tue nov 29 9:00pm terrace club 62 washington rd princeton nj free

On-the-fly programmers and performers Ge Wang and Perry Cook ChucK up the place, followed by a solo performance by Nathan Michel, and a solo performance by Shelly Blake.

ge wang/perry cook: ChucK double projection duet

On-the-fly programming (or live coding) is a style of programming in which the programmer | performer | composer augments and modifies the program while it is running, without stopping or restarting, in order to assert expressive, programmable control at runtime. Because of the fundamental powers of programming languages, the technical and aesthetic aspects of on-the-fly programming are worth exploring. This is part of our ongoing investigation into using code as an interactive and expressive musical instrument. Our recipe for disaster employs the new ChucK synthesis language, which supports real-time, sample-synchronous, concurrent audio synthesis programming, and a highly "on-the-fly" style of writing code. Also, as an essential part of the performance, we project the entire process on screen for the audience to see/follow/deride. You will know when we crash and burn! Everything begins with two blank ChucK programs. We construct the counterpoint piece-by-piece in real-time, using the facets of concurrent audio programming, precise timing/synchronization, and on-the-fly programming in ChucK. Contrapuntal simultaneities can be separated and compartmentalized into autonomous, concurrent entities. We can program and reason about each entity independently, as well as interact with other entities and with the program as a whole - creating, shaping (and debugging) it on-the-fly. Goto: On-the-fly Programming Home Page: http://on-the-fly.cs.princeton.edu/ ChucK Audio Programming Language (free available): http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/ Princeton Sound Lab: http://soundlab.cs.princeton.edu/ TOPLAP.org (check out live coding manifesto there): http://www.toplap.org

nathan michel

Nathan Michel is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer making quirky, adventurous music that is as comfortingly familiar as it is disarmingly strange. His previous two albums for Tigerbeat6 Records‹abc def (2002) and Dear Bicycle (2003) combine instruments with lo-fi electronics, while his newest record, The Beast, offers colorful, organic instrumental textures, lush harmonies, and skillful song-writing with only a touch of electronics. Jointly released by Skipp Records from France and Sonig Records from Germany, The Beast works on many levels; its smooth pop surface gives way to richness of detail that invites listening and re-listening. Nathan plays all of the instruments on the record himself: guitars, piano, drums, marimba, vocals, melodica, and many more. He is also joined on two songs by Amber Papini, whose beautiful vocals add a fresh color. More ³official² infos: Currently a Ph.D. composition fellow at Princeton University, Nathan Michel has studied music at Bowdoin College, Yale University, and in Amsterdam with Louis Andriessen. He¹s received numerous awards for his work including a Morton Gould Young Composer Award from ASCAP and a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His music can be found on such prestigious record labels as Skipp, Sonig, Tigerbeat6, Tomlab, and Mr. Mutt. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1974.www.nathanmichel.com

shelly blake

Shelly Blake (b. 1974) has been making cult-variety recordings since 1995. His earliest published work consisted of songs recorded directly to answering machine tapes -- very raw bits of ravaged songs. Later, Blake turned to the analog four-track as his chosen means of capturing sound. He quickly recorded dozens of songs and improvisations in this fashion before disappearing in 1996 into a quasi-hermitic lifestyle; these albums were like scrapbooks -- diaries in sound and lyric. Since resurfacing in the year 2000, Blake's music has become ever more eclectic: primarily composing and improvising for voice, piano, organ, guitar, loops, antique record players, and found objects, his music over the last decade has spanned the gamut from lo-fi psych folk to beat-heavy guitar-laced trance and from Guthrie-esque political balladry to site-specific free improvised performance/sound art. More recently, he has performed free improvisation with ensembles and small groups exploring issues related to paranormal lore and American politics. His most current work merges folk balladry, analog noise, and the sampling of English opera with whole-body free improvisation exploring stressful physical states involving water, aluminum, and sensory deprivation. www.shellyblake.com