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    81/80

    The Microtonal Radio

    All microtonal, 24-7-365!
    Celebrating a variety of styles all which share a love of Microtonality

    Click to listen to 81/80 Click to listen



     

    Welcome to 81/80 the Microtonal Radio Homepage

    Hosted by Jarod DCamp

    NEWS:  It will actually take me longer to update the site than I originally thought... Sorry...  Let's aim for the beginning of next year instead.

    This is the Microtonal Radio Homepage.  The actual radio station site can be accessed througout this site, anywhere you see the link "81/80". 

    Composers, tell your friends and fellow composers about this station!  We are looking for current microtonal music of every type, every submitted work will be considered for radio time and I plan on updating the playlist at least once a week.   Also if you know of a composer not featured on the station that should be, just give me a hollar and I will attempt to put them on,

    Teachers, tell your students about this station, this can be a very valuable listening source for anyone interested in microtonal music, especially students.  Also, Students may submit works for radio play as it is important to give the composers of tomorrow, the opportunity for exposure and constructive critique.

    Please feel free to use the message board, to give another composer a compliment or to critique a student piece, or simply to discuss Microtonal music and its endless possibilities.  (Someday I will add a message board, I promise...)

    Now take the opportunity to get to know our microtonal artists-  (Special thanks to Larry Polansky and Frog Peak Music for their generosity)

    Composers featured on the 81/80
     
    We feature great composers of the past, present and future from Charles Ives, all the way up to current students.  Browse each composer's website for further info- 
     
    PLEASE BE PATIENT.  There are a lot of composers on the radio right now, not listed here! I think this site will always be UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!
     

    Jim Altieri

    jim altieri listening to a crackling volcanic rock

    Website-  www.tweeg.net

    Biography-  Jim Altieri loves listening. Through his compositions, improvisations, and software, he tries to share this love with other listeners. Based in New York City, Jim is an active composer and improvising violinist. His own music often uses the harmonies and rhythms of the harmonic series and explores the relationship between attention and awareness. 

    Jim's band, Glissando bin Laden and his Musichideen combines just intonation, polyrhythmic patterns, Hindustani and Scandanavian music in a pungent blend of synthesized, live-processed, and fiddled sound. He also regularly performs with artpopsongwriter Corey Dargel. 

    During the summers, Jim teaches computer musicianship, acoustics, and composition at the Walden School, a program for middle school and high school aged composers. 

    Jim has returned to his homestate of New York after several years of living and composing all over the country (and globe): 

    In Fairbanks, Alaska, Jim worked for a year and a half with composer John Luther Adams on two major installations, The Place Where You Go to Listen, and Veils and Vesper. You can read more about these (and other) collaborative projects on the projects page. 

    In Thailand, Jim travelled, learned the language, tried to learn a bit about the traditional musics, and ate a lot of really strange food. 

    In Portland, Oregon, Jim was extremely active in the free music community. He co-founded the 411 collective, which maintained a community center and performance venue for local and visiting improvisors. He played violin and computer with David Rafn, Joel Taylor, and the D. Yellow Swans. He played amplified bicycle with the Portland Bicycle Ensemble. He played violin, computer, and sometimes even danced with Linda Austin at Performance Works NorthWest. At the end of his time in Portland, Jim toured the west coast from Bellingham to Valencia with saxophonist and circuit-bender Bryan Eubanks and percussionist Leif Sundstrom. 

    Jim got his degrees in music technology, composition, and geology from Oberlin Conservatory and College. There he studied composition with John Luther Adams, Pauline Oliveros, and Tom Lopez. While living in Oberlin, Jim was a founding member of two musical groups: les moutons, with Corey Dargel, Yvan Greenberg, kt shorb, and Bill Stevens, and the laptop quartet geek doubt, with Peter Blasser, Joshua McFadden, and Mike Rosenthal. Also while at Oberlin, his piece for solo pianist and vocalist, thirty-two feet per second per second was selected for recording and inclusion on Aural Capacity, a conservatory-produced CD of student works, and he released tweeg:phonic, a recording of a solo computer improvisation. 

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    Christopher Bailey

    Website- http://music.columbia.edu/~chris

    Biography- Born outside of Philadelphia, PA, Christopher Bailey turned to music composition in his late 'teens, and to electroacoustic composition during his studies at the Eastman School of Music, and later at Columbia University. Recent performances of his music occurred in Taiwan, Germany, Montreal, New York, Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, Houston, Minneapolis, and in Seoul, Korea, where he was a 2nd-Prize recipient in the International Composers Competition. Other awards include prizes from BMI and ASCAP, and the Bearns Prize. For more information, mp3's, software, and fun, informative and interactive paraphernalia, see http://music.columbia.edu/~chris.

    Also check out http://music.columbia.edu/~chris/sand.html to experience Sand (Just Intonation, 19-tet, and musique concrete)

     

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    Jacob Barton

     

    Fun with Xenharmonicity

     

     

    Website-  http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=145852

     

     

    Biography-  Jacob Barton (b. 1985) pursues an amateur virtuosity in composing and in performing, in music and in language. Jacob graduated from a fancy university and even received a fancy microtonal composing award. He currently attempts to create a legitimacy outside the reward-oriented hierarchy, at the School for Designing a Society (Urbana, Illinois). Jacob wants to start a musical instrument cooperative library and create paradigm-busting musical interfaces, currently manifesting these hopes in the Seventeen Tone Piano Project and the udderbot, a new slide woodwind instrument.

     

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    Dennis Bathory-Kitsz

    Dennis Bathory-Kitsz

    Websitehttp://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/

    BiographyDennis Bathory-Kitsz is a composer, author, editor, teacher, and technologist. He is engaged in the advancement of arts and technology from both a humanist and experimental perspective. Dennis is available for commissions, writing, editing, presentations, seminars, and website evaluation. His current presentations include contemporary music and website design for accessibility.

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    David Beardsley

    Website-  http://biink.com

    Biography-  A long time resident of New Jersey, David Beardsley is one of the New York area's foremost microtonal guitarists. Meditative and mesmerizing, his playing is steeped in Indian music and blues as much as it is the late 20th century minimalist tradition. Playing microtonal Just Intonation guitar and steel guitar, David creates droning ambient soundscapes.

    He started piano at seven, guitar as a teenager and started composing seriously in his thirties. Along the way, he developed a strong interest in the tuning system known as just intonation - tuning by whole number ratios from the naturally occurring harmonic series. David has studied North Indian Classical Music with La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela and Michael Harrison. He has also attended workshops with Dean Drummond (co-leader of Newband, director of the Harry Partch Instrumentarium) and David Hykes (Harmonic Chant aka overtone singing).

    Performances include the American Festival of Microtonal Music, Chashama, Judson Memorial Church, the Knitting Factory, Microfest (a Southern California Festival of Microtonal Music), the Music Annex at the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Tibet House, the Trenton Avant Garde Festival and the World Out of Tune Festival.

    Recent collaborations have involved dancer Claire Barratt of Cilla_Vee Movement Projects, cellist Loren Dempster, violinist Christina Fong, and dancer Jeremy Wade.

    His string quartet "as beautiful as a crescent of a new moon on a cloudless spring evening" was released as an audio only DVD, For Feldman (OgreOgress) July 2006 as part of a tribute to 20th century composer Morton Feldman.

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    James Bergin

    Website-  http://bostonmicrotonalsociety.org/

    James Bergin is a composer, conductor and violist. He began studying harmony with Joseph Maneri at the New England Conservatory in 1971. After leaving NEC to pursue music study on a private basis, he continued to work with Maneri for more than a decade, studying harmony, species counterpoint, fugue and composition, using Arnold Schoenberg's pedagogical texts. In 1991 he returned to NEC to complete a degree in music theory with Maneri as his principal teacher. He concentrated on the study of microtones, began composing in 72-note equal temperament, and studied theory, orchestration and ethnomusicology with Daniel Pinkham, Robert Cogan, Lee Hyla and Robert Labaree.

    He taught music theory at the NEC preparatory department and was one of the founding faculty members at the Rivers Music School, where he taught solf violin and viola. He continues to teach harmony and counterpoint using the Schoenberg approach and texts, and his students have been accepted into music programs at the New England Conservatory, Boston University, the Hartt School of Music and others.

    His compositions include tonal and microtonal works for solo instruments, voice and chamber ensemble, chorus, piano and organ. He orchestrated and assisted with the composition of the music for the Merchant/Ivory film "Jane Austen in Manhattan." Seufzer , for solo flute, and Kyrie, for baritone, viola and cello were performed on the debut NotaRiotous concert in November of 2006. His fugue for voices, "Surely, He Hath Borne Our Griefs" was performed in March of 2007 by the Cantilena Chamber Choir at their Berkshire Composers Concert in Williamstown, MA.

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    Marcus Alessi Bittencourt

    Website-  http://music.columbia.edu/~alessi/index.html

    Biography-  Marcus Bittencourt is a Brazilian composer and pianist. He studied music with composers such as Willy Corrꡠde Oliveira and Tristan Murail, and he is best described as an Experimental musician, for he is a practitioner of a type of music which lives outside known traditions. This type of music springs from his understanding of Composition as an almost archetypical concept, a principle quite akin to the ideas of Musique Concr?ܠand the theories of Pierre Schaeffer. 

    Because of this, his music is marked by an extremely varied pallete of musical sound materials and techniques, which reflect his intense investigation in the domains of form, polyrhythm and simultaneities, timbre, sound spatial perspective, microtonality, and orchestration of sound objects. Prolific both as an instrumental and an electroacoustic composer, his list of compositions includes works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, choir, solo instruments (specially the piano), operas, as well as several electroacoustic works. 

    Marcus Bittencourt has been performing widely as a pianist, conductor, and sound-projectionist, often taking those tasks simultaneously, as in the case of his several piano performances with live electronics. His music has been played throughout the United States, Europe, and Brazil, and it is available through the Electric Music Collective label: www.emcollective.org

    Among the awards he has received are the first prize at the Projeto Nascente V (1996), a seven year scholarship at Columbia University, and a residency at the Centro Studi Ligure of the Bogliasco Foundation in Genoa, Italy. 

    His academic credentials include a Baccalaureate in Piano Performance from the Universidade de S㯠Paulo, Brazil, and Master's and Doctoral degrees in Music Composition from Columbia University in the City of New York. He has taught Music at Columbia University and at Lehman College of CUNY, the College of William and Mary in Virginia, and he currently teaches Composition, Theory, and Computer Music at the Universidade Estadual de MaringᠨBrazil). 

    Since 2000, he runs his own highly experimental studio for Musique Concrete, the Zool��o.

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    Easley Blackwood

    Biography-  American Midwest-born composer Easley Blackwood achieved international attention through his work in microtonality, but sustained his reputation through two periods of more conservative composition. His experiments in use of a 19-note, evenly tempered scale remain significant, even after his settling on a musical language that pre-dates the twentieth century. His four decades at the University of Chicago afforded him a base from which he was able to refine his structural ideas and train another generation of American composers. Blackwood also achieved acclaim as a pianist in both his own works and those of his contemporaries. 

    Blackwood benefited from an especially rich period of training, beginning with studies under Olivier Messiaen, continuing with Paul Hindemith at Yale University where he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees, and, finally, as a Fulbright student from 1954 to 1957 with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Well before he had completed his studies, Blackwood was experimenting with radical tonalities, arousing "consternation" among his instructors, as the composer recalled in 1993. Shortly after 1950, he turned to a more conservative trend, one lasting a decade, influenced by his work with Boulanger and the creative atmosphere in Paris of that time. His Symphony No. 1 was completed in December 1955, a time during which Blackwood was, in addition to being an advanced student, a performing pianist, accompanying numerous singers on European tours. The 1960s and 1970s brought a shift to, as the composer himself put it, "a more radical modernism." After 1980, however, his musical language evolved to a more conservative, "even reactionary," style. In the 1990s, Blackwood explained that he then felt comfortable in a broad variety of styles, while doubting that his further evolution would be any more consistent than it had been in the past. 

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    Donald Bousted

    Website-  http://www.donaldbousted.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

    Biography-  Donald Bousted is a composer, sound and installation artist, film maker and guitarist. His most recent work focuses on combining elements of all these interests. Typically, the work completed in the last 2-3 years has sought to integrate elements of film, performance and live art plus multi-sourced (up to eight-part) electro-acoustic elements transmitted from varied 'qualities' of source (from 'high' quality PA to 'low' quality exciter-speakers). A number of works, including the installation with Gary O'Connor broader than broadway and the mixed media pieces in your dreams; touch and the black hole utilise innovative, ?home-made? speakers made by attaching exciters to musical instruments, glass, floorboards and walls. This tranch of work has been sponsored by the pioneering British company NXT. The work touch (2005) specifically uses these different sources to give an expanded sense of virtuosity by attaching exciters to live instruments. Our perception of virtuosity is challenged as we hear sounds sourced on those instruments reintegrated within live-performed sounds.

    Donald is a director and founder of Microtonal Projects Ltd, artistic director of UK MicroFest and curator of the mixed media platform Wild Dog Inc.. He in an occasional performer of his own work for quarter-tone guitar.

    His music/sound art has been performed throughout the UK, in America, Germany, Switzerland, France, Czechoslovakia and Croatia and broadcast in the UK, America, the Netherlands, Sweden and France. His films have been screened in London, USA, Chile, Palestine and Russia and have been webcast and broadcast on HypTV (Sky TV). 

    Donald's music for recorder is published by Moeck Verlag in Germany, Orpheus Music in Australia and Questions de Temp?nts in France. 

    CD recordings include: A Journey Among Travellers (Kathryn Bennetts and Peter Bowman); A Woldgate Requiem (Kevin Bowyer); Tears (Tubalate Rhythm-Spring (Summerhayes and Brown) and the electro-acoustic piece Never Liked Water. His widely-screened 1 minute film The Birds is available on a limited edition DVD published by Host Artist's Group. A major, retrospective double CD/DVD of his work will be released in the Autumn 2007 called 'The End of the Beginning'.

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    Chris Bryan

    Website-  http://cmbryan.com/

    Biography- 

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    Warren Burt

    Website-  http://www.warrenburt.com/

    Biography-  Warren Burt attended the State University of New York, Albany (BA, 1971) and the University of California, San Diego (MA, 1975) before moving to Australia in 1975. In Australia he has worked in academia (La Trobe University, NSW Conservatorium, Victorian College of the Arts, Australian National University), education, and radio (freelance and commissioned productions for ABC and PBAA), and as a composer, film maker, video artist, and community arts organizer. His works have been performed and shown in the USA, Australia, Europe and Japan and he has had grants from the Australia Council, the Victorian Ministry for the Arts and the McKnight Foundation (USA), and has been artist in residence with a number of organizations, such as the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization, the Los Angeles based art- science think-tank International Synergy, the Broadcast Music Department of ABC Radio, the Monash University Music Department, the RMIT Department of Fine Arts, and the American Composers Forum. His work with electronic and computer music is recognized internationally, including 1989 performances at Ars Electronica, Linz; and Steirischer Herbst, Graz; and 1994-95 performances and installations in New Zealand, Australia, the USA, and Germany. His book, "Writings from a Scarlet Aardvark, 15 Articles on Music and Art, 1981-93," was published in 1993 by Frog Peak Music, USA. He contributed an extended essay of commentary to a second book, "Critical Vices: The Myths of Post-Modern Theory", principal author, Nicholas Zurbrugg, which was published in 1999 by Gordon and Breach, New York. Recent CD releases of his work include "39 Dissonant Etudes" (Tall Poppies, Sydney, 1996), and "Recitative-Tracing: On Guns and Cock-Fighting" (on "Winded", Innova, St. Paul, 1998). His electronic composition "La Strega Bianca della Luna II" was selected for inclusion in the 1999 Sonic Circuits International Electronic Music Festival. In 1998 he was an artist-in-residence at the Djerassi Artists Program, California, and he was awarded a 1998-2000 Australia Council Composer's Fellowship. Currently, he is a freelance composer, and has recently founded the Centre for Studies in Experimental Music and Performance, a non-academic institution organizing classes, lectures and performances.

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    The Catler Brothers
    Jonathan Kane, Brad Catler, Jon Catler

    Website-  http://microtones.com/

    Biography-  Jon Catler has been an advocate of microtonal music since the early '80s. Unlike his main influences Harry Partch and LaMonte Young, he applied the principles of the Just Intonation system to rock and jazz music, becoming a rare example of a microtonal axe player. Apart from performing and recording, he also cofounded the American Festival of Microtonal Music and the World Out of Tune Festival, established a microtonal music record label (FreeNote Music), and designed microtonal frets for electric guitars and basses. 

    Jon Catler first learned to play guitar the conventional way. He grew up listening to Albert King, Jeff Beck, and Jimi Hendrix (but also ear-opening jazz saxophonists John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman), mastering the instrument's basics and playing in various groups with his brother Brad Catler, a bassist and percussionist. In 1978, Catler's curiosity about microtonal music was ignited when he read an article about Ivor Darreg. He contacted him and the guitarist located for him a 31-tone guitar available for sale. From this point onward, Catler never went back to the 12-tone equal tempered system. 

    Catler worked his way gradually through increasingly higher divisions of the octave and now alternates between a 31-tone equal tempered guitar, a 62-tone Just Intonation guitar, and a fretless neck. As he learned to master his custom-made instruments, he applied the new sounds in his jazz-rock outfits the Microtones and Just Intonation. All the while he established a lasting musical relationship with seminal minimalist music figure LaMonte Young, playing on LaMonte Young and the Forever Bad Blues Band and touring Europe and the U.S. with the group.  

    Throughout the '80s and '90s, Catler's activities have been divided between jazz-rock and contemporary music. He has appeared in many jazz festivals, including the Montreal Jazz Festival. His power trio Catler Bros. released Crash Landing in 1996 on his own record label established for the occasion, attracting some attention from the rock guitar press. Swallow, a rock band, began its activities in 2001. 

    On the other hand, he has performed the music of Charles Ives and Harry Partch, has recorded a set of art songs with soprano Meredith Borden (Birdhouse), has helped found and organize the American Festival of Microtonal Music since the mid-'80s and, with Young's cosponsorship premiered in 2001 the World Out of Tune Festival in New York City. His ambitious work Evolution for Electric Guitar and Orchestra, also released on FreeNote, headlined the event. His book The Nature of Music, a direct reference to Partch's landmark Genesis of a Music, summarizes his approach to what he calls "Nature's harmonic tuning system." ~ Fran⿳ Couture, All Music Guide

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    Ivor Darreg

    Ivor Darreg

    Biography-  Ivor Darreg was born Kenneth Vincent Gerard O'Hara in Portland Oregon. His father John was editor of a weekly Catholic newspaper and his mother was an artist. Ivor dropped out of school as a teenager because he had a series of illnesses that left him without teeth and with very little energy. He did have energy to learn. He was self-taught in at least ten languages that he read and spoke. He had a basic understanding of all the sciences. His real love was music and electronics. Because of his choice of music, his father cast him out and he and his mother set out on their own with little help from anyone. At that point he took on the name "Ivor," which means "man with bow" (from his cello-playing talents) and "Drareg" (the retrograde inversion of "Gerard"), soon changed to Darreg. 

    Ivor's life with his mother was a huge struggle, and Ivor's health was poor until his mother died in 1972. Part of the reason was that they lived on canned soup, and the salt kept his blood pressure sky-high. Being poor in health and wealth, Ivor became resourceful. He picked up stray wires that were cut off telephone poles and other things on the street and from friends. He said he learned to "pinch a penny so hard, it would say ouch." Ivor created his first instrument, the Electronic Keyboard Oboe, in 1937. Following the current history of electronics and reading from the journals of the day, he learned circuitry. He made the instrument, which still runs today, because the orchestra he was playing in needed an oboe and Ivor took the challenge. The Electronic Keyboard Oboe is not only one of the first synthesizers, but a microtonal one at that. It plays the regular twelve tones, but there are eight buttons that move the tone in gradation from a few cents for a tremolo effect to a full quarter-tone. 

    In the forties, Ivor built the Amplified Cello, Amplified Clavichord and the Electric Keyboard Drum. The Amplified Clavichord no longer exists, but the Electric Keyboard Drum, which uses the buzzer-like relays, and the Amplified Cello are still working. 

    In the sixties Ivor created an organ with elastic tuning. The circuitry would justify thirds and fifths. In the early sixties, Ivor met Ervin Wilson and Harry Partch. Upon conversing with Wilson and seeing his refretted guitars and metal tubulongs (3/4" electric conduit), Ivor took the plunge into non-quartertone microtonality or Xenharmony. He began refretting guitars and making tubulongs and metallophones in 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24, 31 and 34 tone equal temperaments. He shared his new beginning with others through his Xenharmonic Bulletin and other writings. The Xenharmonic Alliance [a network of people interested in alternative tuning systems] was created. When we met Ivor in 1977, through John Chalmers, I saw a need to give Ivor and others a more public forum, so I started the journal Interval/Journal of Music Research and Development. Then in 1981, Johnny Reinhard created the American Microtonal Festival in New York, and in 1984 the 1/1 just intonation group started in San Francisco. Recently the South East Just Intonation Center has been created by Denny Genovese. 

    In the seventies, Ivor created his Megalyra family of instruments, the Megalyra itself being the tour de force of Ivor instrumental creations (featured in EMI Vol. II #2). This six to eight foot long contrabass slide guitar is strung on both sides to solo (I-I-V-I) and bass (I-V-I) configurations. This instrument sounds like tuned thunder and is waiting for some heavy metal or slide guitar pro to make it a celebrity. Other instruments in the Megalyra family are the Drone, Kosmolyra, and the Hobnailed Newel Post, which is a 6" by 6" beam strung with over seventy strings. Ivor called this instrument his harmonic laboratory. 

    Those of you who knew Ivor or read his writings knew that he had a special outlook on music, and a comprehensive mind that explored many subjects. His compositions, of which all are either on tape or written down, date from 1935. Many of his piano compositions are available on cassette, played by Ivor. Detwelvulate! contains a selection of his tapes Beyond the Xenharmonic Frontier, Vols. 1, 2 and 3 as well as earlier acoustic recordings Ivor made on his reel-to-reel machine (see the end of this article for more information). 

    Elizabeth and I brought Ivor to San Diego in 1985, and he seemed to get younger every year. He was in the best health of his life for those years. We were very happy to be there to share time with this great man and friend, and see him spend the most productive and stable years of his life here in San Diego. 

    We miss you Ivor.  (Bio by Jonathan Glasier)

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    Jarod DCamp

    Website-  www.live365/stations/jarod_dcamp; www.microtonal-radio.com

    Biography-  Jarod DCamp is a composer of mostly electro acoustic, microtonal music.  Mr. DCamp studied composition with Henry Gwiazda and Cynthia Miller and is leading the Microntonal charge in the great plains of Fargo-Moorhead.   It is his goal to create a place for exposure for all microtonal musicians, and hopes that this radio station can broaden the microtonal community.  He has already told his friends about the station, hopefully you will too!

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    Arnold Dreyblatt

    Website-  http://www.dreyblatt.net/

    Biography-  Born 1953 in New York City, studied Composition and Ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University (1988-82) and New Media and Electronic Arts the Center for Media Study, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1974-76. Composition studies with Alvin Lucier and La Monte Young; Video Art with Woody & Steina Vasulka. 

    Selected Installations and Performances since 1975:  Jewish Museum Frankfurt (2005); Academie der Kunste Berlin, Stadtgalerie Saarbucken(2003); Bienale Bern, Jewish Museum New York (2001); Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, (1999-2000); Gallery Anselm Dreher Berlin (2000, 2001, 2003); Felix Meritis Foundation / Erasmus Foundation Amsterdam (1998); National Gallery Prague (1996); Jewish Museum Vienna, Istanbul Festival, Arken Museum of Modern Art Copenhagen (1996); Marstall Munich, Kampnagel Fabrik Hamburg (1995). 

    Selected Grants and Prizes:  Prize Visual Arts, Akademie der Kunste, Berlin (2000); Foundation for Contemporary Performance Art, New York City (1998); Kulturfonds e.V., Berlin (1996); Bild-Kunst e.V., Bonn (1995); Kunstfonds e.V., Bonn (1994); Philip Morris Kunst-Preis (1992) Munchen. 

    Selected Teaching Experience:  Guest Lecturer, Dept. of Cultural Studies, University of Luneburg (2002-2004); Guest Professor, Academy of Art, Saarbrucken (2001-2003); Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (2000)Guest Lecturer, Academy of Art Berlin-Weiensee (1998-1999)

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    Kyle Gann

    Website- http://www.kylegann.com/

    Biography-  Kyle Gann, born 1955 in Dallas, Texas, is a composer and was new-music critic for the Village Voice from 1986 to 2005. Since 1997 he has taught music history and theory at Bard College. He is the author of The Music of Conlon Nancarrow (Cambridge University Press, 1995), American Music in the 20th Century (Schirmer Books, 1997), and Music Downtown: Writings from the Village Voice (University of California Press, 2006).

    Gann studied composition with Ben Johnston, Morton Feldman, and Peter Gena, and his music is often microtonal, using up to 37 pitches per octave. His rhythmic language, based on differing successive and simultaneous tempos, was developed from his study of Hopi, Zuni, and Pueblo Indian musics. His music has been performed on the New Music America, Bang on a Can, and Spoleto festivals. His major works include Sunken City, a piano concerto commissioned by the Orkest de Volharding in Amsterdam; Transcendental Sonnets, a 35-minute work for choir and orchestra commissioned by the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir; The Planets, commissioned by the Relache ensemble via Music in Motion and continued under a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artists' Fellowship; and The Hudson River Trilogy, a trio of microtonal chamber operas written with librettist Jeffrey Sichel, the first of which, Cinderella's Bad Magic, was premiered in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

    In addition to Bard, Gann has taught at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, the School of the Art Instutute of Chicago, and Bucknell University. His writings include more than 2400 articles for more than 45 publications, including scholarly articles on La Monte Young (in Perspectives of New Music), Henry Cowell, Mikel Rouse, and other American composers. He writes the "American Composer" column for Chamber Music magazine, and he was awarded the Stagebill Award (1999) and Deems-Taylor Award (2003) for music criticism. His music is available on the New Albion, New World, Cold Blue, Lovely Music, New Tone, and Monroe Street labels. In 2003, the American Music Center awarded Gann its Letter of Distinction, along with Steve Reich, Wayne Shorter, and George Crumb.

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    Monroe Golden

    Monroe Golden

    Website-  Monroe Golden is a freelance composer from rural Alabama whose works explore alternate tuning systems and the implications of those systems for other musical structures. 

    He is a founding member of the Birmingham Art Music Alliance and was president of the Birmingham Art Association in 1999-2000. He produced the 1998 Birmingham Improv Festival, founded and directs the New Arts Stage at the City Stages music festival, and currently serves as president for the ARTBURST performance series at the Unitarian Church of Birmingham. He is the recipient of a 2003 Artist Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Golden graduated cum laude from the University of Montevallo in 1983 and earned a doctorate from the University of Illinois in 1989. His composition teachers include James Jensen, Ed Robertson, Ben Johnston, Aurel Stro?d Herbert Br?FONT>

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    Kraig Grady

    Website-  http://anaphoria.com/index.html

    Biography-  KRAIG GRADY has presented his work at the Norton Simon Museum of Art, the UCLA Armand Hammer Museum, the Pacific Asia Museum, the Chateau de la Napoule - France, California Institute of the Arts, Pomona College, Pierce College, Villa Aurora Foundation for European American Relations, the Schindler House, Beyond Baroque, the Brand Library, New Langton Arts, as well as numerous live performances on KPFK, KCRW, and KXLU. His work was also presented as part of the LA Philharmonic's American Music Weekend as well as New Music America. He has been nominated 4 times for the L. A. WEEKLY Music Award best uncategorizable artist and was chosen by BUZZ Magazine as one of the 100 coolest persons in Los Angeles.

    Born in Montebello, Ca. While still in his teens, he realized he had an overwhelming urge to be a composer. After studies with Nickolas Slonimsky, Dean Drumond, Dorrance Stalvey (all briefly) and Byong-Kon Kim (longer) he produced his earliest compositions. Since meeting Erv Wilson in 1975, he has composed and performed in alternative tunings of Wilson's. In the 80's Kraig Grady (along with Keith Barefoot) became one of the first to revive the combination of live music with silent film. He was responsible for the films as well as the music. In 1990 with the opera "War and Pieces" film retreated to a background for live performers. Soon afterwards was his first exposure to the music of Anaphoria Island where he took up residence, on and off, for a period of three years. On his return he found himself being asked to act as a liaison between Anaphoria and North America. In this role he has produced numerous solo and ensemble works and nine shadow plays; TEN BLACK EYE I & II, BLACK EYE MERU, HER STIRRING STONE, THEIR VENTURES BEYOND THE HORIZONS, THE STOLEN STARS, FRENZY AT THE ROYAL THRESHOLD, THE QUIET EROW, and THE PILGRIMAGE OF MIRRORS.

     

    Milan Gustar

    Website-  www.noise.cz/summasummarum

    Biography-  Milan Gustar is an interdisciplinary researcher, artist and technologist. Born in Czechoslovakia, lives in Praha. As a composer he works mostly in the areas of minimalism, microtonality and algorithmic composition.

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    Alois Haba

    Biography-  ALOIS HABA (born 21.6.1893 in Vizovice, died 18. ll. 1973 in Prague), Czech composer, music theoretician, teacher and organiser, is one of the creators of new tonal systems on the basis of intervals of less than a half-tone (quarter-tone, fifth-tone and sixth-tone). Haba introduced these microtonal systems into music both practically and theoretically, tying up independently with the first tentative compositional and theoretical quarter-tone attempts of Stein, Moellendorf and Mager. Haba is so far the only composer to have written microtonal compositions on a melodic-harmonic base, in all forms of modern music and for the most varied instrumental and vocal content. For this he used on the one hand traditional instruments, but he also proposed new instruments - quarter-tone pianos, the quarter-tone harmonium, quarter-tone clarinets, quarter- tone trumpets, the sixth-tone harmonium, which were manufactured by Czech and German firms of instrument- makers. Haba's microtonal systems are based on the complete utilisation of all tones of the microtonal series. Haba does not see these microtones of his as new interval values but as alterations in scale and non-scale intervals of the half-tone system by which he wishes only to emphasise the content aspect of his music. From the theoretical point of view Haba carried out the mechanical division of the octave into equal microintervals. Haba anchors this musicality inspirationally and musically in his striking native region of Moravian Wallachia, in the songs of which archaic manners of interpretation including singing in microintervals have been retained. Haba also composed in the half-tone system.

    During his time with the Universal Edition publishers (1918-1920) he became a fan of Schoenberg's harmonic radicalism with its "semitone" chords and aggressive intervals of small seconds, large sevenths and small ninths. Basically however, he rejected Schoenberg's free and organised "atonality" (with "twelve only mutually relating tones") which he replaced with the principle of tonal centrality (with the relation of the tones and chords to the tone or chord centre). In melody and rhythm Haba thinks independently of Schoenberg. He does not take so much pleasure in abrupt (unmelodic) intervals, the melody of his compositions is fluent and lyrical. Haba began both his amateur and professional careers as a musician and an instrumentalist. He played the violin and the double bass in his father's folk orchestra and in the pupils' orchestra of the teaching institute in Kromeriz (1908 -1912). Even before entering the master's class in composition of V. Novak (1914) he took, the State examination in the violin and thus gained; his first professional qualification. These first professions of Haba help to explain his life-long love of instrumental music. The instrument does not perhaps exist for which he did not write a composition or at least use it in a chamber ensemble. Instrumental chamber music also forms a landmark in Haba's creativity. Haba came from a region which is known for its melodic and expressive speech. The characteristic alternation of short and long syllables in words, the melodious vaulting of sentences and phrases became in the case of Haba, as earlier in the case of Janacek, an inseparable and constant characteristic of his verbal expression. He had a sense for the beauty and lyricism of his native language as a composer also. Haba's first great vocal work, the opera "Mother", opus 35 (1929), immediately presents him as an eager and independent follower of Janacek. Haba's airs and songs grow organically from the melodious flow of speech, which he was also able to transpose stylistically into music. After the time of his studies under V. Novak (1914 -15) and later under F. Schreker (1918 - 22) Haba educated himself musically on his own. His theoretical interest in everything new had a deeper sense.

    He never ceased to ask himself questions about the sense of musical creativity, the real existence of which is created by the structural tonal components. He was musician and thinker in one person. At the time of the struggles for a socially and nationally just society this thinking of Haba's was enriched by traits which ranked him among the leading artistic supporters of socialist ideas in musical creativity and in musical life as a whole. As early as the 'twenties he was one of the supporters of "pure" music. The quarter-tone opera "Mother", opus 35, with its socially motivated glorification of the ordinary man and his faith in justice, is however the start of a line of Haba's socially and socialistically committed works, the material of which reflects the struggle of the democratic forces against fascism and the regressive aspects of the supreme capitalist society. For Haba the composer and the theorist it was typical that he did not link this humanistic mission of his work with ephemeral concessions which would have weakened the clarity and penetration of the style and language of his music.

    He saw the newness of music and ideas in unity as an divisible aesthetic axiom and as the prerequisite for the lasting cultural and social effect of his work. From 1923 onwards Haba lived permanently in Prague. Through his compositions, his work as a teacher at the State Music Conservatory and the Academy of Arts and Music in Prague (up to 1950), his organisational activity in music societies (the Society for Modern Music, Pritomnost (The Present), the Syndicate of Czech Composers, the Union of Czechoslovak Composers) and his work as a director in the Great Opera of 5th May (today the Smetana Theatre) he had a penetrating effect on contemporary musical life.

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    Jeff Harrington

    Website- http://parnasse.com/jh/blog/

    Biography-  Jeffrey Harrington was born in 1955 in Forest, Mississippi. His mother and father were amateur musicians who played the popular music of the 40's and 50's for fun. In high school he taught himself blues and boogie-woogie piano and built a synthesizer from parts. He began composing when he was 17 and won a composition contest for a serial composition using an isorhythm derived from a Billy Cobham song bass line. During that same time, he and his friend Barney Kilpatrick began working at the New Orleans Jazz Festival where he was a stage hand. During these times he received impromptu guidance and some informal lessons from piano greats Professor Longhair and Roosevelt Sykes. He also got to set up stage and meet many other blues greats, (Bukka White, Snooks Eaglin, B.B. King, et al) and this experience formed a powerful musical and personal confirmation that the blues and New Orleans funk music were to remain a driving influence throughout his life. He also helped organize high school dances where they arranged for one of the worlds greatest funk bands, The Meters to play at both the Junior and Senior Proms.

    Harrington continued his composition studies at LSU and at the Juilliard School where he studied in the Master's program with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions. He has also studied with Morton Subotnick, Jacob Druckman (master class), Joan LaBarbara, James Drew, Barbara Jazwinski and Deborah Drattell.

    In 1981 he began a series of compositions using the harmonic idiom of the 18th century with rhythms from jazz and African-American music. In 1987 he returned to a more chromatic style of composition while retaining his interest in melody and counterpoint and the dramatic/developmental processes of the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. In 1990 he retracted all but a few of his compositions written to date (approximately 100).

    In 1991 he programmed an expert system in C (inspired by a book by Taniiev - Convertible Counterpoint) which assists him in his discovery of the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in his melodies. The system takes up to 6 tracks of music and determines (using a pre-selected harmonic rulebase) the points at which the melodies mesh to produce effective counterpoint. The system produces music files ready to audition in realtime, so he can simultaneously be developing a transition while he produces the next section of counterpoint.

    Harrington currently supports himself as a Java programmer for eSchool Online, a division of Classroom Connect. He's also worked at Children's Television Workshop where he wrote a suite of prize-winning educational, yet silly, Sesame Street Java games, which were the first online games for Sesame Street and a prize-winning Castanet channel.. He has also been a counselor/computer programmer for Choice in Dying: The National Council for the Right to Die (now defunct) and he set up the first web site for the American Music Center. Harrington's vision for the American Music Center of a complete portal to new music with scores and MP3's has since been realized with their NewMusicJukeBox. He's also worked in the offshore oil fields of Louisiana as a galley hand, in music libraries at Tulane and Loyola University, and at several record stores including the world's first record store, Liberty Music (Madison Ave. behind Saks), where he met Frank Sinatra and learned how to sneak into Carnegie Hall. (Practice, practice, practice).

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    Neil Haverstick

    Website- www.microstick.net or www.myspace.com/microstick

    Biography-  Neil Haverstick was born on September 22, 1951, in St. Louis, Missouri, and started playing guitar in 1965, being highly moved by the music of the Beatles, Yardbirds, Cream, and the general musical atmosphere of the 1960's. Haverstick is a guitarist, composer, author, and instructor... here's a few essentials for you press folks...

    As a guitarist, the Denver Post called him "one of the most sought after session players in town." Haverstick has performed zillions of gigs, such as playing and recording with the Colorado Symphony, including appearances with Judy Collins, Diahann Carroll, Tommy Tune, Ferrante and Teicher, and Bill Conti. He has also played in orchestras backing such artists as Bob Hope, Dinah Shore, Charley Pride, and others.With his own bands, he has opened shows for B.B.King, Steve Miller,and King Sunny Ade; he has also backed up blues greats Jim Schwall and Joe Houston. As a freelance guitarist he has played blues, jazz, classical, country, flamenco, and folk, as well as plays (Man of La Mancha, Grease, Always Patsy Cline, and A Dream Play,(at the Cleveland Playhouse), with noted director Pavel Dobrusky) and many private functions. He has also appeared on numerous CD projects by Denver artists, including Clay Kirkland and Mary Stribling.

    As a composer, Haverstick won Guitar Player magazine's 1992 Ultimate Guitar Competition(Experimental Division) with a 19 tone piece, "Spider Chimes." He also won the 1996 arts Innovation Award in Denver for another 19 tone song, "Jimmy and Joe," and the 1999 Composition Fellowship from the Colorado Council on the Arts. He has 5 CD's of original music available, "The Gate," "Acoustic Stick," "Other Worlds," "If The Earth Was a Woman," featuring music in new tuning systems of 19 and 34 notes per octave, as well as fretless guitar, and his new CD titled "Stick Man". His Microstock festival is in it's 7th year, and he has performed at concerts in New York, Los Angeles, El Paso, and Albuquerque. Guitar Player mag said of his compositions, "Bold and daring, Haverstick ventures into distant aural galaxies."

    As an author, Haverstick has written for Guitar Player and Cadence, and has written two music theory books. "The Form of No Forms" was praised by the late studio guitarist Tommy Tedesco, who called it "A great book. I am still learning with Neil." Jazz giant Joe Pass said, "I feel this book offers a new insight into not only playing the guitar, but music and how to understand it. A real book." Neil's latest book, "19 Tones:A New Beginning," is a look at the 19 tone system of tuning which Haverstick has been working in since 1989.

    As an instructor, Haverstick has taught hundreds of students, both privately and in classes. In October, 2004, he taught a seminar on tunings at Berklee College of Music, on the invitation of fusion guitar maestro David Fiuczynski.

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    Jeff Herriott

    Website- www.myspace.com/jeffherriott

    Biography- I am a composer, interested in all kinds of music, though I primarily compose concert pieces for chamber ensembles with electronics.

    I have also been working extensively with video in the past couple of years as well as live electronics in performance. I have been performing live electronics with the group Sonict at UW-Whitewater for the past few years. More about Sonict can be found at http://sonictensemble.com

    Additionally, I am the host of a weekly radio show that airs on 91.7 FM, WSUW, Whitewater, WI, which can also be found online at http://wsuw.org. The radio blog is hosted on this page. The show currently airs Tuesdays from 4-6 PM CST.

    My professional blog can be found at http://bpretty.livejournal.com

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    Joel David Hickman

    Website-  http://www.myspace.com/joeldavidhickman

    Biography-  Joel David Hickman was born in Valparaiso, Indiana and currently lives in Hebron, Indiana. Joel has many years of composing, performing, and recording in various classical and rock ensembles. He has written many compositions for solo guitar and piano as well as compositions for various acoustic and electric ensembles and other solo instruments in the classical style. He is currently composing works for microtonal instruments and has been working/studing in different temperaments for various string and keyboard instruments. Joel has a Bachelor?s Degree in Musical Performance (Classical Guitar) from Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University and a certificate in recording engineering from The Recording Workshop in Chillicothe, Ohio. He studied classical guitar with Paul Henry and composition with Robert Lombardo at Chicago Musical College. He plans on continuing his education and will be working on his Master?s Degree in the near future. He has been teaching music privately for over 15 years and at Chantal?s Music Institute for children in Valparaiso, Indiana for over 5 years instructing guitar and piano. He taught classical guitar, basic guitar, and bass at Concordia University in River Forest, Illinois and has many private students in different styles and instruments in the Northwestern Indiana area. He started playing and performing music at the age of 10 and played the recorder and trombone in Lowell public schools. He started playing the guitar. bass, and piano at the age of 16 and was in many various progressive rock ensembles at this time. Joel is currently in the progressive rock ensemble ?Dalet-Yod? where he performs and composes on the guitar, bass, and baritone guitar. In 1992, he met Steve Piscione and formed a rock band called ?Project Arakus? They composed and performed songs and made a demo tape. Joel and Steve went on to different ensembles. In early 2000, Steve asked Joel to join ?Dalet-Yod? and he performed on the disc, ?From The Hands Of Lilith? which was released on Seraph Records in Chicago, Illinois on September 1, 2001. They are working on a new CD to be released in the near future. Go to http://www.dalet-yod.com for more band information. Joel and Steve have also performed and recorded in a progressive acoustic guitar duo called ?Nylon Steel?. They have two self-released CDs so far in this project. Joel is also in a progressive/experimental classical project with Mike Pancini simply called ?The Hickman/Pancini Project?. On their first CD release ?Voyaging Clockwise Off The Symboled Harbour? (2002), Joel performed and composed on the piano and Mike performed and composed on the violin. They are working on new CDs for 2005. They will be performing their newest compositions at weddings and other places that will have them perform. Joel has been composing and recording for the classical guitar/piano and other instruments and plans on releasing solo CDs for these works in 2005.

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    Aaron Andrew Hunt

    Website-  http://www.h-pi.com/about.html

    Biography-  I am the inventor of H-Pi products and the owner of H-Pi Instruments. It has been a dream of mine to give musicians tools to explore what I believe to be the most fundamental frontier still existing in music ? pitch. I have realized this dream with the help of MIDI Gadgets Boutique (MGB), whose products I also sell through this website. I am privileged to work closely with MGB in Bulgaria, where the internal electronics of each Hp instrument are designed and manufactured. I live in Illinois, where the electronics are kept on hand to fill orders. Each order requires some lead time for manual construction of the enclosure, assembly of mechanical elements, and testing of the unit. H-Pi  instruments are made by hand, and they are also made with heart. It is my sincere hope that an H-Pi  instrument will inspire your creativity and help you to realize your art. ? Aaron Andrew Hunt

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    Charles Ives

    Website- www.charlesives.org

    Biography-  Born in Danbury, Connecticut on 20 October 1874, Charles Ives pursued what is perhaps one of the most extraordinary and paradoxical careers in American music history. Businessman by day and composer by night, Ives's vast output has gradually brought him recognition as the most original and significant American composer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, Ives sought a highly personalized musical expression through the most innovative and radical technical means possible. A fascination with bi-tonal forms, polyrhythms, and quotation was nurtured by his father who Ives would later acknowledge as the primary creative influence on his musical style. Studies at Yale with Horatio Parker guided an expert control overlarge-scale forms.

    Ironically, much of Ives's work would not be heard until his virtual retirement from music and business in 1930 due to severe health problems. The conductor Nicolas Slonimsky, music critic Henry Bellamann, pianist John Kirkpatrick (who performed the Concord Sonata at its triumphant premiere in New York in 1939), and the composer Lou Harrison (who conducted the premiere of the Symphony No. 3) played a key role in introducing Ives's music to a wider audience. Henry Cowell was perhaps the most significant figure in fostering public and critical attention for Ives's music, publishing several of the composer's works in his New Music Quarterly.

    In 1947, Ives was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his Symphony No. 3, according him a much deserved modicum of international renown. Soon after, his works were taken up and championed by such leading conductors as Leonard Bernstein and, at his death in 1954, he had witnessed a rise from obscurity to a position of unsurpassed eminence among the world's leading performers and musical institutions.

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    Aaron Krister Johnson

    aaron krister johnson.jpg

    Website- http://www.akjmusic.com/

    Biography-  Aaron Krister Johnson is a Chicago-based multi-keyboardist, teacher and composer. Ever eclectic and multi-faceted as a keyboard artist, Mr. Johnson's experience ranges from the Western classical keyboard tradition, to folk music and to modern electro-acoustic free improvisation. The Chicago Sun-Times called his composition 'evocative', and his keyboard improvisations with have been hailed by Keyboard Magazine as "challenging and creative". His work has been hailed by Chicagocritic.com, the Chicago Tribune, the Windy City Times, and the online music journal Tokafi.com

    Mr. Johnson is founder and artistic director of MidwestMicrofest, a concert series dedicated to exploring the current and historical frontiers of music written in alternative tunings. He has collaborated with the Fine Arts Chamber Players, The Artistic Home, Lyric Opera, Lira Ensemble, Chicago Children's Choir, Kiltartan Road Ensemble, Lakeside Shakespeare, and the International Music Foundation, among others. He has also made appearances at Chicago Irish Fest, Milwaukee Irish Fest, and the Old Town School of Folk music. Mr. Johnson is the pianist, organist, and choir director at Temple Sholom of Chicago, the largest Reform Jewish congregation in Chicago, and home of a historic 4-manual Wurlitzer organ.

    In recent years, he has worked in the area of composition of incidental music and soound design for theatre. His score for 'Peer Gynt' was nominated for a 2005 Joseph Jefferson award for outstanding original incidental music for a play. Other theatre music and sound design credits include 'Madwoman of Chaillot' and the Jeff-nominated 'Natural Affection' for the Artistic Home, and Lakeside Shakespeare of Michigan's productions of 'Twelfth Night' and 'Julius Ceasar'.

    Mr. Johnson originally received his education at the Manhattan School of Music Preparatory division, the State University of New York at Purchase (BFA Magna Cum Laude) and Northwestern University (MFA Magna Cum Laude) for his graduate studies.

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    Iglashion Jones

    Website-

    Biography- 

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    Magnus Jonsson

    Website-  http://hcoop.net/~magnus/ 

    Biography-  Magnus Jonsson was born 1981 in Sweden. And is currently a student at University of Delaware, USA.

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    Skip La Plante

    Biography-  Skip La Plante invents, builds, composes for, performs on and teaches with musical instruments built from trash. Born in Boston in 1951, graduated from Princeton in 1973. Has lived in NYC since 1975 where he has composed extensively for dance and theater. With Carole Weber he founded the composers collective MUSIC FOR HOMEMADE INSTRUMENTS in 1975. Played with NY's Javanese gamelan Kusuma Laras for 20 years beginning in the mid 1980s. Lived in Java in 1989-90 mostly studying gamelan making. Has been working primarily as a teaching artist for about 15 years, specializing in making acoustics comprehensible to elementary school students. See bashthetrash.com. for more information. Has long been a member of the core ensemble of American Festival of Microtonal Music, where his role is often to constuct instruments such as Partch's kithara or Julian Carillo's 96 pitch per octave harp and then perform on these instruments. Not committed to any particular tuning system or music that even requires tuning systems, nonetheless he may well have created the most extensive body of compositions in 17 pitch per octave equal temperament.  Attempts to stay sane by backpacking extensively, eating raspberries wherever he finds them.

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    Bryan Lowe

    Biography-  Bryan Lowe is a classically trained musician who has worked in classical radio broadcasting since he was 15. He is currently Program Director of Seattle's Classical KING FM. His daily over-exposure to classical standards has forced his own musical explorations farther afield into the music of India and microtonal music. He is also a collector of instruments, including the Sonar Axe, Haken Continuum, Axis 64 harmonic table keyboard, the h-pi music TBX1, theremin, and theremin cello.

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    Charles Lucy

    Website-  http://www.lucytune.com

    Biography-  During the 1980's Charles Lucy was exploring alternative musical tuning systems He wished to find a way to produce music which would sound extremely consonant and produce the harmonies, which he knew lay beyond the limits of Western twelve-noted tuning. He was directed to the writings of John 'Longitude' Harrison (1693 - 1776), by Mr. Chew, a curator at the Science Museum in South Kensington, London, England, who told Lucy that John 'Longitude' Harrison had proposed a tuning system derived from the mathematics of pi. Lucy found copies of Harrison's eighteenth-century books in the ClockMakers' Library in the City of London, and following Harrison's description modified instruments to play the tunings exactly as John Harrison proposed . Lucy continued his research with many different musical instruments and computer applications to develop a tuning system which nowadays is known as LucyTuning.

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    Rick McGowan

    Website-  http://rm-and-jo.laughingsquid.org

    Biography-  Rick McGowan was raised in Washington state. He studied under William O Smith and Alan Dorsey at the University of Washington, 1976-78. Moved to Berkeley California in 1978. Has been a software engineer since 1983, with a 5 year stint in Japan 1986-1990. Currently lives in San Jose. 

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    Brian McLaren

    UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!

     

    Shahin Mohajeri

    Website-  http://240edo.googlepages.com/mymusic

    Biography-  Shaahin mohajeri or Shahin mohajeri, born 26 july 1971 in Tehran, Iran is a Tombak player, Tombak Researcher and microtonal composer.He has B.A in geology from tehran university.He began studying tombak under supervision of Nasser Farhangfar,master of tombak,but His Studies of tombak sound and fingering,tombak musical analysis and his arrhythmic musical ideas have led him to a different musical world of tombak and tombak playing. He composes music for solo of tombak and tombak group with different pitches , ranging from traditional to his personal style. He is working on a new notation system for tombak as a result of acoustical parameters and a system of fingering classification for this drum . On 23 Dec 2006 Shaahin mohajeri lectured on tombak history,organology,acoustics and tunable tombak of Dr.Hossein omoumi in the Tehran Conservatory of Music.

    As a microtonalist , he works on different tuning systems such as :

    • Equal divisions of length(EDL)
    • Arithmetic irrational divisions of octave AIDO(or nonoctave,interval)
    • Arithmetic rational divisions of octave ARDO(or nonoctave,interval)
    • Equal divisions of octave
    • Arithmetic divisions of length (ADL)

    Shaahin mohajeri believes that 96-EDO is a good system for intervallic structure of persian music with more accurate estimation than ali naqi vaziri's 24-EDO system.Now,He is working on a microtonal notation system based on 96-EDO for persian music and on a model for tuning systems classification based on divisions of octavic or nonoctavic musical scales and systems.

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    Ron Nagorcka

    Photograph of Ron Nagorcka

    Website-  http://www.ronnagorcka.id.au/

    Biography-  Composer, performer, and naturalist Ron Nagorcka (born 1948) spent much of his childhood exploring music and the natural world on a sheep farm in Western Victoria (Australia). He went on to study history, pipe organ with Sergio de Pieri, harpsichord with Max Cooke, and composition with Keith Humble, Ian Bonighton and Jean-Charles Francois at Melbourne University and then composition and electronic music at the University of California San Diego, where his teachers included Kenneth Gaburo, Pauline Oliveros, Bob Ericson, and John Silber. During the 1970s he was active as a composer in Melbourne where he founded the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre - providing a venue of considerable importance to many emerging composers and musicians of the time - and taught composition at the Melbourne State College. 

    In 1986 he visited Tasmania as a tutor at the National Young Composers School in Hobart, and decided to move to the island. Since 1988 he has been living and working in a remote forest in northern Tasmania, where he has built his own house and solar-powered studio. 

    As an active Field Naturalist, he takes a keen interest in the science, as well as the aesthetics of the Australian bush and along with David Stewart of ?Naturesound Australia? has produced a comprehensive identification CD for Tasmanian birds. He has also made several camping trips to inland Australia to collect the sounds of Australian wildlife.

    His recordings of nature also become the basis for many of his compositions. The melodies, rhythms, even the instrumental quality of the music are generated by painstaking listening and analysis of natural Australian soundscapes.

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    Pauline Oliveros

    Website-  http://www.deeplistening.org/pauline/

    Biography-  "Through Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening I finally know what harmony is....It's about the pleasure of making music." John Cage 1989 

    Pauline Oliveros' life as a composer, performer and humanitarian is about opening her own and others' sensibilities it the many facets of sound. Since the 1960's she has influenced American Music profoundly through her work with improvisation, meditation, electronic music, myth and ritual. Many credit her with being the founder of present day meditative music. All of Oliveros' work emphasizes musicianship, attention strategies, and improvisational skills.  

    She has been celebrated worldwide. During the 1960's John Rockwell named her work Bye Bye Butterfly as one of the most significant of that decade. In the 70's she represented the U.S. at the World's Fair in Osaka, Japan; during the 80's she was honored with a retrospective at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.: the 1990's began with a letter of distinction from the American Music Center presented at Lincoln Center in New York: In 2000 the 50th anniversary of her work was celebrated with the commissioning and performance of her Lunar Opera:Deep Listening For_tunes. Oliveros work is available on numerous recordings produced by companies internationally. Sounding the Margins (as it was) - a forty year retrospective will be released soon in a six CD boxed set from Deep Listening.