You were hoping to attend an experimental computer music concert at UW’s Meany Hall in May, but now you’re scheduled to be at Stanford University in Palo Alto that day.

No problem. You can attend the same concert there.

“The concert will be taking place between the two sites*, using Internet 2 technology,” explains Richard Karpen, UW professor of music and director of CARTAH (Center for the Advancement of Research Technology in the Arts and Humanities), which is co-sponsoring the event. “The speed of Internet 2 opens up possibilities we wouldn’t have considered a few years ago.”

	RIchard Karpen

On each stage there will be a Disklavier—a grand piano that can be played traditionally or by computer. Other instruments, such as trombones and violins, will be connected to computers in both cities via microphones. The results are certain to be intriguing.

“We can have pianists in the two cities perform a piece composed for four hands that is typically played on one piano,” says Karpen. “Or we can have a trombonist play into a microphone in one city, leading the Disklavier to play in the other city. Or we can program a computer in one city to respond to what the trombone is doing in the other. We envision many different kinds of interaction happening between the two locations.”

Performers on each stage will be projected in the other venue using digital high definition television. The plan is to overlay the images, so the musicians appear to be playing on the same stage.

If this all sounds rather ambitious, it is. “A concert like this has never been done before at this level, with this amount of information passing back and forth between two locations,” admits Karpen. “We’re looking at this as a public experiment in using new technologies. Some things won’t work. But a lot will and it is going to be exciting.”

What does Karpen call this cutting-edge music, in which technology plays a central role? Twenty-first century classical music.

“To me, classical music is actually a radical tradition,” he explains. “If you look at the past thousand years of classical music, there is a great deal of change. Someone had to invent opera, for example. They had to figure out how to do it and what it meant and why it was powerful. Composers are always inventing new things.”

What remains the same—and motivates Karpen—is process of exploration. “At the bottom of everything artists do is a desire to create new knowledge and new ways of exploring the inner and outer world,” says Karpen. “New technologies simply help us develop a broader palette to tell and show what we’ve found in our artistic journeys.”

*Editor's note: After this article was published in A&S Perspectives in March, logistical problems led the UW to postpone the two-location event until next year. There will still be a computer concert on May 24 in Meany Hall.

[Winter 2000 - Table of Contents]