It’s good to be back after a long 6 month hiatus, but KLANG will be back up and running with regular posts, interviews and reviews from here on out. For this week’s post I would like to do a quick recap of the 2015 SEAMUS conference which was held March 26-28, 2015.
SEAMUS was hosted by Virginia Tech this year, and I have to say that Charles Nichols, Eric Lyon and Ivica Bukvic did a fantastic job with the conference! There was a HUGE amount of music presented from a wide variety of composers. For me, the most exciting part of the festival were the concerts that took place in the Cube performance space - a black box theater with 124 speakers surrounding the audience. It was a real pleasure to have my piece (Wind Chimes Clatter through the Mist and Fog) presented in that space, even if I was not able to take advantage of the entire sound system. There was also a wonderful performance by L2Ork in the Cube and a plethora of pieces utilizing new technologies and controllers for producing and manipulating audio (here's a video of Chi Wang's Magic Fingers for Leap Motion controller). What I also took away from this year’s conference was the sheer volume of music presented. Each day there were 2 concerts in the Cube, 2 concerts in the Fife theater, multiple installations in various rooms, multiple listening rooms and a late-night concert Thursday-Saturday in Theater 101 (a performance space in downtown Blacksburg) in addition to the panel discussions and presentations. It’s always difficult to see/hear everything offered at SEAMUS, but this year was particularly challenging in that regard, but it was a very rewarding experience to have so much incredible music and art to engage with in such a short amount of time. In addition, SEAMUS coincided with a local Blacksburg music festival called Rock the Blocks, in which local bars and venues are packed with blues, rock, reggae and folk music. So, after each day of getting saturated with electroacoustic music we could all unwind at a local watering hole with some of the music Blacksburg had to offer. Again, it was a really wonderful experience. Something I’ve always found to be bittersweet about music conferences is that it is impossible to experience everything. Even still, you can only retain a fraction of what you do experience, but such is the human memory. With that in mind, there were some really fantastic performances and pieces presented. The following is my own list of what really stood out to me at the conference. Link to some recordings are provided: Jason Charney: Foreign Masonry for bari sax and live electronics (performed here by Justin Massey, performed at the conference by Matt Younglove) Jeffrey Stolet - Imagined Destinies for wired book (performance here) Elainie Lillios - The Rush of the Brook Stills the Mind for multi-percussion and live electronics (performed by Scott Deal) John Nichols III - Nothing That Breathes acousmatic music (excerpts here) Benjamin Broening - Twilight Shift for flute and electronics (audio here) Chet Udell - Jornetta Stream acousmatic music (listen here) Paul Botelho - rising for voice and fixed electronics (recording here) There were so many fantastic performances and presentation at SEAMUS this year, and this list was just some of what really stood out to me. It really a great conference start to finish and I would like to extend a congratulations to everyone who helped make it happen and to all of the composers and performers who presented works, papers and panel discussions. I will always remember SEAMUS 2015 as one of the most memorable conferences I have attended to date. Here are some pictures from the conference (courtesy of the SEAMUS 2015 facebook page)
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