The annual New Music + Technology Festival at Virginia Tech begins Tuesday.
Moss Arts Center and Virginia Tech’s Creativity and Innovation District are hosting the five-day event in several venues, including the Cube and the Sandbox. All shows are free, but registration is required.
The university’s own Linux-based laptop band, L2Ork, will kick off the festival at 7 p.m. in the Creativity and Innovation District’s lobby, with Tech-created projections behind them and a collaboration with an Argentenian act, UNTREF.
Other performances include:
- An original piece for live drum and spatial audio by Otu Kojo, an African drummer in residence with the School of Performing Arts, and Charles Nichols, associate professor of composition, creative technologies. It’s among the events set for Wednesday at the Cube.
- Percussion associate professor Annie Stevens and adjunct dance professor Rachel Rugh will perform “Memory Palace,” also on Wednesday at the Cube.
- Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) is set for Thursday at the Cube. SEAMUS is the United States’ premier electro-acoustic association, and this is its 40th anniversary, according to festival director Kyle Hutchins.
- Virginia Tech on Friday launches the first ArtX Presents, at the Cube. It’s a collaboration with McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology. ArtX stands for art, research and technology exchange, according to the university.
- The festival moves to the Moss’ Sandbox studio to conclude on Saturday with four performances of “Epiphany Machine.” College of Architecture, Arts and Design faculty members Scotty Hardwig and Zack Duer, and Julia Basso, an assistant professor of behavioral and community science, created the work. The performances are meant to investigate the relationship between movement and brain activity by using wearable biometrics, according to the university.
See the schedule, reserve tickets and read more at /sopa.vt.edu.
