(Excerpt) Xinghai Conservatory Electronic Ensemble Spring 2022 Concert

This is the third year (spring semester) in which Xinghai Conservatory's Modern Music and Theater College has offered an Electronic Ensemble elective, but, because of COVID, the first time we have held an actual concert. It is an exercise in group composition and group improvisation, with a healthy dose of John Cage in the mix. (From John Cage, we take the idea that the composer's job is to create a situation in which beautiful things can happen.) Students designed the sounds by themselves, and we worked together to add real-time control for live performance. The concert followed a loose outline but most of the details were improvised. The students listened to each other well! So the musical energy has an organic ebb and flow. The style turned out to be mainly dark-ambient drones and textures.