Event
Sideband Lecture/Demo: “Why A Laptop Ensemble?”
March 27, 2023 (Monday) – 1:45 PM to 4:40 PM
Rose Recital Hall
Fisher-Bennett Hall, Room 419
3340 Walnut Street
Philadelphia PA, 19104
Sideband will give a tour of some of the group’s favorite tools and techniques in electronic ensemble music making. We’ll explore code and compositions for pieces by Anne Hege, Daniel Iglesia, Davis Polito, Jascha Narveson, Jeff Snyder, Lainie Fefferman, Seth Cluett, as well as discussing collaborative experiences with acoustic musicians in the past. Those in attendance will be invited to interact with code and controllers to give a sense of empowerment and possibility within the world of laptop music.
SIDEBAND
Using specially designed and custom-made hemispherical speakers and a fleet of laptops, Sideband turns each member of its ensemble into an island of sound, returning a sense of acoustics and space to electronic music. Sideband is an evolving project that inspires composers, performers and audience members to reevaluate the role of computers in music.
Sideband's parent ensemble, the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), was formed in 2005 by Dan Trueman and Perry Cook. Sideband was conceived out of a desire to explore the PLOrk model of music making in a more sustained fashion, outside the annually changing context of academic classes. Formed in 2008 to premiere a piece with the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, Sideband is currently made up of a group of long-term members whose skills range from orchestral percussion to installation art, research in machine-learning algorithms, traditional Norwegian folk music, solo performance, electroacoustic music, software design, and scored composition.
ABOUT
This course visit / lecture / demo is part of the course MUSC 3660 Performance, Analysis, History, and co-organized by Natacha Diels, Thomas Kraines, and Eugene Lew. It is free and open to the public with support from the Music Department and MUSICA PRACTICA / ELETTRONICA VIVA.