CU digital music conference to showcase performances, technology

The Cornell Department of Music is hosting a series of lectures and performances titled "The State of the Art: Perspectives on Digital Music in the 21st Century," starting Friday, Sept. 10, and resuming for three days on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Sept. 16, 17 and 18, on campus. All events are free and open to the public.

The conference/festival features guest speakers, composers and performers from the Eastman School of Music, Hamilton College, l'Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Musique/Acoustique (IRCAM), Princeton University and the University of California-Berkeley and -San Diego, and also features such luminaries as composer Paul Lansky, computer software pioneer Miller Puckette and violist John Graham.

David Wessel, the Jerry and Evelyn Hemmings Chambers Chair in Music at Berkeley, will deliver the keynote talk and lead an informal discussion during a "Composers' Forum" Friday, Sept. 10, starting at 1:25 p.m. in B20 Lincoln Hall. Wessel is also director of the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies, and his research includes musical applications of computer and related technologies, music perception and cognition, composition and improvisation, and interactive live performance.

Events resume on Thursday, Sept. 16, when Benjamin Thigpen delivers a talk titled "Dividing by Zero" at 4:30 p.m. in B21 Lincoln Hall. Thigpen recently returned to the United States after serving as musical assistant at IRCAM in Paris.

On Friday, Sept. 17, events include presentations by Princeton University faculty Perry R. Cook and Paul Lansky, followed by an evening concert. Cook, professor of computer science and music, will deliver a talk titled "New Controllers for Musical Expression" at 1:30 p.m. and Lansky, professor of composition, follows with a talk titled "The Death of Computer Music" at 3 p.m., both in B20 Lincoln Hall.

On Friday night at 8 p.m., "The State of the Art" series moves to Barnes Hall Auditorium for a program of works including Birches, by Kevin Ernste, Eastman School of Music faculty; incandescence, by Thigpen; COWE Improvisation III, by Cook; and Jupiter, for flute and real-time electronic system, by Philippe Manoury, UC-San Diego faculty composer. The performers include: Elizabeth McNutt, flute; John Graham, viola; and Miller Puckette, live electronics.

On Saturday, Sept. 18, two talks will be held in the lecture hall on the first floor of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. At 10:30 a.m., Manoury will deliver a talk titled "Incidences of Real-Time Processing in Musical Composition"; at 11:45 a.m., Puckette, also a UC-San Diego faculty member, will deliver a talk titled, "Live Electronic Music in the Recent Future." Following a lunch break, "The State of the Art" concludes with a showing of video works-with-music at the Willard Straight Theatre, home of Cornell Cinema, at 2:30 p.m. Films by Lauren Koss (music by Samuel Pellman), Stephanie Maxwell (music by Allan Schindler), and Grady Klein (music by Paul Lansky) will be presented.

The event is supported by Cornell Cinema, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art and the College of Arts and Sciences. For more information, contact Loralyn Light at LL48@cornell.edu or 255-4760.