Spring 2026 Instruments and Electronics, Concert 2

Spring 2026 Instruments and Electronics, Concert 2 - Program Notes

This concert was held in Ford-Crawford Hall on March 25, 2026 at 7 pm.

Zhiyang Zhang: Rainy Day

The lyrics of The Rainy Day are drawn from the first stanza of the poem of the same name by 19th-century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

In addition to incorporating pre-recorded audio, this work also employs real-time audio feedback technology. Beyond applying delay and playback to the baritone performer’s voice, parameters such as pitch and dynamics are captured and interact with the electronic music in various ways, creating a dynamic and responsive sonic environment.

Jeremy Makkonen: Chant Fragments

Chant Fragments is a proof of concept for a larger project that will incorporate elements of the live processing and improvisations performed here. I later plan to add more live processing textures, fixed media components, and a graphic score element as I work to expand and polish this piece.

Baijin Liu: Yo

Yo is an interactive work developed in Max that uses microphone input to control a drum sampler in real time. The system analyzes features of incoming sound, including granularity, roughness, and amplitude, and maps these values onto playback parameters. As a result, variations in sound continuously reshape rhythmic and timbral behavior. This interactive layer operates alongside a fixed media component, creating a dialogue between real-time transformation and precomposed material. Rather than following a fixed form, the work functions as an open system in which sound emerges through the interaction of input, system response, and fixed media.

Jiayu Wu: South, south, west

Can a prosthetic arm be experienced as a two-lane highway?
Can someone who has never left his hometown imagine the snow in Colorado?

Inspired by a story by Sarah Pinsker, this piece follows a young man who, after losing his arm and receiving a neural-controlled prosthetic, chooses not to perceive it as a machine, but as something open, distant, and his own.

Eli Hocking: Wind through trees

If the trees are the earth’s lungs, what does the earth feel when we cut them down? How would it feel to have your lungs extracted? Sit in this deep empathy.