Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 20, 2001

Volume 29, Number 27

Concerts feature works by Yale composers
that integrate computer technologies

Two composers expanding the traditional boundaries of music composition by integrating computer-assisted music technologies, digital video and live performance will be featured in concerts sponsored by the Digital Media Center for the Arts (DMCA).

Kathryn Alexander, assistant professor of music composition and theory in the Department of Music, will present "Abstracted Cisms" on Saturday, April 21, 4-6 p.m., at the DMCA, 149 York St. Her performance will coincide with the opening of the DMCA's Digital Art Exhibit which will showcase faculty and student digital prints, photographs and multimedia projects.

Jack Vees, operations director of the Center for Studies in Music Technology at the School of Music, will perform "Gloria" on Thursday, April 26, at 8 p.m. in Morse Recital Hall of Sprague Memorial Hall, 470 College St. Vees's concert is also being offered as part of the "New Music New Haven" concert series directed by Joseph Schwantner and sponsored by the School of Music.

Alexander's interactive concert "Abstracted Cisms" was inspired by a Willem de Kooning painting. The composition consists of several parts. One part was composed for digital percussionist Timothy Feeney, whose instrument is a glove connected to a computer. Sensors in the fingertips of the glove read tapping movements and transform them into sound. Another part is a collection of "techno-cabaret" songs performed by baritone Richard Lalli. Yet another part features sensors responding to the movements of performers. Since the movement is improvised and the composition is interactive, the players create music at the very moment of the performance. Projected animations are also integrated into the performance, and a portion of the music is created by a digital transformation of image into sound.

Vees's "Gloria" mixes traditional forms of music with technology, video with instrumental performance and classical music with pop. The title of the piece refers to the sacred music of the Baroque period as well as the contemporary song by the 1960s pop group Them, and both the Baroque and the contemporary are integrated in the composition.

"Gloria" is structured as a computer-assisted call and response between two instruments, an oboe and an organ. The oboe used in the performance is an oboe d'amore, an instrument with a low tone characteristic of 17th- and 18th-century music. The organ is a Hammond organ, an instrument that is often used in rock and pop music. While the oboe part is played live by Libby Van Cleve, the organ notes are played by a pre-programmed computer and altered during the performance by Vees. The mixed-media performance is enhanced by a projected video set designed by Carol Scully, director of the DMCA.

The concerts are featured events of Yale's Tercentennial celebration. They are both free and open to the public.

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Concerts feature works by Yale composers that integrate computer technologies

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