On Dec. 2, composition students from the Experimental Sound Practices (ESP) program at The Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts presented a concert of newly minted experimental pieces at Roy O. Disney Concert Hall. The works were the fruits of a semester’s-worth of labor.
The concert’s oblique description—”MUSIC: On the 99th anniversary of the patenting of the safety razor: mostly digital music for salt, particles, crystals & winkels”—appropriately described the diversity of sounds from the multimedia compositions or custom-built musical interfaces.
“[It was] definitely one of the better ESP nights of the last couple of years,” said faculty member Mark Trayle, who co-chairs the composition department. “Although not all the students are in the ESP program, it’s a pretty good representation of the diversity of that program.”
The above video montage documents four excerpts from the ESP concert.