Sound Kitchen cooks up music electronically

Believe it or not, electronic music can get even more experimental than Radiohead — and that music will find a home on Princeton's campus this weekend.

Listening in the Sound Kitchen, a festival celebrating the world of electronic, electro-acoustic, and computer-generated music, will run from today through Saturday and will include musical performances and panel discussions.

The event — organized by doctoral candidate Tae Hong Park and USG social chair Christoph Geiseler '04 — will explore the social and cultural ramifications of this genre of art and will attempt to bring recognition to the music and the artists who create it, Park said.

The festival features composers, musicians, scientists, scholars and music enthusiasts from all over the U.S. and world, including Princeton, Brown University, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, the Korean National University of Arts, the University of California-San Diego, Austria, and Germany.

Concrete definitions of electronic, electro-acoustic, and computer-generated music are difficult to pin down with words, Park and Geiseler said, because of the depth of the genre and the average person's unfamiliarity with it.

"It's hard to define because it entails so much," said Geiseler. "It includes everything digital and acoustic."

The difficulty of expressing the essence of this music is a problem that the festival is helping to solve, Geiseler said. Listening in the Sound Kitchen seeks to answer the question "What is electronic music?" and to discuss the music's aesthetics and technology.

Park, a composer who takes part in the University's music composition program, explained that in this form of art, everything is electronic. Some pieces are produced completely electronically — for example, music produced by typing on a laptop computer — while other pieces consist of more traditional acoustic music that is electronically enhanced.

Acknowledging that "the average Joe" would be unaccustomed to the music featured in the festival, which is "not standard rock band or classical Western music," Park said he hopes curious students and community members will attend and gain familiarity with and appreciation for the world of electronic music.

Another goal of the festival is to give artists a chance to showcase their talents and to "bring together people who love this field of music," Park said, adding that electronic music is not confined solely to the academic world, but it is probably most prominent there.

Pauline Oliveros, a celebrated performer who currently serves as a music professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and as a composer in residence at Mills College, will be the keynote speaker. Oliveros, who has been credited with founding modern meditative music, will deliver an address entitled "Sounding from the Margins: A Hyperlink" at 5 p.m. on Friday in McCosh 10. An interview with Oliveros appeared in the Arts section of this issue of The Daily Princetonian.

In addition to the keynote address, Listening in the Sound Kitchen will feature seven concerts, three panel discussions, and two other presentations. Several installations of musical experiences created by different artists will also take place in the Music Department over the course of the three-day festival.

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Listening in the Sound Kitchen made its debut in 2001 as a two-day festival organized solely by Park. He said he hopes the festival will become an annual occurrence. This year, Park and Geiseler began preparing in April.

Park handled the task of coordinating events and inviting performers, while Geiseler acted as an undergraduate liaison and helped secure funding for the festival, which is sponsored by the Department of Music, the Department of Computer Science, the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life, the Undergraduate Student Government, the Graduate Student Government, the Modern Improvisational Music Association and the Stella Art Club.

Geiseler, himself a guitarist and DJ, met Park two years ago when they performed together as part of another student's senior thesis. The two musicians' shared love of music, particularly electronic, led to their interest in organizing Listening in the Sound Kitchen.

All the events in the festival are free and open to the public. The Modern Improvisational Music Association, a student organization headed by Geiseler, will be offering a streaming webcast of the festival on its website.