Team

Zack Settel:   Composer and Audio Experience Designer

Zack Settel started playing and writing music early on, studying classical piano and electronic music, and performing in rock and jazz groups. He received a BFA in Music Composition from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he studied composition with Mortons Subotnick and Feldman. In 1986, Settel went to work at the Institute for Research and the Coordination of Acoustics and Music (IRCAM), headed by Pierre Boulez, where he remained until 1995, composing and working in music production and research. From 1997-99 Settel was an assistant professor at McGill University where he chaired the Music Technology area. Focusing on immersive audio in 2004, Settel began a five-year research/creation collaboration with McGill’s Center for Intelligent Machines (CIM), during which he realized several creations, while co-directing advanced degree students. From 2003-2008, Settel founded and directed the immersive audio research group at the Societé des Arts Technologiques (La SAT), where he remains a resident artist and researcher in immersive audio and music. In addition to his research and creation activities, Settel teaches at the Arts and Science faculty at the University of Montreal (UdM), where he offers master-level courses in immersive audiovisual arts. 

Settel has composed chamber and studio works as well as music for film, video, television, theater, dance, and opera. His music also includes the use of live interactive electroacoustic technologies. Since 2008, Settel has used mixed-reality environments to create and present experiences in immersive audiovisual music. Settel’s music is published by Editions Ambrioso (Paris), recorded on the CENTAUR, ICMA, MIT Press, and Empreints Digitales labels, and is performed regularly in North/South America and in Europe and Asia. Settel has worked with various performing ensembles including the Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Montréal), Zeitgeist (Minneapolis), the California Ear Unit (Los Angeles), Chants Libres (Montréal), and Quasar Saxophone Ensemble (Montrèal). 

Osman Zeki:   Creative Technologist 

Osman is a multi-disciplinary creative technologist, programmer and interaction designer. Following studies in Humanities, Photography, Cinema and eventually Multimedia, he started his career as an interactive developer in the field of culture, video games and the web in Montreal, Canada. 

Osman works at the intersection of arts and technology and often collaborates with performance artists, composers, neuro-scientists, computer scientists, industrial designers, magicians and screenwriters among others. He also frequently works with organizations such as the National Film Board of Canada, the Society for Arts and Technology, Agora de la Danse and La Messe Basse. His work has been featured internationally in festivals such as TIFF, i4C Munich, MUTEK, Sundance, IDFA DocLab, VR Arles and ANNY “Best of Fest”. 

Having taken an interest in the current advances in Artificial Intelligence, Osman is looking to explore machine learning through the lenses of immersive media, installation work, performance arts, theater and storytelling in general. 

Peter Trosztmer:   Choreographer and Dancer

A creator who is invested in work that is sensitive, deeply researched and physically realized.  Many of his early and formative creations came about through his collaborations with dance artist Thea Patterson;  together they researched and brought to performance the greater part of his most notable works. Artists Jeremy Gordaneer, and Lois Brown were a part of his close creative team for many years as well.   Some of his most notable contemporary influences included Kate Ward, Audree Juteau and Sonya Stefan.   His work with local Dance Company Montreal Dance also played a great role in his development as an artist and performer.   This by no means is a list of companies and persons he has worked for, but homage to the delicate early years surviving dance.     Peter has had a fortunate and fantastic career having had the privilege meeting and sometimes even creating with too many great artists to mention here.  

Peter, born between the vietnam war, elvis presly, disco and a few years before the sex pistols.  He comes from an Eastern European family of hands on do-it-yourselfers.   This sensibility has infiltrated much of his works and continues to play a role in his methodologies.   His current research includes fascia - intercellular communication and the healing of transgenerational trauma through dance and movement.   As well his work with Zack Settel and Osman Zeki in remote experience through AR and VR.