[oct 13 1992]

Center for Contemporary Music Concert

For more information phone: 510-430-2296 (concert line) or 510-430-2191 (CCM)

New electroacoustic music created at the Center for Contemporary Music (CCM) at Mills College will be presented at the Mills College Concert Hall on Tuesday, October 13 starting at 8 PM. The concert will feature a variety of approaches to the electroacoustic medium, from music created entirely in the studio to performer-interactive pieces, and from algorithmically composed works for traditional instruments to spontaneously generated computer network music. The concert is presented in conjunction with the 1992 International Computer Music Conference held during this week at San Jose State University.

The concert will include Shofar by Alvin Curran, currently Darius Milhaud Professor of Composition at Mills, in which the composer controls a computer music system with sounds from an ancient Jewish instrument made from a ram's horn.

CCM Co-Director Maggi Payne will present Resonant Places , a new work for tape made from natural sounds recorded in various resonant spaces found on location in the Bay Area.

Chris Brown, also a Co-Director at the CCM, will offer Quartet With Shadows, a piece written for and performed by the Rova Saxophone Quartet, in interaction with four computer-controlled electronic voices whose sound is derived from the live saxophone sound using a device known as a "harmonizer".

CCM composer John Bischoff will perform a new collaborative work with composer Ed Osborn called Most Beautiful Bridge (moveable span), in which Bischoff's computer invents a variety of electronic responses to Osborn's performance on a slide guitar.

Berkeley electronic instrument inventor Don Buchla will perform on his creations "Thunder" and "Lightning" along with percussionist William Winant in composer Wendy Reid's Tree PIece #17 , "a musical process that reflects the interconnection of things (including ourselves) in nature".

Composer Larry Polansky, currently a faculty member at Dartmouth University who taught at Mills during the eighties, will return with a computer generated work for electric guitar, bass, and drums called 51 Melodies.

Finally, three composers who have contributed to innovative technical developments at the CCM during the last ten years, Phil Burk, Steven Curtin, and Jeanne Parsons will perform Feedbacc, which involves the playback and modification of digital samples that circulate continuously in a ring network of computers controlled by the composers.

The Center for Contemporary Music (CCM) has, for almost 30 years, been at the forefront of developments emphasizing experimental methods in contemporary music and its allied arts and sciences. Founded in 1961 when it was known as the San Francisco Tape Music Center, it moved to Mills in 1966, when it was known as the Mills Tape Music Center. Since its inception it has achieved a strong international reputation as one of the leading centers for innovation in music.

Mills College is located at 5000 MacArthur Blvd. in Oakland at the junction of Highways 13 and 580. Tickets are $10 general/$5 students/seniors/disabled available at the door. There is plenty of free parking on the campus, and Mills is served by the 57 bus line. For more information phone 510-430-2296.