Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts
February 17-22,
2009
For one week each year, the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts gathers creators and performers of new media arts from around the world to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul (USA) to showcase their work to the public. Peter Shea took this opportunity to interview scholars and performers associated with the cutting-edge world of electronic music, art, and dance, including Joel Ryan, Megan England, Douglas Ewart, Caly McMorrow, Terry Pender, Xenia Pestova and Erika Donald, and Cathy Van Eck.
Video podcast (35.8 MB) or audio file (.mp3 - 14.9 MB).
Spawned in the first generation of computer music hackers in San Francisco’s silicon valley, Joel Ryan is a composer who has long championed the idea of performance-based electronic music. Drawing on his scientific background, he pioneered the application of digital signal processing to acoustic instruments. At STEIM in Amsterdam since 1984, he has collaborated extensively with artists and musicians including Evan Parker, William Forsyth, George Lewis, Steina Vasulka and Jerry Hunt. Formerly a Research Associate in physics at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories of the University of California, he has taught philosophy, physics, and mathematics. He is a researcher at STEIM in Amsterdam, tours with the Frankfurt Ballet and is Docent in Sonology at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.
Video podcast (128.6 MB) or audio file (.mp3 - 53.6 MB).
Megan England Ward is a first year graduate student pursuing a Ph.D in Composition & Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia. She enjoys exploring the boundaries between acoustic instruments and electronic components, actively pursues collaborations with other artistic disciplines, and is interested in all forms of live performance. She is a former member of the new media collective Mobile Performance Group and is currently developing a new mobile system for guerrilla street performances.
Video podcast (90.1 MB) or audio file (.mp3 - 37.1 MB).
The kaleidoscopic talent of Douglas Ewart has expressed itself in so many forms--instruments that double as sculptures, music that combines the traditions of four continents with fresh inventions, masks and costumes fit for rituals ominous or joyous, death-defying improvisations combining master musicianship and acting-that the whole might be mistaken for the work of a small culture rather than one man.
Video podcast (92.1 MB) or audio file (.mp3 - 40 MB).
Caly McMorrow is a composer and performer of electronic music living in St. Paul, Minnesota. She blends a background in classical piano and saxophone with live loops, 8 bit glitch and circuit bending. She performs both as a solo act and as half of IDM duo Low Orbit. Her debut solo release all of this is temporary was released in November, 2008.
Video podcast (121.2 MB) or audio file (.mp3 - 53 MB).
Terry Pender is the Technical Director of the Columbia University Computer Music Center and an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Music Depatrtment. He studied composition with Darrell Handel and Allen Sapp and computer music with Brad Garton.
Video podcast (128.1 MB) or audio file (.mp3 - 53.4 MB).
Xenia Pestova and Erika Donald are part of the Digital Orchestra Project. Xenia Pestova is a pianist with a special interest in presenting contemporary works alongside traditional repertoire. She is a Doctoral Candidate in piano performance at the McGill University Schulich School of Music in Montreal. She is also a Performance Research Assistant in the CIRMMT McGill Digital Orchestra Project, and holds a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Erika is an avid performer and music educator. She was a Performance Research Assistant in the CIRMMT/McGill Digital Orchestra Project and was recently awarded a Canada Graduate Fellowship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and a Student Award from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT).
Video podcast (123.2 MB) or audio file (.mp3 - 53.2 MB).
Cathy Van Eck studied composition and electronic music with Diderik Wagenaar, Gilius van Bergeijk and Martijn Padding at the conservatory in The Hague. She continued her studies in Berlin with Walter Zimmermann, Wolfgang Heiniger and Daniel Ott. As a composer she cooperated with Wouter Snoei, the Asko ensemble, Teresa Rotemberg, Matthias Rebstock, Carter Williams, and Anne Faulborn. She is doing a doctoral degree at the Orpheusinstitute in Gent, her dissertation subject is Loudspeakers and Microphones as Musical Instruments.