Electronic Revolution

By Marques Lyons

Most students see computers and music as two totally different genres. Some thought it would be impossible to collaborate the two.

However, Christopher Dobrian, assistant professor in the School of the Arts, has brought together these two disciplines in a very interesting and exciting way.

In 1997, he established the Gassman Electronic Music Series (GEMS), a series that is designed to present the finest performers in computer music to the UCI community. Now, in its second year, the series promises to be even bigger and better.

Nestled inside the School of the Arts, the GEMS series includes events such as lectures, concerts, master classes, demonstrations and panel discussions. As part of the event, Dobrian plans to showcase many exciting new things.

UCI may look forward to artists such as Sylvia Pengilly, who will combine audio and visual presentation, and Pedro Eustache, a virtuostic flute player, who will demonstrate the interaction of instruments and computers.

One event, in the very near future, is the showing of “Talk to Me.” This machine is a computer installation that will include animation, sculptural design and interactive audio processing.

This project is a collaboration of Dobrian, UCI Professor Douglass-Scott Goheen and Daniel Beck.

“The way it works is people will talk to the machine and it will take those sounds and create animation on a screen and process the speech to interactively ‘talk’ to the audience,” Dobrian said.

“Talk to Me” will be featured at the music department concert on November 17, as part of the ArtsWeek series.

In what’s already been a highlight of the series, Pamela Z performed for the students this past Wednesday. Pamela Z is a San Francisco based performer who displayed her “instrument” the BodySynth.

The BodySynth is an exciting thing to watch. With electronic sensors attached to specific muscles of her body, Pamela can move parts of her body and make interesting rhythmic sounds through a wireless remote that is attached to a sampling kit.

Pamela Z spoke briefly about her computer music background.

“I’ve been involved since I was a child. I have [had] some of this equipment for 15 or 16 years,” Pamela said.

When asked where some of her inspirations come from, she shared an interesting story.

“I once wrote a piece based upon the sound of my printer,” Pamela admitted with a smile on her face.

“I would just start singing along with the sound it made and I turned it into a composition.”

Krissy Duperron, UCI women’s basketball player, thoroughly enjoyed the performance.

“It was amazing what she was able to do with her body,” Duperron said. “To be able to just move your body and make music was a fun thing to watch.”

Dobrian, after the performance, was also very pleased.

“It’s amazing what she could do with [so] little equipment,” Dobrian said.

The GEMS series will continue until the end of the school year.

Pamala Z’s exciting performance gives a bright picture of what is to come for the series and shows what wonderful things can come out of the marriage of computers, music and the human spirit.