2/16/00

Diane Manuel, News Service (650) 725-1945;
e-mail: dmanuel@leland.stanford.edu

Computer music concert features works by Stanford composers

The Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) will present a free concert in the Cantor Arts Center auditorium at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 17. The program will feature instrumental and tape works by faculty members and graduate students.

All the works are recent compositions that use a variety of electronic media, some in conjunction with traditional or modified instruments. Inspiration for some pieces is derived from sounds of the natural world ­ waterfalls or glass breaking ­ that are processed electronically. Other sounds are entirely synthesized to produce a desired effect.

Graduate students whose work will be presented include Oded Ben-Tal, whose Soliloquy uses cello and tape, and Jonathan Norton, whose composition Robot Indigestion poses the question, "What is the equivalent of an antacid for a robot?" Matt Burtner's Frames and Falls contrasts field recordings made in Yosemite with stringed sounds and electronics, and Christian Herbst's Eternal Gate uses sampled and generated sounds to consider eternal questions of life and death. Christopher Burns' Questions and Fissures explores the fusion of independent voices.

Also on the program are works by faculty members Christopher Chafe and Jonathan Berger. Chafe, director of CCRMA and a composer/cellist, will present Transec, which is virtually pure synthesis. Berger's piece, Echoes of Life and Tim, is an excerpt from his sound installation in Jerusalem's Tower of David that utilizes the sounds of prayers from many religions that are activated by the sun striking the glass panes of the tower to create a "sonic sundial" effect.

CCRMA is a multidisciplinary program affiliated with the Department of Music where composers and researchers work together using computer-based technology as an artistic medium and as a research tool. Students come from a variety of disciplines including computer science, electrical engineering and psychology, as well as music.

-30-