Virginia Tech hosts innovators in electroacoustic music conference this month
Art and technology will combine when researchers, composers, performers, and teachers from across the country visit Virginia Tech March 26-28 for a conference showcasing innovations and creative achievements in electroacoustic music.
Virginia Tech was selected as the location for the 2015 conference for the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS), “Emotion and Electroacoustic Music.” Presented by Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology and the School of Performing Arts, the conference features performances, sound installations, workshops, and paper sessions.
The campus provides unique infrastructure and facilities for the event, including the Moss Arts Center Cube, a four-story theatre and high-tech laboratory that serves multiple platforms of creative practice.
The Cube offers a 124.4 speaker multichannel environment suspended from four levels and a floor-standing 10-channel array of speakers. Conference participants have composed multichannel pieces specifically for the space, which supports spatialized audio, as well as traditional configurations of stereo, quadraphonic, and octophonic music.
The organization’s annual national conference is offered to encourage member interaction and provide ways to share and demonstrate recent work. This year’s conference at Virginia Tech features 14 concerts, including special sessions for digital ensembles and pieces created for young audiences.
Concerts will be performed in the Cube; the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre, located in the Moss Arts Center Street and Davis Performance Hall; and Theatre 101. The Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology’s Perform Studio, located within the Moss Arts Center, and the new Digital Interactive Sound and Media Studio in Newman Library will serve as listening rooms. Installation art will be on display in various locations in the Moss Arts Center and XYZ Gallery. Papers will be presented in Newman Library’s multipurpose room.
The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States is a non-profit national organization founded in 1984 for those involved in electroacoustic music. Members represent every part of the country and virtually every musical style. Electroacoustic music is dependent on electronic technology for its creation and performance.
The conference is organized by three Virginia Tech faculty members from the School of Performing Arts — Ivica Ico Bukvic, associate professor of composition and multimedia; Eric Lyon, associate professor of music technology and composition; and Charles Nichols, assistant professor of music technology and composition. The faculty members are also affiliated with the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology.
