Composer of Electronic and Chamber Music, Freelance Programmer

The Electric Monster Laptop Ensemble, organized by Hsiao-Lan Wang, performed my piece “Solid State” on December 4th of 2009. I just got a recording of the performance, which you can check out below.

Every time I tell someone I’ve got a show with MiLO coming up, I seem to get questions:

“What’s a laptop orchestra?”

“Laptop? So… what do you actually play?”

“What does it sound like?”

(First, here’s a recording of MiLO from 12.07.2007.)

I’ve also been in touch with people from other laptop groups around the world, and the ensemble continues to become more popular. I’m not sure which was first, but PLOrk (Princeton Laptop Orchestra) and SLOrk (Stanford Laptop Orchestra) are certainly the most visible. These groups seem are getting generous funding and support from somewhere, and in return are offering the laptop orchestra as a pedagogical tool. Students at Princeton can take “PLOrk Seminar“, which seems to be a performance-based laptop orchestra course. You’ll notice that participating students must be using a Macbook, and must use a specific configuration, including MIDI interface and spherical speaker(?). Their professor/leader often serves as conductor, and there seems to be a definite professor – student relationship in the group.

In contrast, MiLO is described as:

…a new improvisation collective that fuses live electronic sound, instrumental performance, and video projection into a rich multimedia experience. The group embraces a wide variety of electronic practices: circuit-bending, software synthesis, repurposed effects pedals and portable game devices, live processing of instrumental sound, VJing, and procedural animation all find their way into the mix. Expect a rich, immersive tapestry of sound and image, all created live and in the moment.

We’re far more unstructured than other groups, receiving no funding and having no official academic presence. The group originally came out of some informal electronic jam sessions at the Kenilworth studios in Milwaukee, and much of that informality has remained. Although we do some pre-composed works now, improvisation is still a major part of what we do. Most of the people who play in the group are also instrument-builders/coders of some sort, and everyone has their own approach. There isn’t a standard MiLO piece of software or hardware, and I think that makes it interesting. I’d like to see more of this kind of openness and experimentation in laptop groups, and less classroominess – the ensemble has a lot of potential that needs to be explored, and I think that the rock band method will work the best. I’d be curious to hear from other laptop orchestra members, and learn their take on the best way to organize a group like this.

A recap of the Unruly Music festival, presented Sept. 8 – 10 at Vogel Hall in Milwaukee:

On the first night, Susan Bender presented Georges Aperghis’ Recitations along with Cage’s Aria/Fontana Mix. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend, but heard it was great.

On the second night, I performed with the rest of the Milwaukee Laptop Orchestra. Along with a few small group improvisations, we played Steve Nelson-Raney’s Sextet 1998 and Kevin Schlei’s Languid Flow of Imaginary Vapors. Most of the pieces were accompanied by some sort of live visuals by Chris Burns, Brent Coughenour, or Kevin Schlei. The evening closed with an improvised soundtrack to Underwater Noise of Rain, a film by Lane Hall and Lisa Moline.

On the final night C-Squared, the flute/cello duo of Lisa Cella and Franklin Cox, performed a concert of contemporary music, mostly by “new complexity” composers. I was also able to work with them a bit on my current project, which they will premier during the second Unruly festival, in April, 2010. They’re both intelligent, helpful, friendly people, and the work session was fruitful – I’ve got a bunch of new ideas for the piece, both sonically and formally.