The Latest VR music adventures:
There are a variety of new VR-related music works. Among these are:
The Flute Lathe, in which I play a rosewood Celtic flute in order to control
the goings-on in a virtual world. I am able to guide a virtual lathe which
carves forms out of virtual wood, and in fact I can make more flutes in
this way. I also control a clock-like virtual mechanism, growing out of
the virtual wood, which controls a Disklavier piano in order to provide
accompaniment to the acoustic flute. The Flute Lathe was premiered at South
by Southwest in Austin this year.
The Caterpillar and the Shell, also known as "Birth", is a virtual
world played with Don Buchla's wands. An elaborate semi-fractal form (the
Caterpillar), and an egg/shell/Brancusi form interact and generate music
in an Arabic mode. The piece was premiered as a duet with Ney performed
by Richard Horowitz at MIDEM this year.
The Pianobeam, in which elaborate piano harmonies are generated from hand
motion in air, was premiered at the Copenhagen Film Festival.
And then there's the as yet un-named
This band includes Kweyao Agyapon on percussion and BIGTWIN
on VR effects.
Here's a review
of a fun gig of ours that included VR.
I also occasionally play solo ambient music (mostly piano and khaen)
at the Kitchen in
New York.
I work quite a lot with the choreographer Rebecca
Stenn. We perform and make films.
Our next show,
Thinning of the Veil: The Interpenetration of Realities ,
using Virtual Reality-related stage effects,
will be shown as a work-in-progress
just happened on December 5th
at the Kitchen in
New York.
The full production will premier later this year at the American Music Theater
Festival in Philadelphia. Watch for details.
Rebecca's dance company is called The Perks, and I often make music for
them as well.
I have a band that plays regularly at the Knitting
Factory in New York City.
I'm on piano, saxophone-driven virtual world, marxophone, ba
wu, seljefloyte, quena, nishakusanzen, khaen, lu sheng
-with-
Cyro Baptista on a fantastic variety of percussion
- fresh from gigs with Paul Simon and Kathleen Battle
-and-
Jon Gibson on winds
-founding member, Philip Glass ensemble
The band sometimes performs with the experimental
Go back to Jaron's
home page.