Steven Schick, University of California, San Diego, USA: "Slippery rocks: A low-tech percussionist navigates the crosscurrents of music technology"

ABSTRACT:

The enormous explosion of music technology in the late 20th and early 21st century rests on the proposition of exploration, particularly exploration as driven by the imperatives of engineers (or anyone engaged in designing and constructing new technologies) and composers (or anyone engaged in composing for or improvising with these new technologies).  The growth of music technology has largely ignored the critical process of consolidation.  In historical terms "consolidation" has generally meant the creation of a performance practice and has normally been the province of the performer as executant and pedagogue.  Questions arise: In an era of nearly continuous exploration has consolidation lost its value? And, if the codification of explorative tendencies into meaningful performance practice has been muted what role, beyond the simple need to have a body on stage to activate instruments, does a performer have in today's world of music technology?


ABOUT STEVEN SCHICK:

 Steven Schick was born in Iowa and raised in a farming family.  For the past thirty years he has championed contemporary percussion music as a performer and teacher, by commissioning and premiering more than one hundred new works for percussion. Schick is Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego and a Consulting Artist in Percussion at the Manhattan School of Music.  In 2008 Schick received the “Distinguished Teaching Award” from UCSD. He was the percussionist of the Bang on a Can All-Stars of New York City from 1992-2002, and from 2000 to 2004 served as Artistic Director of the Centre International de Percussion de Genève in Geneva, Switzerland. Schick is founder and Artistic Director of the percussion group, “red fish blue fish,” and in 2007 assumed the post of Music Director and conductor of the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus. Steven Schick recently released three important publications.  His book on solo percussion music, “The Percussionist’s Art: Same Bed, Different Dreams,” was published by the University of Rochester Press; his recording of “The Mathematics of Resonant Bodies” by John Luther Adams was released by Cantaloupe Music; and, a 3 CD set of the complete percussion music of Iannis Xenakis, made in collaboration with red fish blue fish, was issued by Mode Records.  

 

VIDEO ARCHIVE - STEVEN SCHICK

 
APA video citation:
Schick, S. (2014, June 12). Slippery rocks: A low-tech percussionist navigates the crosscurrents of music technology -
CIRMMT Distinguished Lectures in the Science and Technology of Music. [Video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7AOZIGP9Ys&feature=youtu.be