Georgia Tech’s chamber music ensemble in residence, Sonic Generator, presents their second concert of the season at the Georgia Tech Alumni House at 190 North Avenue on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 8 p.m.  The concert, which is free and open to the public, features compositions by Marc Mellits, Terry Riley, John Cage, Randall Woolf, and Panayiotis Kokoras.  

Sonic Generator's second concert of the season features music from Marc Mellits’ album Paranoid Cheese (2007).  Mr. Mellits, who will be joining the ensemble on keyboards, can trace his compositional style back to the music of the early minimalists. Terry Riley’s hypnotic  Dorian Reeds (1966) – a seminal minimalist work for soprano sax and digital delays – is the product of the composer’s experiments with tape delay.  The ensemble will also put its own spin on John Cage’s Four2 (1990), a minimalist choral work as rooted in Brian Eno’s ambient textures as in avant-garde experimentalism. Sonic Generator’s arrangement features software developed at Georgia Tech’s Center for Music Technology; musicians use iPhones to perform the work, taking advantage of the device’s accelerometers for fluid timbral control of each electronic voice.

Randall Woolf’s Holding Fast (2007) portrays Tibetan refugees grappling with the complexities of modern life.  It features a solo violin with pre-recorded electronics and with video by filmmakers Mary Harron (American Psycho) and John C. Walsh.  The concert also includes music by the young Greek composer Panayiotis Kokoras.  His Morphalaxis (2008), for flute, hand-drum, cello, and electronics, explores complex behaviors of instrumental sounds deployed to lead the listener and the performer beyond the actual sound itself.

Sonic Generator, Georgia Tech’s chamber music ensemble in residence, explores the ways in which technology can transform how we create, perform, and listen to music. The ensemble, comprised of five of the top classical musicians in Atlanta, works closely with Georgia Tech faculty and students to present concerts that bring cutting-edge technologies to the world of contemporary classical music.

Sonic Generator is sponsored by the GVU Center, an interdisciplinary research center which focuses on unlocking human potential through technical innovation in computing technologies. The concert series is organized by the Music Department in the College of Architecture and the Center for Music Technology, which use new technologies to change the way people compose, listen to, and perform music.