As part of their West Coast tour composer and laptop performer Neil Rolnick will play some of his recent solo work and improvisations, as well as a new piece for piano and computer, featuring New York piano Diva Kathleen Supové. Composer Neil Rolnick pioneered in the use of computers in musical performance, beginning in the late 1970s. Based in New York City since 2002, his music has been receiving increasingly wide recognition and numerous performances both in the US and abroad. Rolnick has often included unexpected and unusual combinations of materials and media in his music. He has performed his music around the world, exploring forms as diverse as digital sampling, interactive multimedia, and acoustic vocal, chamber and orchestral works. Throughout the 1980s and ‘90s he was responsible for the development of the first integrated electronic arts graduate and undergraduate programs in the US, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s iEAR Studios, in Troy, NY. Though much of Rolnick’s work connects music and technology, and is therefore considered in the realm of “experimental” music, his music has always been highly melodic and accessible. Whether working with electronic sounds, acoustic ensembles, or combinations of the two, his music has been characterized by critics as “sophisticated,” “hummable and engaging,” and as having “good senses of showmanship and humor.”
Kathleen Supové is one of America's most acclaimed and versatile contemporary music pianists, known for continually redefining what a pianist/keyboardist/performance artist is, in today's world. After winning top prizes in the Gaudeamus International Competition for Interpretation of Contemporary Music, she began her career as a guest artist at the prestigious Darmstadt Festival in Germany. In May, 2012, Supové received the John Cage Award from ASCAP for “the artistry and passion with which she performs, commissions, records, and champions the music of our time.” Recent projects include recording the complete PIANO MINIATURES by Mohammed Fairouz, DIGITAL DEBUSSY, the piano works/ghost pieces of Morton Subotnick, and performances throughout the UK of URBAN BIRDS by Arlene Sierra, as part of Britain’s New Music Biennial (available on iTunes). In June 2013, she and SIDEBAND, The Princeton Laptop Orchestra performed and gave a GOOGLE TALK at their headquarters in Chelsea, NYC. In March 2014, she premiered Randall Woolf’s Kickboxing Concerto, BATTERY in NYC, followed immediately by a guest artist residency at this year’s SEAMUS Conference at Wesleyan University.