Chirp: NEC's Music Technology Showcase | Night 6: Music Beyond the Threshold - Pre-concert Lecture

New England Conservatory students electrify the Black Box Theater during Chirp, a six-night music technology performance series showcasing live electronic music and cutting-edge music tech.

Join faculty member Stratis Minakakis and students for a pre-concert lecture before their 8 p.m. performance. 

About the Concert:

If there is one attribute that permeates the evolution of music in the past century, it is the radical expansion of its means of expression. As the frontiers of the medium expanded, older compositional practices were abandoned or repurposed, and new ones were invented. The electronic music revolution and the adoption, since the 1960s, of computers as compositional tools transformed the field to the extent that several compositional practices of the last 50 years are not truly accessible without the aid of technology. The efficiency of computers as interpreters of symbols, automators of tasks, and problem solvers make them ideal companions in exploring music that pushes the frontiers of sonic imagination and creates new modalities of experiencing music and music-making. 

This concert features acoustic, electronic, and multimedia works in which the computer has been an integral collaborator in the compositional process. Through reimagining older music, mapping new paths in instrumental possibilities, prototyping interactive scores, navigating liminal auditory spaces, and creating new musical grammars in notated and improvised compositional practices, tonight’s program offers a fascinating survey of original computer-assisted music composed by NEC faculty, alumni, and current students.