Graduate Student News

Expressive Machines Musical Instruments (EMMI, www.expressivemachines.com) cofounders Troy Rogers, Steven Kemper, and Scott Barton completed their second music robot and wrote two new compositions for MADI (Multi-mallet Automatic Drumming Instrument) and their first robot, PAM. The robots played various gigs including dates on the VCCM’s 20th Anniversary Tour, an appearance at the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at GA Tech (garnering coverage by Wired), and the Virginia FIRST robotics competition in Richmond. Future dates include NIME and ICMC conferences this summer.

Aurie Hsu received an honorable mention in the "2009 IAWM (International Alliance of Women in Music) Search for New Music Competition."  Her composition, mosaic for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and prepared piano, was premiered at UVA during the Da Capo Chamber Players residency in 2008.

Wendy Hsu received the Graduate Fellowship in Digital Humanities for spring 2010. Her dissertation blog YellowBuzz.org was featured in the Pacific Citizen biweekly and on the Boston Progress Radio. She had a paper presented at the Society of American Music meeting. In July, she will present at the International Association for the Study of Popular Study in Liverpool, UK. This summer, Wendy will perform with her trio Pinko Communoids at the Feminist Theory and Music conference at UNC-Greensboro; and with her duo at the Queering Sound Festival in Washington DC.

Matt Jones will present a paper entitled "Back to the Garden: Technology, Socio-Ecological Critique, and the Music of Joni Mitchell" at the Feminist Theory and Music 10 Conference: Improvising and Galvanizing held May 27-31 2009 at UNC Greensboro.

Elizabeth Lindau presented her work on Sonic Youth at the March meeting of the Society for American Music in Denver, Colorado.

Loren Ludwig, a Phd candidate in critical and comparative studies in music, will be performing at the Boston Early Music Festival in June and at the Viola da Gamba Society of America annual Conclave in Chicago in July with his new viola da gamba quartet, quaver. quaver (which is British English for "eighth note") is made up of four promising young American viol players and seeks "to play exciting music, new and old, in ways that engage the eclectic sensibilities of the iPod era." quaver can be heard at www.quaver.org.

Troy Rogers received a Fulbright grant and will spend the 2009-10 academic year in Ghent, Belgium studying and collaborating with Dr. Godfried-Willem Raes and his colleagues at the Logos Foundation (www.logosfoundation.org) and the Hogeschool Gent.  The Logos Foundation is home to the M&M ensemble, the world's most advanced and extensive robot orchestra. Troy's project has three components: composing for the robot orchestra, apprenticing with Raes and his colleagues, and collaborating with them on a new robotic vocal tract instrument.

This Spring semester saw several performances of Lanier Sammons' work. Highlights included the premiere of "Three Winters," commissioned by the Senior Flute Choir of the Youth Orchestra of Charlottesville-Albemarle; the display of his interactive installation piece "Panta Rhei," created with Peter Traub, at the Spark Festival in Minneapolis; the premiere of a new installation, "Step in, step out" at McGuffey Art Center; and the performance of an arrangement of "Each" by the UVa New Music Ensemble.