Zachary Lieberman – Drawn (2005)
“Drawn” is a concert-performance in which live painting is radically augmented in real time, creating a fictional world in which painted forms appear to come to life, rising themselves off the page and interacting with the outside world. The performance explores the musicality and immediacy of drawing by turning simple brushstrokes into complex and energetic life forms.
Ahmi Wolf – The Light Bead Curtain (2005)
“The Light Bead Curtain” is an interactive musical installation that can be freely played by person’s touch. The installation takes the form of a beaded curtain, consisting of strings of simple clear beads that lights and emit a unique sound when touched.
Steve Bull: Cellphonia – In The News (2005)
“In The News” is a locative-based opera cued and performed on the cell phone. Users are summoned by a flashmob message. The server queries their cell phones to determine each person’s capability to allow everyone to participate. A sophisticated and interactive score generates cues and musical interludes from RSS newsfeeds that lead each singer through the piece.
Olen Hsu – Open Currents (2005)
“Open Currents” presents the World Ocean Database — a vast compilation of the oceanographic data for the Earth’s global circulation system recorded between 1800 and 2001 — as the numerical bases for a multi-channel sound and sculptural installation.
Eric Singer – TrombOrgan, HydroBot, Gam-e-tron (2005)
“TrombOrgan”, a wind instrument with both fixed-length and sliding, variable-length pipes; “HydroBot,” which takes advantage of the rich sonic qualities of metal combined with water; and “Gam-e-tron”, a robotic gamelan are three new robotic musical instrument and instrument groups created for LEMUR (League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots) offering new creative opportunities and experiences for performers, composers and audiences.
Jon Gibson / Miriam Seidel / Terry O’Reilly – Violet Fire (2005)
“Violet Fire”, mutimedia opera about pioneering inventor Nikola Telsa, combines music with a constant flow of multiple projections, dance and theatre. The opera brings to life Telsa’s extravagant imagination by pioneering minimalist composer Jon Gibson, a senior member of the Philip Glass Ensemble, to a libretto by writer and critic Miriam Seidel. Media elements designed by Sarah Drury and Jen Simmons, include voice-activated video projections that allow viewers to follow an emotional arc with Telsa, revisiting his greatest breakthoughts, confronting some of the darker implications of his work, and returning to his childhood wonder at the miracle of electricity.
Morton Subotnick / George Lewis – Music for Robots (2005)
LEMUR commissioned new work by composers Morton Subotnick and George Lewis for “Music for Robots”, an evening-length program of world premieres of contemporary music for robotic instruments. Subotnick is a pioneer in the development of electronic music and an innovator in interactive computer music systems. Lewis is an improviser-trombonist, composer and computer/installation artist who has explored electronic and computer music, computer-based multimedia installations, text-sound works, and notated forms. LEMUR’s growing ensemble includes: “GuiterBot”, comprised of four independently controlled strings units which can rapidly pick and slide; “ModBots”, miniature modular percussion robots that vary from singing bell bots to percussive “beater” bots; “TibetBot”, a robotically-controlled percussive instrument that created atonal rhythms and droning soundscapes; and “TrombOrgan”, a wind instrument with both fixed-length and robotically-controlled sliding, variable-length pipes.