[dorkbotatl-announce] Wed 1/16 @ 7 pm: dorkbot art and technology forum featuring Nick Didkovsky

[Jason Freeman]

The Atlanta chapter of dorkbot, the international forum dedicated to  
art, technology, and "people doing strange things with electricity,"  
holds its first meeting of 2008 next Wednesday, January 16th, at 7 pm,  
in the Couch Building (room 207) at Georgia Tech.

More information about dorkbot, including directions, is available at:
http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotatl/

This meeting features composer, guitarist, and software programmer  
NICK DIDKOVSKY presenting  MetaSection Piece Generator, a program that  
composes music for live ensemble. Nick will discuss and demonstrate  
his unique approach to algorithmic composition, joining us via  
videoconference from New York.

Nick Didkovsky is a guitarist, composer, and software programmer. In  
1983, he founded the avant-rock septet Doctor Nerve. He presently  
resides in New York City, where he composes, creates music software,  
and teaches computer music composition. He is the principle author of  
the computer music language Java Music Specification Language and uses  
it to teach at New York University and Columbia University. He is  
director of bioinformatics for the Gensat project at The Rockefeller  
University.

Didkovsky’s work with Doctor Nerve joins the furious energy of rock  
with intricate composition, some of which finds its origins in rich  
software systems of his own design. His non-didactic approach to  
combining human and machine creativity is his unique fingerprint in a  
musical world that pushes the boundaries of rock music, algorithmic  
composition, and contemporary music.

Didkovsky has also composed music for Bang On A Can All-Stars,  
Meridian Arts Ensemble, Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, California EAR  
Unit, New Century Players, Either/Or, ARTE Quartett, Downtown  
Ensemble, and others. His works are available on CD and online; recent  
releases include “Ice Cream Time” for ARTE Sax Quartett, Tom Dimuzio,  
and Didkovsky (New World Records 80667), “Tube Mouth Bow String, music  
for electric guitar, computer, live electronics, and string  
quartet” (Pogus Productions 21042-2), and “Swim This – Gerry  
Hemingway, Michael Lytle, and Nick Didkovsky”, released on his own  
Punos Music label.

With Phil Burk, Didkovsky created JMSL (Java Music Specification  
Language), a language for computer music composition written in the  
Java programming language. JMSL was premiered at Circuits: The  
Governor’s Conference on Arts and Technology, in Palisades, NY in  
March, 1998. In 2003, Minnesota Public Radio commissioned a JMSL  
version of Henry Cowell & Leon Theremin’s historical electronic music  
instrument, the Rhythmicon (1930), which can be performed at www.musicmavericks.org/rhythmicon 
. Didkovsky recently premiered a new composition for four tabletop  
electric guitarists following a real-time score generated by JMSL, at  
the Music in the Global Village conference in Budapest, which featured  
Keith Rowe, Hans Tammen, Erhard Hirt, and Didkovsky.

His online interactive musical works are available at  
www.punosmusic.com . Pieces include “Music for Hot Spots” where the  
user is instructed to “Put on your headphones, turn on your laptop's  
mic, and listen. Music for Hotspots dramatically alters the sound of  
your environment.”

On February 12th, Georgia Tech's ensemble-in-residence, Sonic  
Generator, will perform Didkovsky's Rain on a Frail Cutie. More  
information on that concert is available at http://www.sonicgenerator.gatech.edu

The Atlanta chapter of Dorkbot is sponsored by the Music Department in  
the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech.