A busy Winter Quarter

It has been a busy Winter Quarter here at UCSD.   Last week I realized a new telematic performance of Roger Reynolds' MARKed MUSIC, with computer musician Jaime Oliver and bassist Mark Dresser.  I wrote a simple "network MIDI harness" that replaced the local motorized fader bank (a Behringer BCF-2000) with messages piped over the network from Jaime's BCF-2000 in New York.  Thus, all of the processing of audio was done locally in San Diego.  Jaime monitored the computer audio, along with a microphone feed from Mark, via stereo audio sent over JackTrip.  The local computer audio in San Diego was full, 8-channel octagonal surround.  Jaime and Mark were able to synchronize very well, while I mostly sat back and monitored the levels and the network messages.  I've now performed or produced three instantiations of the piece with varying degrees of locality: one totally local show, one show involving telematic audio between UC Irvine and UCSD, and now this show involving both telematic audio and control data between New York and UCSD.

EDIT: I just received a link to a review of the concert.  Here's the section on MARKed MUSIC:

The showstopper... occurred on a piece that composer Roger Reynolds wrote for the bassist, “MARKed Music.” This was performed in “telematic” collaboration with the electronic contribution of Jamie Oliver, performing from New York, whose simultaneous image was beamed into the Experimental Theater at UCSD via high-speed video and audio Internet 2 connections (imagine Skype on steroids). 

Oliver’s contribution was based on pre-recorded samples of Dresser’s playing, processed using four different algorithms. Paul Hembree handled the telematics realization at the UCSD end. Dresser pulled out all the stops on this one: two-handed independent hammer-ons that sent sounds scurrying across the room like demons under a spotlight, as waves of sampled and reconfigured swatches careened around the space in dizzying surround sound. It was impossible, other-worldly and addictive. (Robert Bush, NBC San Diego)

It is nice that the spatialization was noticed - Roger and I spent some time over 2012-13 revising it. It is a variant of Roger's arc-triad migration strategy, although in my implementation I used some tricks learned from flocking behavior.

Next week I'll be flying to New York to perform the East Coast premiere of Reynolds' Positings, with Ensemble Signal at Columbia University's Miller Theatre.  You can find more information on the performance here.  I premiered the work last year in Los Angeles with Southwest Chamber Music.  Following the events in New York, I'll be traveling to Boston to present on the new Harvard-UCSD graduate composer exchange.