the conceptual music union CMU: Audio/Video Performance Group The CMU began performing for the public in the winter of 1992-1993, during which it sponsored a "winter series" of five performances for small audiences. The series culminated in a performance of Music for Improvised Danse, a multiple-media piece that incorporated dancers, vocalists, and electronic instrumentalists.

After numerous performances that year, including two performances in the Sacramento Experimental Music Series, the CMU sponsored a performance of two John Cage pieces, Imaginary Landscape #4 and Radio Music. Both compositions were performed by musicians using AM radios, and while Radio Music is largely improvisational, Imaginary Landscape#4 is an intricately scored piece calling for an "orchestra" of twelve radios manipulated by an equal number of musicians (the original score called for 24 musicians with two per radio, but the CMU used only one musician per radio).

From autumn 1994 to spring 1995, the CMU worked closely with the dance department at Mills College in Oakland California. A number of pieces were performed as dance, ranging from solos to full ensembles.

Summer 1995 saw the completion of the soundtrack to an experimental video project entitled February.

Up until this point, the CMU was staffed by almost entirely different personnel for each performance. The individual pieces dictated the number and type of musicians required. Late in 1995, CMU decided to operate as a three-piece ensemble, and began to focus on percussion and rhythmic studies. The three current members of CMU all have formal training of some sort in music theory and come from varying backgrounds: jazz and experimental music (and more conventional music forms too), technical engineering fields (audio and video), computer studies (internetworking, multi-media), and more. They have worked on projects varying from collegiate performance ensembles to composing music and sound effects for plays. CMU is currently focusing on composition study, audio sampling, instrument and noise-make fabrication, and the recording of a new audio release. Some CMU Performances of Note:

* Suite in Three Sections- 9.20.92 Five Etudes - 11.x.92 Music for Improvised Dance - 1.x.93 Elegy 64 - 2.x.93 Watt Avenue- x.x.93 cafe suite - x.x.93 the trouble with mathematics- x.x.94 One Less Still Life - x.x.94 extra hard - x.x.95 Not Found - x.x.95 hanging green disposable structure with allegory - x.x.95 recollecting past events of seminal importance (test version) with allusions to three situations, for soloist with devices - 8.15.95 Untitled - x.x.95 / x.x.95 Film Study-4.20.96