Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
RICHARD KESSLER: I'm Richard Kessler.
I'm the dean of Mannes College at the New School for Music.
And I am really thrilled to be here today.
We're all thrilled.
We have here some good friends and colleagues.
We have Kathy Supove on piano, one of our faculty members.
This is Cathy.
[APPLAUSE]
RICHARD KESSLER: And we have these wonderful colleagues and
friends and partners, Sideband here today as well.
[APPLAUSE]
RICHARD KESSLER: And we have a really
special program for you.
And I'm really excited to get to it.
Let me start with some introductions.
First, I'm going to tell you a little bit
about Mannes College.
We're a 100-year-old music conservatory that's part of
the New School.
Many of you know the New School as Parsons.
Or some of you know the New School as the New School for
Social Research.
We're the music conservatory at the New School.
And we have three different divisions.
We have a college division where we give out degrees, all
kinds of degrees, bachelors degrees, master's degrees,
diplomas, certificates.
We also have a preparatory division, where we have
students from the ages of 4 to 18 years old who invade the
school on Saturday and take over every single space you
could possibly imagine, making music in every possible way.
And we also have an extension division, which is for
continuing ed, where adults come and learn
and engage in music.
It's also a place where we provide all kinds of courses,
all kinds of classwork.
And there's all kinds of opportunities for partnership
in the extension division.
Let me read to you-- you'd think I
would know it by heart.
But actually it's fairly new.
And I have actually never read it to anyone before.
I'm going to read to you our mission, actually, at Mannes,
because I think it informs the day to day a little bit.
We're dedicated to stimulating, supporting, and
advancing the creative role of music in all aspects of a
rapidly changing society.
Mannes seeks to develop citizen artists who engage the
world around them in and through music in traditional,
emergent, and new forms of practice.
And another way of looking at it is we're reinventing a very
old traditional model.
And I mean old by something that's been practiced in
certain ways in classical music since
the 1400s or 1500s.
We're looking to reinvent ourselves through new music,
through technology, and a commitment to community.
And we have our partners here today to give you a glimpse
and a sense of the kinds of things we're embarking on.
Sideband is a tremendous model in terms of how you use
technology to make music and engage with people.
It's interesting in terms of its performance quality.
It's interesting in terms of its research.
And I think it's interesting in terms of it being a model
for engaging people in all sorts of new ways.
Now, before we go on with Sideband and Kathy Supove, let
me first say thanks to the Google organizers, Kate
Clugston and her team, Melissa Carroll, John Clemente and his
team, Lee Stimmel, and Phil Ames.
Thank you very much for making today possible.
[APPLAUSE]
RICHARD KESSLER: Now, I'd also like to say there's all sorts
of opportunities to partner with us, to engage with us in
what we're doing today.
We're looking for friends, we're looking for supporters,
we're looking for help.
And if you're interested in working with us, working with
Sideband, working with Kathy, please contact Kate Clugston.
She'd be the point person within Google to do that.
OK so now, it's nice to move on from hearing myself talk
and instead move right to the music.
So we're going to move to Sideband, and they have two
pieces that they're going to play for you back to back.
The first case they're going to play-- and after they
perform, they're going to introduce themselves a little
bit, give you history of the ensemble, background.
It's going to be a good presentation, but we're
starting with music.
So Sideband is going to do the first piece, which is called
"Balls," and it's by Konrad Kaczmarek, and the second
piece, which is called "In Line," and
it's by Jascha Narvesen.
And it's a 10 minute segment, and then we'll go to some
questions, but let's go right to Sideband.
Everyone, welcome Sideband.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[APPLAUSE]
DAN TRUEMAN: My name's Dan Trueman.
I am one of the founders of the Princeton Laptop
Orchestra, which we started in 2005.
I started it with Perry Cook, professor of
computer science there.
I'm a professor in the composition department, music
department.
And Sideband, these wonderful musicians here, this is the
professional outgrowth of the student group that is the
Princeton Laptop Orchestra.
And the aim of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, this was
back in 2005, we wanted to see, can we figure out how to
make music together with computers?
Up to that point, classes in electronic music were always
taught in a studio, and you work alone, and you make some
fixed product that you share with people, but the notion of
actually making music together and finding out what we can do
with computation in a music making contact really didn't
happen much at that time.
So that was the aim here, and that's what we're still
working on.
Two pieces there.
The first one, affectionately referred to as Konrad's Balls,
was done by Konrad Kaczmarek over there, you saw there.
[APPLAUSE]
And one of the fun things about that is exploring a
system that you can set things loose in and see how they
behave, and see what kind of sounds they make.
And then you saw at the end when they turned the screens
around, basically, the network is used to connect their
systems so that their animated balls can be passed from one
machine to the next and their sounds can be
collaboratively created.
And then that was followed directly by Jascha Narveson's
"In
Line." [APPLAUSE]
Lots of fun things to talk about there, but I think the
obvious thing was using these game controllers there to try
to get a more physical engagement with sound.
The first piece, we sit at the laptops and type away and so
on, and that's all fine and good, but it's also nice to
get up and actually be physically
involved with the sound.
And these little game controllers
here are about $15.
They were made for a golf game.
They come with little gloves that your attach
these strings to.
It's very, I guess, it's very last year, but you swing your
hands with the little plastic golf club, and then a little
avatar of your golf player shows up on the screen.
They're fantastic music controllers.
We had to go in and hack them a little bit to have them work
for us, but they've become pretty widely used in laptop
performance around the world, really.
What else should I say about that piece or the controllers,
other than that they're really cool, and I wish
they still made them?
The other thing maybe I'll comment on briefly are these
shiny little speakers.
And I think these are particularly relevant to the
kinds of things that Richard was talking about, thinking
about Mannes and a very old conservatory focused for a
long time on making music together in old fashioned
ways, something that I'm actually very drawn to.
And one of the aims of these speakers here is to actually,
in some way, enable us to try to make music together with
computers in a kind of old fashioned way.
Rather than having each laptop plugged into a mixer and all
the sound coming through speakers that are separated
from our bodies and really hard to associate with what
we're doing ourselves, these are meant to be near us as
performers, and also they're meant to fill rooms from the
inside out with sound rather than projected from the
outside in.
So these are one of the main characteristics of the
Princeton Laptop Orchestra and Sideband.
So is that a good enough summary here?
There will be questions later, of course, and also, if you
like, you can come try our very fancy software that we've
built here.
All this stuff, all these pieces,
we build them ourselves.
The software is all stuff that we make
ourselves for each piece.
And with that, I think I'll hand it over.
Kathy, are you next for doing your piece, or is
Richard going to--
[APPLAUSE]
RICHARD KESSLER: Thank you, Dan.
Thank you so much.
It's a really interesting thing when you think about
taking this new technology, new approaches, and bringing
it into a school that's primarily been working in
really old modalities.
What happens in terms of culture shock?
What happens in terms of people trying to wrap their
head around the technology, around the meaning in terms of
the practice?
How do you make music with new technologies?
Can you take the very old practice and basically wet it
and have it live inside something like this?
And that's ultimately what we're trying to do, based on
the model of Sideband and what Dan has been
explaining to you.
Anyway, my job for the moment is to introduce Kathy Supove.
Kathe is one of our favorite faculty members at Mannes.
She's someone who is expert at teaching adults, someone who's
expert at teaching kids, but I've known for many years as
one of the leading pianists in terms of new music, new
approaches.
She's a person that composers are drawn to when composers
think, who is willing to try something?
Who's willing to take a risk?
What pianist is interested in something new?
That's Kathy.
That's her reputation, that's what she's known
throughout the field.
She does it in an extraordinary way with a great
commitment, and she's one of the leaders in the
field of new music.
I'm really thrilled to be able to introduce her to you right
now, and she's going to tell you a little bit more about
the piece that she's going to perform with Sideband.
So everyone, please welcome Kathy Supove.
[APPLAUSE]
KATHY SUPOVE: I'm just going to make a few short remarks.
Thank you, Richard, very much.
I hope I can live up to that.
I am a classically trained pianist, but I ended up being
a pianist that promotes, premieres, commissions, and
records music by the Beethovens of today, like some
of the people you see here.
And it's kind of a saga how I ended up doing that.
I was dissatisfied with a lot of the things about being a
conventional pianist.
But one of the things that bothered me about it was it's
a little bit lonely being a pianist.
You're kind of in this practice room, and you're with
this one sound of the instrument, and it's a
fabulous instrument, unequalled in my opinion, but
you're kind of all by yourself.
And I always used to think, what would it be like to play
piano at the beach, or what would it be like to play piano
in a circus, or various settings and
that kind of thing.
And I think that has something to do with how I ended up
migrating toward creating works with composers or
collaborating with them and encouraging them to create
works for piano plus something else.
And today, I'm going to be doing a piece that's piano
plus an electronic soundtrack.
And one of things a soundtrack can do, I mean, it can
simulate a chamber music partner and do that kind of
thing, but the other thing it can do is create an
environment that you're playing in.
And so I can feel like I'm playing piano in some weird,
surreal, historic version of Bali or something like that.
Anyway, I've found it's just been really fulfilling.
The name of the piece I'm going to play is "What Remains
of a Rembrandt," and it's based on a pamphlet that the
playwright Jean Genet put out, and it has some kind of very
weird translation.
But basically, what it implies is what remains of a Rembrandt
if you took away all the associations that you
conventionally have with it?
And the composer, Randall Woolf--
by the way, full disclosure, he is my husband and he could
not be here today, unfortunately.
But what I think he had in mind was if you took away all
your conventional notions of the composer Claude Debussy,
what would you end up with?
And so he's answered that question.
And just to give away some secrets, some of the
ingredients that he's used in the soundtrack that I play
along with is a Debussy opera, some Vietnamese gongs, and
some kind of gunshot that he has played around with
electronically so you can't recognize it.
And he also managed to throw in my favorite
Debussy piano piece.
And I hope you enjoy it.
This is an excerpt.
It's not the whole piece.
The whole piece is too long for today, but I hope you'll
enjoy it very much.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[APPLAUSE]
KATHY SUPOVE: Thank you.
Somehow, I've been drafted to introduce this next piece, but
it's great because it gives me a chance to talk about
Sideband a little bit, and I first heard the Laptop
Orchestra from Princeton fairly soon after it was
founded, I think, in Carnegie Hall with the American
Composers Orchestra.
And I immediately thought that this was a group I wanted to
make music with.
So it's interesting Richard was talking to you about new
ways of making music, and to me, it just seems totally
natural for a pianist to want to play
with a laptop orchestra.
I mean, it's just totally natural.
Of course.
I mean, they're so at the forefront in terms of what
they're doing, but at the same time, but
very musical and appealing.
So it wasn't too long before I got in touch with Dan Trueman
and asked him about writing a piece for me.
And it took a few years to happen, but it did finally,
and it was great.
And a couple of surprises came along along the way.
Dan wrote a fabulous piece for me, which you should all hear.
It's coming out on recording eventually.
I'm sure you can ask Dan when it will be out.
But I got a couple of surprises in the
middle of the project.
One was that Michael Early wrote a piece for me and
Sideband also called "Victorian Webs," which we're
going to perform today for you.
And "Victorian Webs," it's kind of a tribute to the
beginning of Morse code, and you'll hear some music in it
that, I guess it is Morse code, and it
sounds like Morse code.
But at the same time, my part is the Victorian part, and so
this person is going into the new technology, but at the
same time has a nostalgia for the old, much the same way as
the computer age has come upon us and we have nostalgia for
things sometimes.
So we play different roles, and it's interesting because I
always hear their airport in my mind.
It goes around, it's kind of in my ear all the time, and I
notice them going around humming the
piano part that I play.
So we're kind of each other's ear worms.
And I also wanted to mention that Konrad Kaczmarek also let
me play his piece at one point, and he's a professional
level pianist himself, so I really appreciate that.
And we very much hope you enjoy this.
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
LAINIE FEFFERMAN: Thanks.
Hello.
Hi.
We are just going to introduce ourselves really quick so you
know who it is making these noises.
I'm Lainie Fefferman.
I am a composer.
[APPLAUSE]
I'm a composer.
I am about to finish, hopefully, my Ph.D. in
composition at Princeton.
Everyone on the stage is somehow
affiliated with Princeton.
I'm new to technology, but I've got to say Sideband is
making me fall in love with making music combined with
technology.
By day, I'm a math teacher.
I've been singing a lot, and I love Google.
I'm happy to be at Google.
Here's Caroline.
CAROLINE SHAW: Hi.
I'm Caroline Shaw.
I'm a violinist and singer and composer, and also at
Princeton, friends of Gabe Taubman and Jen
Chang who work here.
You guys are awesome.
Thanks.
ANNE HEGE: Hi.
I'm Ann Hege.
I'm also finishing up at Princeton with my degree in
composition, and I'm a singer, and I'm really interested in
movement and sound and that connection.
DAN IGLESIA: Hi.
I'm Dan Iglesia, composer, media artist, programmer,
co-leader of PLOrk for a few seasons,
and member of Sideband.
JASCHA NARVESON: Hi, I'm Jascha Narveson, former tabla
player, composition major, computer programmer,
electronic music type of person.
Also, I feel incumbent upon me to mention that Caroline Shaw
won the Pulitzer Prize in composition this year, so you
can just give her a hand.
[APPLAUSE]
KONRAD KACZMAREK: Hi.
I'm Konrad Kaczmarek, also a graduate composer at
Princeton, finishing up.
I wrote that first piece, the Balls piece, so if you're
interested in hearing more about that, please come up
afterwards, ask me.
Thanks.
JEFF SNYDER: Hi.
I'm Jeff Snyder.
I'm not playing on this piece, but I was on the first two.
I'm a research scholar at Princeton, and I'm a composer
and improviser, and also electrical engineer.
So I have a company building some instruments that, if
you've heard of the Snyderphonics
Manta, that's me.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[APPLAUSE]
RICHARD KESSLER: Excellent.
Thank you, Sideband, and Kathy.
Wonderful piece.
I love that piece.
We have about two minutes left in the formal program.
Those who want to stay afterwards, you can come up.
You can talk to the band members.
You can talk to anyone.
They have offered for you if you want to take
a look at the equipment.
I think we have time probably for one question.
I also want to remind you if you want to get involved,
there's a lot of opportunities to get involved with the band,
with Mannes.
There's all sorts of things we're doing.
We're creating community choruses.
We have courses that we offer.
We could be teaching courses here, too, if you like.
But anyway, context Kate Clugston if
you want to get involved.
So we have time for one question, and then afterwards,
certainly, please come up and ask whatever
questions you like.
Time for one question?
AUDIENCE: Earlier, you played with that controller, game
controller, with strings attached.
So Microsoft Xbox has this motion controller where you
use a video camera to see how your body moves.
So have you think about tying that together with the music,
the pianos?
DAN IGLESIA: We as an ensemble have not tried it.
I personally have developed for Kinect, making instruments
that use Kinect to detect objects, detect people.
There are certainly pros and cons with it.
I, for example, love the Kinect because lighting
doesn't matter, just physicality and space matters.
Somebody may write a piece for us that uses Kinect.
It's certainly a possibility in the future.
We definitely like these in terms of being physically
connected, these are extremely robust.
There's not a lot of jitter as there is in
some IR camera systems.
But yeah, we're certainly open to all manner of bizarre
hardware configurations.
AUDIENCE: Great, thanks.
RICHARD KESSLER: All right, we're at
the end of our program.
Let's have another round of applause for
Sideband, Kathy Supove.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
[APPLAUSE]