Talk/Performance Monday June 1 Algorithmic Music: interactive aesthetics and decisions Tom Bickley and Thea Farhadian

[bill]

Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Colloquium
and the CompCore BrownBag SeminarSeries
Monday June 1, 2009
at Noon in VBT 217

Algorithmic Music: interactive aesthetics and decisions

Tom Bickley and Thea Farhadian

Abstract

Composer/performers Tom Bickley and Thea Farhadian demonstrate and
discuss use of software tools to generate music, both in compositional
and improvisational contexts. Bickley will provide a brief overview of
automated and aleatoric processes in western art music and some of the
aesthetic issues that surface in that tradition. Together this duo
will perform excerpts from compositions/structured improvisations they
developed for recent performances in the Bay Area. Software used will
include Max/MSP and third party applications based on Max/MSP by
Karlheinz Essl and Leafcutter John (John Burton). Acoustic instruments
used will be recorder and violin.

Bios

Tom Bickley, a member of the CSUEB Library Faculty, serves as liaison
for music, computer science and philosophy. In addition to his
university work, he is active in experimental art music and early
music. He performs using recorder, electronics and voice. He holds a
B. Mus in music theory (Univ. of Houston), an MA in musicology
(American University), an M.Div. in liturgical studies (Wesley
Theological Seminary) and an MS in Library and Information Science
(Catholic University of America). He has created music for dance and
theater companies, choirs, and ensembles of early instruments. As a
recorder player he focuses on use of extended techniques. He has
performed with Pauline Oliveros, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, the Deep
Listening Genetic Orchestra, and is presently busy with Three Trapped
Tigers (a recorder duo with David Barnett), Gusty Winds May Exist
(with shakuhachi player Nancy Beckman), and as director of the
Cornelius Cardew Choir. He curates the series Meridian Music:
Composers in Performance and teaches for the Bay Area Center for
Waldorf Teacher Training. His work has been funded by Meet the
Composer, the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, the Meredith Foundation,
and the Deep Listening Institute. www.myspace.com/tbickley


Thea Farhadian is an interdisciplinary artist and performer based in
the Bay Area. Her work has been seen internationally at venues which
include the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco, the Center for
Experimental Art and the Aram Kachaturyan Museum in Yerevan, Armenia,
the Alternative Museum and Issue Project Room in New York City,
Raumschiff Zitrone in Berlin, and the International Women's
Electroacoustic Listening Room Project in Amsterdam and Los Angeles.
She studied Arabic classical music in New York City and in Cairo,
Egypt. She holds an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Arts from San Francisco
State and an M.F.A. in Electronic Music at Mills College. In 2002,
Thea co-founded the Armenian Film Festival in New York City and
currently is one of the curators for the film festival in San
Francisco. She is currently is a lecturer in the Art Department at the
University of California, Santa Cruz. www.theafarhadian.com/