This post is long overdue, but better late than never! For the last 18 months or so, I've been working closely with Dustin Hurt, Liz Huston, and a great group of Philly musicians to launch a new ensemble dedicated to presenting experimental and "contemporary classical" music in Philadelphia.

The Arcana New Music Ensemble officially launched in June 2016 with concerts of Moondog and Morton Feldman. We are just wrapping up our first full season, which featured the music of Galina Ustvolskaya, John Cage, Julius Eastman, Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, George Lewis, and many more, plus collaborations with local groups Prometheus Chamber Orchestra and Variant Six.

Part of the concept behind Arcana is that the musicians themselves are involved in the planning and programming of concerts, in particular through a series called "Begin Anywhere," which is organized entirely by musicians.

For more background, check out this article from last year, which gives a good introduction and includes video clips from the Moondog concert.

Thanks to everyone who came out for my four-part lecture/workshop series "Humanophone" at thefidget space in Philadelphia. Here's a brief description of the event:

HUMANOPHONE: Toward an Algorithmic Music for Humans

“I like two things, clarity and complexity, which are almost mutually exclusive.” – Christian Wolff

How can we formulate clear, elegantly stated rules that both constrain performance and allow for surprises and meaningful contingencies of form? How can we create musical frameworks that are robust and flexible with regard to the number of performers, instruments, levels of skill, and venue? How can principles such as iteration and feedback enable simple musical interactions to generate complex results?

In this series of events, we will explore the possibility of algorithmic, emergent, rule-based, and generative forms of music performable by human beings. The goal is to work toward an idiom in which the sophistication of certain post-1950 practices is fused with the social and collaborative aspects of vernacular music-making. Although we will consider such relevant historical and theoretical phenomena as cybernetics, cellular automata, change-ringing, and the American experimental music tradition, the focus will be on making music, with an eye to laying the foundation for an enduring performance collective.

Each session will consist of a mix of discussion and workshop performances of model compositions and new works contributed by group members. Participants are encouraged (but not required) to take part in both components.

I'm thrilled to be part of a new project that centers on the problem of building a Philadelphia-based new music ensemble. After a group of us had a number of minimally productive brainstorming sessions, we decided that the best way forward was to JFDI and start planning some concerts. The result is "Begin Anywhere: A Concert Series About Starting New Things," which combines great music and casual conversations with people who have started things of their own. The first event was on April 11; three more are slated for May 3, May 15, and June 5. 

Renowned historian of experimental music and sound art Douglas Kahn visited Philadelphia last weekend and took part in an event celebrating his new book Earth Sound Earth Signal at <fidget> in Kensington. 

Doug has been a long-distance friend and mentor for many years now, and it was a pleasure to help organize this event and give a short talk introducing him and his work. 

There was also a panel discussion with myself, Kahn, <fidget> co-director Peter Price, and University of Pennsylvania historian of science John Tresch. Adam Vidiksis (percussion and laptop) and Joo Won Park (no-input mixer) provided musical entertainment.

More information: http://www.thefidget.org/events/book-launch/#prettyPhoto

Join me on Friday, March 15 2013, as I host a screening of experimental animated films from the height of the space age. The centerpiece will be the hour-long surreal sci-fi film Chronopolis (1982), by Piotr Kamler. The event is part of Bowerbird's monthly GATE series at the Rotunda in West Philadelphia. More information here: http://www.bowerbird.org/newsite/events/130315/

This Monday, March 11, I will be briefly emerging from my dissertation completion hibernation to take part in a wonderful event marking the 100th anniversary of Luigi Russolo's "Art of Noises" manifesto at <thefidget> in Philadelphia. I will give a short talk on noise in Western music before 1900. More information here: http://www.thefidget.org/upcoming/index.html

I will be hosting a rare public presentation of Bernard Parmegiani's 1975 electronic music masterpiece De natura sonorum this Friday at the Rotunda in West Philadelphia. I'm very excited to introduce this stunning piece of work to a wider audience. Please see the Facebook event page for more information: http://www.facebook.com/events/351166751617355/