New Frontiers in Music:
New Instruments

Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Settlement Music School, Field Auditorium
416 Queen St, South Philadelphia

Technology has become increasingly available to composers, gaining significance as a means for enhancing artistic expression through the exploration of electronic sound. On March 21, PMP convened composers, engineers, and performance artists Eric Singer, Laetitia Sonami, Dan Trueman, and Dan Overholt, each of whom build or perform with new instruments. The panelists have created original inventions, such as Sonami’s “lady’s glove,” a black Lycra evening glove “studded with a myriad of sensors,” or Singer’s TibetBot, as well as substantially modified traditional instruments, including Overholt’s Overtone Keyboard. They have also formed ensembles dedicated to technological performance, including Trueman’s electronic improvisation ensemble, “interface,” and the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk). In a roundtable discussion led by Singer, the group demonstrated some of their inventions and addressed their motivation and artistic goals – how does technology relate to traditional instruments and technique? What range of sonority and expression can electronics offer? How does it all work?

Laetitia Sonami is an electronic composer, performer and sound installation artist who explores ways to translate objects and movements into sound. She uses interactive media to translate gesture into an experimental aural narrative that explores the shifting evolution of perspective. Best known for her lady's glove, an evening black lycra glove studded with a myriad of sensors, she currently teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute and the Milton Avery graduate school of the Arts at Bard College.

Dan Overholt is a composer, performer, and instrument builder based at University of California, Santa Barbara's Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology. He designs electronic musical instruments and writes custom signal processing software for the real-time performance of his musical works. His work includes the development of novel interfaces for electronic music such as the MATRIX, the Overtone Keyboard, the Overtone Violin, the Graphonic Interface, and the Sonic Scanner.

Dan Trueman plays and composes for a variety of violins, including the 6-string electric violin, the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, and the Bowed-Sensor-Speaker-Array. His electronic improvisation ensemble “interface” has performed widely and recently released a DVD of improvisations and dance pieces with guest Pauline Oliveros. He teaches composition and electronic music at Princeton University with upcoming commissions for Zakir Hussain, So Percussion and the Princeton Laptop Orchestra.

Eric Singer is a musician, artist, engineer and programmer, and the founder and director of the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots and technical director of the Brooklyn arts collective The Madagascar Institute. He has 20 years of arts and multimedia programming, engineering and performance experience in the areas of interactive performance systems, integrated music and graphics systems, alternative controller design, networked multimedia environments, interface design, artificial intelligence and computer controlled pyrotechnics.