MIR @ Berkeley presents:

Matthew Goodheart: Re-embodied Sound and its Implications

Among the recently emerging artistic practices at the interface between DIY Culture and computer-assisted music composition and installation art, “Re-embodied Sound” has grown up around recently available and inexpensive “sound-exciter” transducer technologies, designed to turn whatever surface they attach to into a loudspeaker. At the root of these practices is a re-examination of the physicality of sound sources and their reproduction. Composer and sound artist Matthew Goodheart will present several of his recent projects in the context of this broader cultural artistic stream, and discuss specific instrument analysis techniques and generative algorithms that form the basis of his work.

Bio
A native San Franciscan, Matthew Goodheart has an international reputation as an improviser, composer, and sound artist. Following an early career as a free-jazz pianist, he has created a wide spectrum of works that explore the relationships among performer, instrument, and listener. His work ranges from large-scale microtonal compositions to open improvisations and immersive sound installations – all unified by the analytic techniques and performative methodologies he has developed to bring forth the unique and subtle acoustic properties of individual musical instruments. Goodheart’s approach results in a “generative foundation” for exploring issues of perception, technology, cultural ritual, and the psycho-physical impact of acoustic phenomena.

His work has been featured throughout the US, Canada, and Europe in such festivals as MaerzMusik, The International Spectral Music Festival, June in Buffalo, Klappsthulfest, Jazz Ao Centro, The Illuminations New Music & Arts Festival, and many others. He has performed and recorded with such luminaries as Wadada Leo Smith, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, Glenn Spearman, Gianni Gebbia, Vladimir Tarasov, Jack Wright, and Cecil Taylor, and works frequently with the new music ensemble sfSoundGroup. He was recently Fulbright scholar in Prague, writing new music for the quartertone pianos created for Alois Hába in the 1920s, and was awarded the 2014 Berlin Prize in Music Composition. He currently a lecturer at U.C. Berkeley, and will begin a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Columbia University in the Fall.