Graph Theory

Turbulence Commission: Graph Theory by Jason Freeman, with Patricia Reed and Maja Cerar :: [needs Macromedia Flash Player plugin; Internet Explorer 5+, Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0+, or Safari 1.0+]

"Graph Theory" seeks to connect composition, listening, and concert performance by coupling an acoustic work for solo violin or solo cello to an interactive web site. On the web site, users navigate among sixty-one short, looping musical fragments to create their own unique path through the composition. The navigation choices which users make affect future concert performances of the work. Before each performance, the soloist prints out a new copy of the score from the web site. That score presents her with a fixed path through the piece; the order of the fragments is influenced by the decisions that recent web site visitors have made.

"Graph Theory" is a 2006 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from The Greenwall Foundation.

BIOGRAPHIES

JASON FREEMAN'S works break down conventional barriers between composers, performers, and listeners, using new technology and unconventional notation to turn audiences and musicians into compositional collaborators. His music has been performed by the American Composers Orchestra, Speculum Musicae, the So Percussion Group, the Nieuw Ensemble, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, and Evan Ziporyn; and his interactive installations and software art have been exhibited at the Lincoln Center Festival, the Boston CyberArts Festival, and the Transmediale Festival and featured in the New York Times and on National Public Radio. N.A.G. (Network Auralization for Gnutella) (2003), a commission from Turbulence.org, was described by Billboard as "an example of the web's mind-expanding possibilities." Freeman received his B.A. in music from Yale University and his M.A. and D.M.A. in composition from Columbia University. He is currently an assistant professor of music at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

PATRICIA REED (1977, Ottawa, Canada) completed her studies in Studio Arts at Concordia University, Montreal (1999). In 2001-02 she attended the residency program of CCA Kitakyushu, Japan; in 2003 she relocated to Europe, through an artists' residency in Prague and Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart (2003-4, 05). While maintaining an active artistic practice, she also works as a designer with focus on developing interfaces and means of visualizing scientific research, thereby making accessible complex information to a broader audience. Recent design projects include the development of information cartography/exhibition architecture for The Gallery of Research, Vienna (2005) and a sociological web 'diorama', Paris:Ville Invisible, with Bruno Latour (2004) which will be featured in an exhibition at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2007). Graph Theory is Reed's first collaborative work within the field of musical composition. She currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

MAJA CERAR is a concert violinist who studied with Aida Stucki- Piraccini in Zurich and with Dorothy DeLay in New York and is currently completing her Ph.D in Historical Musicology at Columbia University. She frequently works with composers, has premiered numerous works written for her, and has been coached by Beat Furrer and Gyorgy Kurtag. Since her debut in the Zurich Tonhalle in 1991 she has played as a soloist with orchestras in Europe, given recitals with distinguished artists on international tours (Paris, Rome, Washington, Chicago, New York) as well as at festivals in Europe (including the Davos "Young Artists in Concert," the Gidon Kremer Lockenhaus Festival, the ISCM World Music Days and the ICMC Barcelona), America (Aspen, Vermont, Santa Fe, San Diego), and Asia.