CONCERT 1
October 16, 2025 | 7:00-8:20 PM
Live Performance
Performance Systems Collective
The Performance Systems Collective explores the integration of multimedia technology in collaborative music performance and interactive art. They create original works that position technology not only as a performance medium but also as a conceptual catalyst for system design as an art form. Drawing from systems theory and cybernetics, the collective aims to understand and advance the role of technology in co-creative practices. The Performance Systems Collective is Michelle Boisvert, Scarlett Jiang, Victor Kim, Ian Rhee, Day Rickett, Sasha Semina, Hyunkyung Shin, Naomi Wolfe, and Anıl Çamcı (faculty director).
Fixed Media
Enrico Dorigatti - Morphogenesis (2022) 7:07
Morphogenesis is an acousmatic composition named after the homonym biological process through which a complex living organism is shaped through the cooperative efforts of several simpler entities. Morphogenesis highlights simultaneously the macrostructure and the small, elementary sonic entities shaping it. The composition of the piece relied on an original library of field recordings; the sonic affordances of the sounds included guided the development of both the sound design and compositional processes and, consequently, the evolution of the piece itself.
Masafumi Oda - turbulence of time Ⅳ (2025) 6:29
Contemporary music has faced limitations in its parameters and a perceived rigidity, often leading to solutions involving external additions like visuals or interactivity. This project proposes an alternative: subtraction. By projecting concepts from other media into music itself, we can explore new artistic territories purely through sound, without visual or interactive crutches. Imagine music directly informed by information and computation.
While Masahiro Miwa’s “Reverse Simulation Music” hinted at this, my approach aims for broader application. I’ve created a Unity application treating diverse sound sources (traditional instruments, cello) as objects governed by algorithms like turbulence, gravity, simulated circuits, and generative architecture. Listeners experience these sounds moving through a 3D space according to these rules, yielding novel auditory landscapes. This is “subtraction of media” or “projection into music” – no visuals needed. However, fixed sources risk “Sourceism,” where a single musical series predetermines processes. Improvisation offers a solution: real-time cello input via a remote microphone feeds the algorithmic system, making output the process. This disrupts musical destiny. The key result is the observable circulation within the algorithm, a departure from Sourceism. This piece embodies both the practice and outcome of this subtractive philosophy.
Henrik von Coler – AUTOTUNE (2025) 5:27
AUTOTUNE is a serial studio improvisation for modular synthesizers and digital processing.
The composition is dedicated to the Linux Audio Developer community and was started during the Linux Audio Conference 2025 in Lyon/Villeurbanne with audio recordings from the event. It is realized completely with community-created, free, open source software. AUTOTUNE is based on two main layers: a layer of analog synths in the low and mid frequencies and a dense structure of heavily auto-tuned and ultra-stretched vocals in the high frequencies - created with the x42 LV2 plugin by Fons Adriaensen and Robin Gareus. The drone structure evolves over time, creating an interaction between these layers. AUTOTUNE is a kaleidoscope of spatiomorphology. There are no sound sources with an obvious localization, no objects, no panning. Instead, the perspective inside a dense spatial structure is constantly changing, shifting, evolving. There is no front, back, up, down - only an immersive spatial texture. To achieve this, the composition does not rely on typical Ambisonics encoders, but composes the space directly in the spherical harmonics domain. All channels of the 3rd order signal are generated through a structure of layers that inherently shift the phases of the harmonics.
Gabriel Vigliensoni & Antonia Hernández - Una Frontera Líquida (2024) 10:00
“Una Frontera Líquida” is a sonic exploration of drinking-water governance under the severe environmental conditions of Chile’s Petorca Valley. The piece foregrounds the friction between coexisting water-management models—urban and rural, private and community-run. Precarious to begin with, the balance between them is now in crisis due to a new legal framework that threatens the survival of community organizations, in a context where risk is both a threat and an investment opportunity. At the center of this drama is a redefinition of the financial boundary between the two models. In this crossing of waters, notions of value, temporalities, and scale are unsettled and diffract.
Elois & Renan Zelada - 14:13:12 (2025) 5:52
1 Corinthians 13:12 - "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."
Yuting Wu – Debris (2025) 6:37
Debris explores how small fragments of synthetic sound — often overlooked or discarded — can be transformed into immersive sonic environments. Crafted entirely from synthesized sounds, the piece builds an artificial sound world that suggests a synthetic ecosystem.
Peyman Salimi - Volt Era (2024) 5:00
Volt Era is a five-minute immersive composition in 5th-order Ambisonics exploring the tension between water and fire. The title references "Volterra," the ancient Tuscan town where opening water sounds were recorded, and "volt," suggesting electrical energy and combustion. The work develops as a dialogue between opposing forces: organic field recordings against synthetic textures, meditative stillness against chaotic intensity, acoustic elements against electronic processing.
Brian Belet - My Last Tape Piece (2023) 11:48
Like most composers from my now seasoned generation, my early work within electro-acoustic music was created in the classic analog tape studio, with the imposing modular analog synthesizer as the centerpiece and multiple reel-to-reel tape machines connected in support. This was the pre-real-time era of fixed media compositions that were designed to be performed in concert via tape playback in a darkened hall. This was the wonderful hands-on era of tape music, complete with grease pencils and single-sided razor blades. The primary sound sources for this work emanate from old analog tape machines, specifically the inherent sounds they make during routine operation (the old analog studio was a delightfully noisy place!): clicks from the primary Play/Record/Rewind control switches, machine hums, tape running through the capstan, and tape whirring and flapping at the end of the rewind/fast forward process. Additional source sounds come from some of my old analog synthesis compositions, including those that naturally degraded through years of less-than-ideal tape storage.
This musique concrète composition was constructed as a fond remembrance of my analog studio roots, treating the source sounds both seriously and playfully, starting with a careful plan and then letting the unexpected sound discoveries enter the fray, as that is how work in the analog studios often progressed. As most of the algorithms utilize stochastic processes, each live run through the program produces a unique sonic result on the micro level.
CONCERT 2
October 17, 2025 | 12:30-1:35 PM
Greg Dixon - Lake Wayfaring (Interlaced) (2023) 9:34
Lake Wayfaring (Interlaced) explores sound spatialization with ambisonic soundfield imaging techniques. Acoustic and electronic waves are woven together in time and space; sounds from distinct origins fuse, diverge, and swirl around an epicenter.
Bonnie Han Jones - a place where many people gather (2025) 5:31
Inspired by the performance tradition of Korean pansori and the sonic ritual practices of female Korean shamans (mudang), this polyvocal, multilayered electronic music piece considers the possibility of sonic interventions into and transformations of our collective, shared, and material spaces - both real and imagined. Source sounds from pansori master vocalist, Ahn Sook-Sun.
Eduardo Nespoli – Biofonia (2025) 9:28
Biofonia is an acousmatic composition that explores the sounds of the Cerrado biome, a natural environment that experiences numerous sonic interferences from human activities. The sounds recorded in this biome were used as the primary material for the composition. The work aims to construct an immersive sonic environment in which the acoustic characteristics of the Cerrado are both augmented and integrated with electroacoustic sonorities. The field recordings were analyzed, edited, organized, and combined based on criteria such as duration, timbre, and rhythm, with the assistance of AI algorithms. These audio groups were then digitally processed by applying effects such as speed manipulation, time-stretching, pitch-shifting, filters, and compressors. I also created sonorities and textures whose intention is to dialogue with the sonic characteristics of the original environment, using polyphonic and granular synthesizers. Ambisonic features were employed to evoke the organic and complex movements of the Cerrado's soundscape. Biofonia invites listeners to experience the Cerrado biome aurally, evoking its ecological condition in a world where climate change threatens life. As I delved deeper into field recording, it became evident that human-made sounds frequently overshadow the subtle sonic elements of the Cerrado. This human sonic interference can be seen as an aspect of what has been called the Anthropocene. In Biofonia, the sounds of insects, shrubs, creeks, birds, and wind rustling through leaves and branches populate the composition, yet human interference is always present. The first section of the composition builds toward a climax of sonic overlap, intensifying the listening experience resulting from multiple interferences. In the second section, the movement of leaves and branches takes the center, accompanied by the sound of human footsteps traversing the region. The intensified sound attacks and interruptions symbolize the abrupt human interference with the fragile biome. Water then emerges as a sign of life, grounding the listener in a state of bodily awareness. In the final section, the composition offers an immersive experience of the Cerrado soundscape by revealing the original aural dimensions captured in the field recordings. However, this immersion is not sustained indefinitely, as the Anthropocene condition does not cease. The reimagined listening experience of the Cerrado, as presented in the composition, once again exposes the conflicts and ambiguities that characterize our relationship with the natural soundscapes.
Stylianos Dimou - L'osmose (2019) 10:21
L’osmose is an acousmatic composition commissioned by the Ultima Oslo Contemporary Music Festival in 2019 and realized at Notam, Studio 3 in Oslo. Conceived for diffusion within a dome of 32 loudspeakers, the work employs synthesized and electroacoustic sounds to construct a virtual three-dimensional sonic environment. The piece unfolds as a living organism of sound, emerging from multiple spatial angles and immersing the listener in shifting perspectives. At its core, L’osmose explores a structural conception I describe as angular, phrasal displacement—where heterogeneous sonic fragments collide unpredictably, forming a collage that resists linear continuity. The composition thrives on displacements, juxtapositions, and the unorthodox osmosis of ideas, allowing form to remain fluid and constantly redefined. Through this process, the work seeks to transform the listening experience into an encounter with an unstable yet vividly animated sonic presence.
Varun Kishore – Kraken (2024) 3:15
'Kraken' is an exploration of thalassophobia-as-sublime. realized through recorded manipulations of unplugged electric guitar with modular synthesizer, glitchy polyrhythms, and musical gestures reminiscent of extreme metal music. Small gestures are stretched, expanded, and combined with oppressive low frequencies to convey the sense of depth, pressure, and darkness associated with the deep ocean.
Beste Öztürk & Eşref Berk Türkoğlu – Moldscape (2024) 7:59
This piece was designed and mixed in Ableton and Reaper, using SuperCollider-generated sounds, recorded soundscapes, and found sounds.
The composition explores the basic hurdles of life in the third world and the attempts to break this vicious cycle. Moldscape traces the slow processes of decay, dispersal, and reformation in sound. Layers drift and collide as space bends around them, at times thinning to a fragile haze, at others swelling into dense, enveloping masses. In 3rd order ambisonics, the listener is immersed in a shifting sonic terrain.
Frank Ekeberg – Hyperthermic (2019) 9:42
Hyperthermic is based on sound materials that in various ways are associated with global warming and extreme weather phenomena: wind, rain, storm, fire, flooding, heat, meltwater and deforestation. The harmonic material, and in part the formal structure of the work, is derived from the Earth’s resonance frequencies in the electromagnetic field that vary in response to global lightening activity, which in turn intensifies in response to global warming. The work is composed in the ambisonics format for performance on multi-channel loudspeaker systems. Hyperthermic was commissioned by Electric Audio Unit in Oslo, Norway with support from The Norwegian Composers’ Fund.
Luca Frigo - Cosa sogna l'acqua II (2019) 4:33
The piece “Cosa sogna l’acqua II” tells an imaginary journey to discover the natural environment of the Po River, the largest river in Italy, in the area of Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna. During the listening experience, natural sounds gradually emerge, and much of what seems electronic is actually a specific natural element. The main sounds of the piece are water, environments, and birds. The listening begins with artificial and electronic sounds and gradually moves toward the discovery of the many natural layers and details present. The aim is to provoke reflection on the rediscovery of nature and the protection of those elements which, if not already extinct, are hidden by human activities.
CONCERT 3
October 17, 2025 | 4:30-5:30 PM
Live Performances
Sasha Semina – Built on (2025) 7:00
Built on explores taking simple piano figures used for practice and transforming them into a meditative, choral piece. It has taken me 25 years to finally examine my musical practices and how they are manifested from my everyday life and experiences.
Alexandria Smith – all because we can (2025) 7:50
Data centers provide critical infrastructure needed to house servers, data storage drives, and network equipment that power the internet, process, and distribute data, and train, deploy, and deliver AI applications and services. While they provide these services to people throughout the world, they carry drastic and focused social and environmental consequences. These span from causing local power bills to become more expensive as they stress the electrical grid, cutting the water supply to local communities, taking up large amounts of land mass while providing few jobs or resources, such as food or other goods to communities, pollute air the air, and are known to bring emit a constant, audible low hum that disturbs local wildlife and people living close to them.
“all because we can” is a reflection on the rapid investment into and construction of data centers since the AI boom that began in the late 2010s. The piece features a steady counterpoint of data sonification that superimposes the number of data center facilities that have been active, under construction, and announced from 2000, projecting to 2048, alongside their total power capacity from those years.
The city I live in, Atlanta, and Georgia more broadly, are considered hot spots for AI data centers because companies can acquire land, water, and electricity at low costs. The people who profit from these data centers and/or access them to generate text, music, etc, are often far removed from the social and environmental costs that these technologies take. I often wonder if the environmental and social impact is worth having the convenience of LLM’s or other generative AI usages that require large models.
Fixed Media
Lloyd Vector – Talassophobia (2024) 8:20
The ocean is a beautiful miracle of nature. We've all enjoyed the beach in the summer, marveled at underwater movies and documentaries, or simply visited an aquarium. However, that is just the tip of the iceberg. While nearly a quarter of the ocean depths have been mapped using advanced sonar machines, humanity has only explored less than 5% of it (NOAA, 2025). In fact, the surface of Mars is better known than the ocean floor. At first, we think about ocean as something gorgeous and lovely, it is, but the deeper we delve into the depths of the blue mother, the more new species of flora, fauna and weird sunken structures are discovered. Some of them look familiar, but most do not. Many of them are unsettling and disturbing, especially considering how much we still have to discover. So, what else is down there? What's left to discover? Is the unknown sea safe? If not, will eventually come for us? We can't answer this questions yet, but one thing is certain:
In the end, we all fear the depths.
Stefano Catena - Travelling Without Moving (2023) 8:09
"Travelling Without Moving" is a journey in acousmatic composed spaces and environments, from granular rainy textures to sonic trajectories circling around the listener. The concepts of "journey" and "motion" are investigated musically: the experience "moves" between soundscapes, leading to always-changing sonic worlds, both from the spectral and spatial perspectives. The piece was inspired by natural soundscapes of Stockholm, where it was written, but it also influenced by the nostalgia of a distant home: this is where the mind travels, even though its not really moving.
Garrison Gerard - Alluvial Reverberations (2025) 9:59
In 1982, an earthen dam at Lawn Lake in Colorado started to lose its hold on the mass of water behind it. Soon a small hole became a rushing flood barreling down the side of the mountain, carrying trees and rocks from their home to a new resting place at the base of the valley. Today, you can still see the remnants of that flood as an alluvial fan of white silt that has been spread at the base of the river. Composed as part of the Rocky Mountain National Park Artist-in-Residence Program, Alluvial Reverberations uses recordings from within the river and within the ground at the Alluvial Fan and other waterfalls in the park, mixed with field recordings of the surrounding area to create tableaus that explore the lasting impact of human actions on the current soundscape of the park.
Seth Shafer - i crash u (2025) 3:20
wtf h4rd=m0de trending
not a sh3ll but f@st
tbh ruptur3d every_single pr0m1s3.pr0t0col
ch@nn3l // jammed
u probably
ghost-tr4ckin my sign4l
Jake Sandridge - FM Devotional (2024) 8:00
“FM Devotional” explores the topics of memory, distance, geography, and community. The foundation of this work is a series of ambisonic field recordings and altered versions of those recordings. The field recordings are presented in both minimally edited forms and in highly altered forms. A primary manipulation of the field recordings involves a technique where the original recordings are broadcast over FM radio and recorded through a radio receiver, thus introducing noise and distortion into the original recordings. Throughout the work, a sharp contrast is created by juxtaposing the distorted radio alterations with the original ambisonic recordings. The original recordings serve as documentation of places and times, and the recordings being processed through the radio parallels the haziness and imperfection of remembering those places and times. Another feature present throughout the work is the introduction of pitch into the presentation of the material. The presence of pitch highlights certain qualities of the recordings, extending or exaggerating parts of the sound, similar to the way certain aspects of a place and time are emphasized in our memories.
Kasey Pocius - Hollow Point (2024) 6:42
Hollow Point (2024) is a fixed media composition exploring layered resynthesis techniques. Field recordings of Sydney & Glace Bay (Nova Scotia) are split into individual layers using automated processes that aim to separate the original files into musically relevant parts. Each layer sounds “thin” or “hollow” due to the imprecise nature of these algorithms, with artifacts often remaining. However, when all layers are combined, these imperfections cancel out, recreating the original audio. By keeping the layers separated, they can be individually processed, resulting in new textures and spatial effects that are difficult to achieve with the source file alone. Exaggerating these artifacts can generate new musical motifs and materials. These layers also provide fresh input for musical agent software to rearrange, creating multichannel compositions that differ significantly from those based solely on the original recordings. The piece enhances micro gestures and inner structures, making them more detectable for machine listening systems.
