaret Schedel, composer
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About the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University
Located in the heart of Baltimore’s Mount Vernon Cultural District, the Peabody Institute was founded in 1857 as America’s first academy of music by philanthropist George Peabody. Today, Peabody boasts a preeminent faculty, a nurturing, collaborative learning environment, and the academic resources of one of the nation’s leading universities, Johns Hopkins. Through its degree-granting Conservatory and its community-based Preparatory music and dance school, Peabody trains musicians and dancers of every age and at every level, from small children to seasoned professionals, from dedicated amateurs to winners of international competitions. Each year, Peabody stages nearly 100 major concerts and performances, ranging from classical to contemporary to jazz, many of them free — a testament to the vision of George Peabody.
