Sonic Generator Presents “Music and Data” 

Tuesday, June 19, 2012 at the Academy of Medicine, 875 West Peachtree Street.
Concert begins at 8 p.m. Free admission.

free valet parking available: Simply enter the parking lot directly behind the Academy of Medicine, on 7th Street between Cypress St and West Peachtree St, to take advantage of free valet parking for this performance.

Georgia Tech’s contemporary chamber music ensemble-in-residence, Sonic Generator, features music by Jonathan Berger, Steve Reich, Charles Dodge, Visda Goudarzi, and Katharina Vogt in a free performance in partnership with the International Conference on Auditory Display. The concert showcases innovative contemporary music that transforms various types of data into musical form. 

The concert features guest composer Jonathan Berger, a professor at Stanford and a leading researcher on the intersections between data sonification and creative practice. His string quartet Doubles (2004), originally written for the St. Lawrence String Quartet, recalls songs of peace, freedom, and resistance and also draws inspiration from seventeenth-century ornamentation practices. Viola Elegy (1987), by computer music pioneer Charles Dodge, draws its musical content from fractal structures. Minimalist composer Steve Reich’s Piano Phase (1967), performed in this concert in a version for two marimbas, turns the concept of phasing — in which two musicians initially play in unison but drift further and further apart over time — into a gradual process that drives the entire piece. And Chirping Stars (2012) by Visda Goudarzi and Katharina Vogt, a finalist in the conference’s annual sonification competition, turns an analysis of the most popular musicians on Twitter into an electroacoustic reflection on social listening.

Sonic Generator, Georgia Tech’s contemporary chamber music ensemble-in-residence, explores the ways in which technology can transform how we create, perform and listen to music. The ensemble, comprised of some of the top classical musicians in Atlanta, works closely with Georgia Tech students and faculty in the School of Music and elsewhere on campus to present concerts that bring cutting-edge technologies to the world of contemporary classical music. Sonic Generator is sponsored by the GVU Center, the Center for Music Technology, the School of Music, and the College of Architecture. Sonic Generator’s season is also supported by the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.

The International Conference on Auditory Display is a forum for presenting research on the use of sound to display data, monitor systems, and provide enhanced user interfaces for computers and virtual reality systems. It is unique in its singular focus on auditory displays and the array of perception, technology, and application areas that this encompasses. This year’s meeting, hosted by Georgia Tech, marks the 20th anniversary of the conference.