Spark Festival of Electronic
Music and Art 2006
February 22 - 26, 2006: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
Douglas Geers, Director
J. Anthony Allen, Assistant Director
Noel Zahler , Director of the School of Music
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Spark Radio is now live. Tune in Here. Spark Radio is curated by Abinadi Meza Special programs curated by: Laura Hoyt of Mysterious Object, Sal Randolph of Opsound, and Tom Roe of free103point9.org |
Special Guests for 2006:
Alvin Lucier
Lucier has pioneered many areas of music composition and performance, including the notation of performers' physical gestures, the use of brain waves in live performance, the generation of visual imagery by sound in vibrating media...more...Scanner/Robin Rimbaud + free103point9
British artist Robin Rimbaud - traverses the experimental terrain between sound, space, image and form, creating absorbing, multi-layered sound pieces that twist technology in unconventional ways. ...more...Brian Sacawa, saxophone
Praised by The New York Times as "an inventive musician," "fresh and surprising," and "vividly lyrical," saxophonist Brian Sacawa (born 1977) has firmly established himself as an important contemporary voice for his instrument. A winner of awards for solo performance from both national and international competitions, ...more...Maja Cerar, violin
Critics have consistently praised Maja Cerar as a "magnificent violinist" with "breathtaking technique" and "a completely natural musicality," an artist who "listens to her inner self." International media enthusiastically cover her concerts, Compact Disk releases, television appearances and radio recordings. ...more...Randy Jones
Randy Jones is a musician and software designer whose current work focuses on interrelated sounds and images. He has spent the past eight years working ...more...Ben Nevile
Ben Neville designs new ways to make and perform house music with computers...more...Electropolis
Electropolis will perform one of their free-wheeling, gravity-defying sets, and will also perform the soundtrack to the 1920 silent film ...more...Special Events for 2006:
Venue Detail
The Spark festival is spreading out to new venues this year. Including:- Ultan Recital Hall
- Ferguson Hall
- Ted Mann Concert Hall
- Southern Theatre
- Weisman Museum of Art
- Nomad World Pub
- Coffman Memorial Union/The Whole
- Regis Center for Art/InFlux
- And more.
Concerts
Over 15 concerts, 5 paper sessions, and 4 featured lectures are scheduled, including artists and presenters from all over the world.Spark NightLife
One of the many new things this year is the addition of "Spark NightLife" at the Nomad World Pub. Every night of the festival from 10pm to 1am (and later) we will take over the Nomad for a series of specially selected "club music works," curated by JP Hungelmann.Special Panel Session: Rave Culture Timeline
Led by Josh Slivken, this panel session will bring in DJs and promotors from the rave scene, both young and old, to discus the rise and fall of the culture surrounding raves.Special Presentations
In addition to the panel session, artists from all over the world will present their work and research. Events will include special presentations by Alvin Lucier and Scanner about their work, JP Hungelmann and friends on the inner-workings of net recording labels, Ben Nevile and Randy Jones about new frontiers in working with Max/MSP/Jitter, and more.Submission Notification
Email notifications of selected works have been sent for most pieces. If you have not heard from us, please be patient while we finalize some of the events. We had nearly 650 submissions, and we are very excited about the enthusiasm of the community towards the Spark Festival, as well as the high quality of the submissions. If you have not heard from us regarding your submission by December 15, please email us. If you submitted more than one work, you should receive a seperate email for each submission.News and Information:
Paper Template Available
The template for papers is now available. Please send your papers to sparkfst@umn.edu by January 1, 2006. Please send papers in MS Word format. Additionally, please send all images as seperate files in either TIFF (preferred) or JPEG format.The paper template can be downloaded Here.