The Music of Late Faculty Mark Trayle at REDCAT

Mark Trayle performing at Santa Monica Museum of Art, 2014 | Image courtesy of REDCAT.

It’s been nearly one year since longtime CalArts faculty member Mark Trayle passed away. Trayle, a sound artist and composer had served as Co-Chair to the Herb Alpert School of Music at CalArts’ Composition Program, and was integral in the development of the Experimental Sound Practices Program.

To celebrate his musical legacy and contributions to CalArts, the Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater (REDCAT) will present an evening of his music on Saturday (Dec. 3) performed by the Hub and Bitpanic, two electronic music collectives comprised of Trayle’s friends and colleagues and former students, respectively.

From REDCAT’s event listing:

Co-founded by Trayle in 1986, The Hub emerged out of the Mills College scene to become the most influential improvising electronic ensemble since Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV). Known for using networked electronic and digital systems of its own devising, the Bay Area group currently consists of John Bischoff, Chris Brown, Tim Perkis, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Phil Stone and Matt Ingalls. Adding to the computer music lineage pioneered by The Hub is the recently formed collective Bitpanic. Based in Los Angeles, it comprises Casey Anderson (Music MFA 09), Scott Cazan (Music MFA 09), Clay Chaplin (faculty), David Paha (Music MFA 14) and Stephanie Smith (Music MFA 11)—all one-time students of Trayle at CalArts.

In a letter to the CalArts community at the time of his passing, David Rosenboom, Dean of the Herb Alpert School of Music, wrote that Trayle was devoted to his students, and had the ability to lead “each emerging artist carefully through complex labyrinths of circuitry, software and musical forms, while always insuring they stay mindful of the artistic motivations that had drawn them to their journeys in the first place.”

In addition to his work as an educator, Rosenboom says Tayle was “famous for his use of electronic drawing tablets as sound controllers and for his pieces that were made from data stored on credit cards. [He was] characteristically sensitive, engaging and sonically enlightening.”