A program of “wired” solo performances presented by IMMERSION MUSIC and the BOSTON CYBERARTS FESTIVAL

Audiences will have a unique opportunity to glimpse the future of live music performance when Immersion Music presents ”Solo Artists on the Edge: Immersion Music by Virtuosos” on Sunday, April 22, 2001, at the Somerville Theatre. The concert, a featured event of the Boston Cyberarts Festival, will showcase five extraordinary musicians who have extended their traditional art forms with new technologies. All are artists who have proven themselves in established disciplines and have enhanced what they do with new techniques using sensors, synthesizers, samplers, lighting effects, and video.

A highlight of the event will be the performance by celebrated concert violinist Joanna Kurkowicz, who will perform both music and lighting simultaneously with her Guarnerius violin. Joanna, who currently performs as concertmaster for several orchestras in Boston, has just released a solo CD, and has been exploring the possibilities of synthesizing both visuals and music with her instrument. Her lighting design has been crafted by Broadway lighting designer Herrick Goldman, and the technology to realize the live performance has been developed by Immersion Music.

The program will also feature the wizardry of Tomie Hahn, who will don a new wireless interactive dance system created by Curtis Bahn. The system, called SSpeaPer (the Sensor-Speaker-Performer), naturally locates and spatializes a world of electronic sounds to emanate from the speakers mounted on her body. As Tomie moves, her gestural information is sent by radio to an interactive computer music system. The sounds are then broadcast back to her body, creating a new sort of audio “alias” for her character; a sonic mask. For more information on this piece, please see: http://www.music.princeton.edu/~crb/Activities/SSpeaPer/pikapika.htm

The program will also present Curtis Bahn’s “r!g,” a unique gestural performance interface. Bahn has spent the past six years developing this custom sensor interface and eight channel sound system for his upright bass. His performance will be an exploration of the expressive resources available from the enormous number of materials available to him from his instrument and its many associated hardware and software extensions. Gerhard Pawlica, an award-winning cellist from Switzerland, will perform a duet with a beautiful, ethereal recorded sound world in Jan Swafford’s “Magus.” Teresa Marrin Nakra, the Founder and Artistic Director of Immersion Music and recent graduate of the MIT Media Lab, will present a performance of her newest work for the “Conductor’s Jacket,” which she will perform along with video accompaniment by artist Walter Wright.

At a Glance

Who: Electronic virtuosos performing “Immersion Music”

What: “Solo Artists on the Edge,” a glimpse of the future of live performance at the intersection of art and technology.

When: Sunday, April 22, 2001, at 8:00 p.m.

Where: Somerville Theater, Davis Square, Somerville

Info: Somerville Theater Box Office (617-625-5700), Ticketmaster (800-943-4327, ticketmaster.com), Immersion Music (617-686-4898, www.immersionmusic.org), Boston Cyberarts Festival (www.bostoncyberarts.org)

Immersion Music is a not-for-profit organization, founded in 2000, devoted to inventing the future of classical music. IM’s mission is to develop and present new musical performances that highlight a dynamic interaction between traditional forms and new technologies. For more information, visit www.immersionmusic.org

The 2001 Boston Cyberarts Festival will spotlight the creative interactions of the worlds of art and technology. The Festival will take place at museums, galleries, theaters, and other arts locations in and around the Boston area from April 21-May 6, 2001, and on the Festival’s website at www.bostoncyberarts.org.

Funding for this concert is provided in part by the Yamaha Corporation, the Integrated Electronic Arts program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

As the world becomes increasingly wired, so will our traditional forms of musical performance. This program brings together artists from pre-electronic disciplines working with sensors and new technologies to extend their art forms. We will present a range of styles and forms including the bebop-influenced Sensor Bass of Curtis Bahn, Teresa Marrin Nakra's "Conductor's Jacket," a cellist peforming a duet with his own ghostly incarnation in Jan Swafford's composition "Magus," violin virtuoso Joanna Kurkowicz triggering a dazzling light show accompanying her performance of a very demanding 20th-century composition, and dancer Tomie Hahn performing with Bahn's "SSpeaPer," a wireless interactive dance system that sonifies her movements. Sponsored by Immersion Music and presented by the Boston Cyberarts Festival, this event promises to deliver exciting, impassioned, edgy performances by artists who blend traditional arts and new media.

For more information, call Immersion Music at 617-686-4898.

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