October 11, 2015 | Leave a comment The last two weeks have been pretty busy. In one fell swoop, I drove (yes, from Lansing) to the International Computer Music Conference (yes, in Texas) and then to the Electro-Acoustic Barn Dance (yes Virginia, it was in… well… Virginia…). Great conferences, lot of great pieces, great people, and great post-concert discussions of aesthetics/compositional techniques/orchestration/coding (pronounced “micro-brews”). And on the 8th, I was honored to have two pieces premiered at the Wharton Center for the Performing Arts as a part of the 50th anniversary of particle physics at MSU, including both the Cyclotron and the FRIB (both of which I got to tour!). The two pieces that I composed for the event were the direct result of discussions with the physicists at MSU, and with fellow composers Mark Sullivan and Matt Schoendorff. And while I would have loved more time to wrap my head around some of the concepts we discussed (only had a month to write these!), it was still really interesting to see how much of an overlap there is between the two disciplines. And while I may have taken the easy way out by going granular (cause, particles), it’s amazing to see what can happen when people from different disciplines talk to each other and bounce ideas about. The results, below, are pretty amazing and encouraging. I’m definitely looking forward to future interdisciplinary collaborations, and am strongly recommending that other composers do similar things as well. At worst, you have an interesting jumping off point to use in creating a piece. At best, you have a great way to explore things previously unheard in music and definitely deserving of such a treatment. But, rather than just rambling on, here’s some music! https://www.facebook.com/mark.sullivan.52012/videos/10153758519869954/ https://www.facebook.com/mark.sullivan.52012/videos/10153759502669954/ https://www.facebook.com/mark.sullivan.52012/videos/10153759961284954/ https://soundcloud.com/bfuhrman/mind-the-gaps