Lumia Ensemble at The Salon 5/18/08 7:30pm

The Lumia Ensemble presents excerpts from its latest electronic chamber works for piano, violin, and laptop.  The intimacy of The Salon, an undergound residential venue, allows unparralleled contrapuntal precision while the juxtaposition with other contemporary ensembles and various popular genres challenges the ear.

Check back soon for additional details regarding video projections, performance repertoire, and artists. 

This performance costs $10 and will occur in a private residence.  Advance e-mail request is required.  Please e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and you will receive directions to the location.  The venue can only accomodate about 100 people so we highly recommend that you arrive early.

Click here to hear the Lumia Ensemble.

I spent last night (and this a.m.) soaking up some electronic wisdom from foundsound’s artists at inciting hq.  Previous collaborators Sean O’Neal (a.k.a. someone else) and Christopher Frank (a.k.a. tleilaxu) both performed.  Foundsound has long been a pillar of our electronic scene in Philly and I’ve been working with them since 2003.  So what do they have to teach a “classically trained” composer like myself? 

Too ambitious!  Exploring the past and future of western music’s evolution requires a semester (I had one hour).  As I frantically cleared and filled the board with concepts, the accumulation of black “dry erase” ink found its way first to my hands and then my face, and a lot of examples were cut for time.  Still, it seems Peabody’s computer composition students got the point… all the techy-toys in the world mean little without a clear perspective on why you are using them.  Perhaps the historical context intro was a strange way to spend 50 minutes before the very brief demo of my 3D music visualization technology?

Chopin said a good pianist shouldn’t have to practice more than an hour a day, but opinions vary.  Conservatory students might put in 8 hours a day, depending on their instrument.  As I begin to scale up my own practice routine in preparation for an upcoming show, playing the same few pieces sometimes dozens of times each day, I can’t help but think about the impact of all this repetition.  Might I not destroy the spontaneity of the final performance if I practice all of the risk out of it?