Biologically modeled granular synthesis organisms. This is a stereo reduction test run of the intended 8 channel installation.

Charivari Test Run (stereo reduction)

This was a project commissioned by Nicholas DeMaison, director of the Rensselaer Orchestra at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, as a joint performance between the Rensselaer Orchestra and the RPI Contemporary Music Ensemble. The project was to generate a live electronic system to complement the orchestra's performance of Pauline Oliveros' piece, Four Meditations for Orchestra: Movement III - Interdependence.

The electronics generated consisted of a generative node-based markov chain delay line which complemented the rhythmic dynamism and complexity of Oliveros' piece.

The patch can be downloaded at http://github.com/kmichaelfox/nodaldelay

Rensselaer Orchestra - Four Meditations for Orchestra: III - Interdependence (with Electronics)

The term accretion refers to the formation of a “thing” by means of some attraction, perhaps gravitational as in the case of the formation of celestial bodies like planets, stars, and nebulae. The formation of celestial bodies works as a sufficient metaphor for the kinds of interactions the composer is seeking in electronic music techniques such as granular synthesis. With granular synthesis, sounds that are near imperceptibly short can be overlapped in very high densities to allow sonic textures to emerge. The orchestra, on the other hand produces events and textures on much different time scales, and it presents different intuitive or idiomatic forms of blending different entities and events into perceptual masses. The piece Accretion is a translation of electronic idioms into the context of the acoustic orchestra. Sonic events cluster and cascade into, onto, over and under the others as they form dynamic textural forms over the duration of the piece. To facilitate the intricate and delicate timing of such events, the work uses an animated notation that generates notation in real-time and is conveyed to the performers via monitors.