10 November 1994
Concert Hall
School of Music and Dance
San Jose State University
San Jose, California

Journal SEAMUS, Vol. 10, No. 2, November 1995, pp. 10 - 11.

On 10 November 1994 the Electro-Acoustic and Composition Areas within the School of Music at San Jose State University presented a concert of electro-acoustic music by composers of the Americas to jointly celebrate Amercian Music Week (with "America" expanded to include all of the Americas), the tenth anniversary of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States [SEAMUS], and the continuing role of the International Computer Music Association [ICMA] in promoting computer music.

The concert contained both wide diversity and marked unity. The participating composers represented the three countries on the North American continent and each composition was quite unique in terms of concept, use of computer technology, and resultant sounds. Yet, each composition showed a clear identification with our relative time and place; the composers are all living and are aware of and promoting their respective context of time and place. With the exception of Jeff Stolet, the composers were present for the concert, which added an extra element of physical reality and conceptual integrity -- certainly for the audience and also for the involved composers and performers. Allen Strange, San Jose State University [SJSU] faculty composer, Director of the CREAM Studios [Center for Research in Electro-Acoustic Music], and President of ICMA, is to be applauded for producing this concert (with the assistance of SJSU faculty composer Pablo Furman).

En Servicio Domicilio, by Mexican composer Roberto Morales was marked by an intense performance by SJSU student John David Thompson, and the piano music remained prominent in the aural foreground throughout this work. The synthesizer dialog layer entered gradually, subtly, almost imperceptibly, at first almost as a distant timbral extension of the piano in a superb gesture of understatement (an all too rare occurrence in computer music). The piano music consisted of notes (by default) even when it cascaded into a roaring sound mass. The synthesizer music consisted of sounds, distant timbral sparkles and extended comments on the piano contours. Throughout the dialog the piano remained a piano, and the synthesizer remained a synthesizer, as there was no attempt for one aural world to sound like the other; rather, each sound source remained idiomatic and therefore quite honest. This is an algorithmic composition with finesse; the process, while evident, remained secondary in performance consideration to the resultant music, and the result was a synergetic whole.

Canadian composer Bruce Pennycook's composition Praescio I , for saxophone and MIDI processing, showed its naivete as an attempt to integrate live performance with electronics, perhaps because this is the composer's first work in this series of compositions by this macro title, and perhaps because of its date in the mid-1980s. In this performance, SJSU faculty saxophonist William Trimble was excellent; in fact, the saxophone line was strong enough and interesting enough to exist as a solo. In contrast, the live MIDI processing of the saxophone music sounded more of an addendum than an integral part of the composition, and the use of factory MIDI timbres and busy "notes" weakened the sound.

George W. Logemann's SETI consisted of a literal mapping of the perceived stellar catalog via celestial coordinates directly to sound and visual images. This process is an intriguing concept, and one that could be pursued with several layers of complexity. With this composition the specific sound and visual realizations were a bit naive, using factory Roland patches and black and white x,y radial images. Both media mapped a third dimension of perceived luminosity to intensity; again, this is perhaps a too obvious correlation. Still, I found the premise very interesting and one with great potential for further experimentation and realization.

Espresso Machine II , by Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, featured Chris Chafe's customary excellent performance on celletto in conjunction with radio drum. I carry a prejudice against the use of the latter device, a simple MIDI controller, as an on stage performance instrument. I think it looks ridiculous, and so it seriously detracts from the performance event and from the contemplation of the music. This problem can be easily solved by placing the radio drum and operator off stage with the other concert electronic gear and technicians.

I imagine hearing this work again with this revised stage scenario (I listened to the tape of the performance visualizing only the cellettist on stage while preparing these comments) and the work as a whole remained intact with no loss of any real visual theatrical performance content. After all, the music should remain the point of audience interest, and any extraneous aspects should be removed.

Jim McManus' Snap Out of It is a very short, intense work with very interesting timbres and gestures from both the electric bass and the tape, premiered on this concert by SJSU faculty composer/bassist Brian Belet (for whom the work was composed). Due to its brevity, every gesture was important, and there was no time to not pay attention to every detail. The MIDI-generated tape did not sound like a typical "MIDI realization", rather, the sounds sounded like "sounds". The electronic studio tools remained invisible, and the resultant sound remained in the foreground. The composition created a unified whole, with several inner relationships that invite additional listenings.

[BASS]ically Harmless, by Brian Belet, utlizes the same instrumentation as the McManus composition, and was premiered on this concert by Jim McManus, faculty composer/bassist at Ohlone College in Fremont, California (this work was composed for McManus). While slightly longer than McManus' composition, this still short composition emphasized the duality of independence and dependence between the two music environments. Both music layers were shaped by the same set of temporal proportions which are aurally articulated by changing character styles, and within each section the two musics proceed with only minimal concern for each other.

In the midst of a concert of rather serious musics, SJSU faculty composer Dan Wyman's Persistence of Memories was refreshingly fun and funny. A true 'happening' event, the cello (always a serious and sensuous instrument) coexisted with the irreverent performance artist (whose constant interruptions of the sound field with children's toys and toy player piano never concerned the cellist). As a performance event, the actual staging could have used more attention, as there is always a fine line between art and silliness in these juxtapositions. For example, if the intent was to juxtapose two different existences, then the cellist could have been dressed more formally while the performance artist remained very casual; and all of the performance artist's on-stage actions could have been carefully orchestrated. In this context, the performance is the composition, and so nothing can be left unconsidered.

Jeff Stolet's Machine Torque Sliced concluded the program. Notes, notes, glorious notes! The unattended Disklavier immediately created an homage to Conlon Nancarrow, and the sight of a grand piano performing (with keys and pedals mechanically operating) sans performer and without even the visual image of a passing piano roll was both disquieting and very exciting. The first part of this composition especially, with its rapid multi-octave passages that defy any relationship to human performance potential, was intriguing, physically exhausting, and artistically strong. The super- or extra-human aspects of the sound mass were wonderful, and I was sorry to hear it eventually decay into a less dense and slower section that could have been otherwise performed by a human. For this brief departure it lost its extra special appeal for me, even though the music structure and content remained intact. The expected return to the fast, dense music was perhaps a too obvious use of A B A' structure; I would have preferred an uninterrupted dense A construction during which I would have constantly wondered if it would ever change! In all, this remained an exciting and ingenious composition.

This concert was one in the nationwide series of concerts produced to celebrate the tenth anniversary of SEAMUS. It clearly demonstrated that electro-acoustic music, in all of its varied manifestations of intent, production, and performance medium, is vibrantly alive and thriving as SEAMUS enters its second decade.