MICE
World Tour CD:
the Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble global circumnavigation click
for a larger image
$15.95
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"Curious
and striking…could serve as a healing music, so relaxing,
soothing, yet elevated and artistically sounding a playful note.
It is inspired and exhilarating. The use of natural sounds is not
cliche and nothing is “dance/ambient", despite the computer
drones or percussion rhythms. The sounds push and push and swing
slowly and relax there. Folk and jazz weave themselves among the
sensitive natural soundscapes, and folklore yields to sounds, voices
and samples. Yet no music in the traditional sense can be heard
here. Rather, an impressive audio noise builds, one that casts its
spell and displaces any crisis, any stress. There is no kitsch harmony,
no release, and no commonplace chumming. MICE plays real, real music
for the mind and body."
- Volkmar Mantei, Ragazzi Magazine, Germany
“MICE
have played all around the world, using their laptops and a variety
of instruments and sound sources… sand sources even. Sandprints
has a nice, poppy touch to it… an electro-dance piece with
great childlike rhythms. Great. 'World Strings' processes all sorts
of string instruments together in a nice piece. Quite a varied album."
- FdW, Vital Weekly in Amsterdam, Netherlands
10/1/09: Sandprints
is #25 on the Indie Music.com Electronica Charts!
Susanna
Glaser of The WIRE lists the MICE World Tour album among her top
10 albums of 2009 in the 2009
Rewind issue.
EcoSono REFUND POLICY:
All EcoSono merchandise is guaranteed against defects.
Please return any defective product to EcoSono, stating the nature
of the defect. We will replace the defective item with a new one,
or issue an EcoSono credit.
EcoSono
presents the 2009 global circumnavigation tour of the Mobile Interactive
Computer Ensemble (MICE). Traveling 30,000 miles by ship around
the world on the M/V Explorer, MICE performed an ambitious series
of concerts engaging with diverse environments and cultures of the
world. MICE employs interactive acoustics and a networked human/computer
ensemble to create deep collaborations between ecologies, human
musicians and computer systems. This album features select compositions
from the tour.
[1]
Sandprints 7:03 2009
sand music in the Namib Desert, Namibia
[2] That which is bodiless... 10:52 2004
Cape Town, South Africa
[3] Anemoi 5:25 2009
wind music in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
[4] Sxueak 4:33 2008
Chennai, India
[5] World Strings 6:56 2009
Hong Kong, China
[6] Kanja 6:49 2009
underwater music in the middle of the Indian Ocean
[7] ‘A’aa 8:43 2009
lava flow music in Pacaya, Guatemala
[8-15] World Radio Quilt 9:48 2009
Cape Town, South Africa; Chennai, India; Shainghai, China;; Walvis
Baia, Namibia; Straights of Gibralter, UK/Spain; Casablanca, Morocco;
Dakar, Senegal; Cadiz, Spain
MICE
ensemble and special guests during the tour:
Matthew Burtner, Keith Carlson, Steven Trombetta, Justin Thompson,
Brandon Van Loucks, Sarah Walton, Lia Albini, Annie Grindstaff,
Zoe Kinney, Aniseh Burtner, Bob Balsley, Rachel Shearer, Courtney
Gushue, Allison Wist, Sarah Beauchamp, Lauren Seibert, Isaiah Allekotte,
Taylor Mack, Jonathan Katz, Chazz Anders
Assul Angulo
composition/programming: Matthew Burtner and Keith Carlson
production: Matthew Burtner, producer, director
Jordan Moser, engineer, producer
design : Trestle Mountain Studios and Design, New York
Signal
Ruins :
sound-art performance works click
for a larger image of front/back
$19.95 - mailed in recycled materials
order
the Signal Ruins DVD
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Percussive
Notes Journal Reviews "Signal Ruins" Terry
O'Mahoney of Percusssive Notes describes "Signal Ruins"
as "an experiment in the juxtaposition of unusual acoustic
sounds... the piece has a glacial pace and overall ethereal quality...,
as visually interesting as it is aural ... a valuable teaching tool
for a class on contemporary music or percussion ensemble.
-Sonhors
e-Zine, Rennes, France, April 2009 " Matthew Burtner plays with beauty, coolness and
space. Halfway between chamber music and sound sculpture! Dialogues,
modulations, swirl, noise, dissonance, metallic roar, crackle: nothing
can break the expressive unity."
EcoSono
REFUND POLICY:
All EcoSono merchandise is guaranteed against defects.
Please return any defective product to EcoSono, stating the nature
of the defect. We will replace the defective item with a new one,
or issue an EcoSono credit.
Signal
Ruins DVD trailer
A
performed ritual of instrumental bodies and electro-acoustics, Matthew
Burtner's Signal Ruins merges sonic sculpture and chamber
music performance. In Signal Ruins the bodies of instruments
become resonant landscapes. Recorded live in multichannel audio
and video, the film was exquisitely edited by film maker Dustin
Thompson in close collaboration with the composer. The Burtner/Kojs
trio, featuring the virtuosic piano performance of Juraj Kojs, gives
a profound performance of this rare music. The disk also includes
Burtner's award-winning sound art works That which is bodiless
is reflected in bodies for computer-generated surround sound
and Tibetan Bowl, and Prismic Generations, for video and
computer-generated sound.
Signal
Ruins for prepared piano and percussion, noise generators, and computer
-generated sound in two movements, four chapters:
Signal Ruins I, part 1 and 2
Signal Ruins II, part 1 and 2 51' total duration
That
which is bodiless is reflected in bodies. version
for 5.1 surround sound 12'
Prismic
Generations version for computer generated sound and video 10'
performers:
Juraj Kojs, piano
W. Aniseh Khan-Burtner, percussion/noise generator
Matthew Burtner, percussion/noise generator
composition:
Matthew Burtner
production: Matthew Burtner, engineer, producer, director
Dustin Thompson, videography, video editing
Matthew Burtner's ( http://www.burtner.net)
experience growing up in Alaska deeply informs his work as a composer
and sound artist. Through projects such as EcoSono he attempts to
unite his activism on behalf of the environment and free imagination.
Composed
for a wide range of instruments and technologies, his music combines
ecoacoustic systems with expressive live performance and immersive
ritual sound art. He performs widely with his original Metasax technology
(http://www.metasax.com).
Burtner’s music is described by The Wire as “some of
the most eerily effective electroacoustic music I’ve heard,”
and 21st Century Music writes "There is a horror and beauty
in this music that is most impressive." First prize winner
of the Musica Nova International Electroacoustic Music Competition
he received honors and awards from Bourges, Gaudeamus, Darmstadt,
Prix d’Ete, Meet the Composer, ASCAP, Luigi Russolo, AMC,
and Hultgren Biennial competitions. Originally from Alaska, he studied
philosophy, composition, saxophone and computer music at St. Johns
College, Tulane University, Iannis Xenakis's UPIC-Studios, the Peabody
Institute/Johns Hopkins, and Stanford University/CCRMA. In 2005
and 2006 he was an Invited Researcher at IRCAM/Centre-George-Pompidou,
Paris, and composer-in-residence at Musikene, in San Sebastian,
Spain. In 2007/2008 he was a Teaching+Technolgy Fellow at the University
of Virginia. In 2008/2009 he was a Howard Foundation Fellow of Brown
University. In 2009/2010 he is a W. Buckner Clay Foundation Grant
Recipient at the University of Virginia. In 2010/2011 he will be
a 21st Century Center for Humanities Fellow at the University of
Wisconsin.
W.
Aniseh Khan
W. Aniseh Khan-Burtner holds degrees in both
Art History and Women's Studies from the University of Kansas. Since
1991, she has focused on a career helping to create social change
through development work with local human rights-promoting non-profit
organizations, and through art. Her love of music and dance was
strongly cultivated in the multi-cultural environment of California.
Over the last eight years, she has been an avid student of Brazilian,
Cuban, Haitian and Tahitian styles of both dance and music. She
danced for four years with Ka Ua Tuahine Polynesian Dance Company,
an award winning ensemble based in Berkeley California. She was
one of seven student dancers invited to travel to Papeete, Tahiti
in the summer of 2002 to study and perform with Ori Here Maohi Dance
Company, one of Tahiti's preeminent dance ensembles. Additionally,
she performed and recorded with Santero, a San Francisco based salsa/hip-hop/turn-tabling
hybrid band playing percussion, electric bass, and contributing
vocals. In 2003 she took on the lead part of the shaman in Matthew
Burtner’s large-scale multimedia work Winter Raven, a role
involving theater, dance, movement art and interactive video choreography.
She has also performed Juraj Kojs’ Give me a beautiful color
at the Charlottesville Fringe Festival.
Juraj
Kojs
Juraj Kojs :( http://www.kojs.net
) is a Postdoctoral Associate in Music Technology and Multimedia Art
at Yale’s Department of Music. In May 2008, Kojs received his
Ph.D in Composition and Music Technologies at the University of Virginia.
His dissertation discusses how cyberinstruments by physical modeling
synthesis facilitate an extension of physical reality into virtual
world in music. Judith Shatin was his advisor.
In 2006, Kojs' composition “Revelations” was awarded the
first place prize at Eastman Electroacoustic Composition and Performance
Competition. The same year, “In Secret” received an honorable
mention at the Digital Art Award in Tokyo, Japan.
Kojs' compositions were recently featured at the Quiet Music Festival
(Cork, Ireland), Ostrava Days Festival (Ostrava, Czech Republic),
International Computer Music Conference (Copenhagen, Denmark), Sound
and Music Computing (Lefkada, Greece), Sonoimagenes (Buenos Aires,
Argentina), New Interfaces for Musical Expression Conference (Paris,
France), Gaudeamus International Music Week (Amsterdam, The Netherlands),
and Society of Composers Inc. National Conference (Greensboro, USA)
and others. Juraj Kojs has published articles on compositional applications
of cyberinstruments by physical modeling synthesis in a variety of
conference proceedings and journals such as Organized Sound, Digital
Creativity and Leonardo Music Journal.
The recording of Kojs' “Air” for fujara and electronics
can be found on the Computer Music Journal DVD 2007. The score of
“Concealed” for flute and electronics was published in
SCI Journal of Music Scores, 2008. Since December 2007, Mr. Kojs has
organized a monthly series "12 Nights of Computer Music and Art"
at Harold Golen Gallery in Miami, FL (http://www.kojs.net/12Nights.html).
The concerts featured works of more than 60 composers and artists,
culminating in an International Kaiju Science Fiction Music and Performance
Competition. Both Miami Herald and New Times Miami wrote about the
series as "new, stimulating and much needed."
Dustin
Thompson
Dustin Thompson
is currently in the Film & Video and Integrated Media MFA Programs
at the California Institute of the Arts. He graduated from the University
of Virginia as an Echols Scholar in 2006 with an interdisciplinary
major in film directing, cinematography, photography, and interactive
multimedia. At UVA he received the Harrison Undergraduate Research
Award for an Ethno-photographic Study of Contemporary Italian Culture
in Rome, Italy.
Signal Ruins is his second interactive multimedia association with
Matthew Burtner, his first being Winter Raven, in which he was the
head of documentation and the performance videography while also
performing in the percussion ensemble. Dustin was the DVD author
of Morgan Ashcom’s Mammoth Media .1MM skate video distributed
by Empire Distribution. Dustin has also worked with 16mm and Super
8mm formats as well as all photography methods ranging from digital
to 35mm to large format cameras. His work has been presented at
the Charlottesville Fringe Festival and the University of Virginia’s
Salmagundi and Final Cut Film Festivals. In addition, he has performed
drums and recorded with two rock bands, DFBI and ThoroughFare, and
in this context he has performed numerous shows in Virginia.
MICE (Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble) is an innovative sonic
arts ensemble using networked computers and interactive acoustics.
MICE was created by Matthew Burtner in 2001 as an interactive media
programming, composition and performance laboratory. The group has
performed at venues such as Symphony Space in New York City, The
Delaware Center for the Arts, Technosonics Festival, club MUSE,
Live Arts Theatre, the University of Washington Bothell, Charlottesville’s
Fringe Festival, the Digitalis Under the Stars Festival, UVA’s
Old Cabell Hall, and the Most Significant Bytes Festival. In 2008
MICE received a grant /fellowship from the UVA Provost’s T+TI
Program. During the 2009 MICE World Tour, sponsored by Semester
at Sea, MICE performed in the Atlantic Ocean, Equatorial Gabon,
Namibia, South Africa, the Indian Ocean, India, Singapore, Thailand,
China, Japan, the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii and Panama.
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