Wii remotes and other game controllers will become instruments at the Computer Music Recital on at 8 p.m. Sunday in Auer Hall.
The recital, presented by the Center for Electronic and Computer Music, will feature music from students, current professors and incoming professor Chi Wang, who occasionally uses Wii remotes for her music.
“She’s really interested in these different ways of controlling the sound and having a performance practice that has connections to classical performance in the way that she uses gestures,” Associate Professor of Music John Gibson said. “It’s also associated with a really different kind of sound world and a different way to generate the sound.”
Gibson said the center holds recitals at the end of each semester. However, he said this recital is special not only because of Wang’s performance, but because this will be Jeffrey Hass’s final recital with the center. Hass has been the center’s director for more than 30 years.
This fall Gibson will become the new director of the center, which has been around since the mid-1960s. With the addition of Wang to the faculty, Gibson said the center will begin incorporating new types of electronic and computer music, which is different from its typical acoustic instrumental pieces with computer engagement.
Gibson said he is excited for Wang to bring in people from a variety of musical backgrounds.
“I think we’re really broadening what we do,” Gibson said.
Junior Matt Ridge, a composition major and electronic music minor, said Hass taught him about connecting electronic music to traditional concert music.
“Although we'll all miss ‘Coach’ Hass for his personality and knowledge, I'm excited to see this center begin a new era,” Ridge said in an email.
Ridge will be performing a piece he completed this semester for eight-channel surround sound, which is a configuration of speakers.
“I'm excited to see what all my peers have been creating,” Ridge said. “We always get such a wide variety of media on these recitals, ranging from surround sound fixed media to live processing of instruments and everything in between.”
The recital is free and open to the public.
