Ryan Carter : Programming Interactive Musical Systems with RTcmix
Date:
Wed, 04/09/2014 - 5:15pm - 7:00pm
Location:
CCRMA Classroom, The Knoll 2nd floor, Rm 217
Event Type:
Colloquium Recent work in RTcmix (an open-source digital signal processing and sound synthesis language implemented in C/C++) facilitates flexible and interactive audio integration for a variety of applications. Composer and programmer Ryan Carter will present two recent projects: iMonkeypants (an iOS app album of algorithmically generated, interactive compositions) and Headless Monkey Attack (an alternately solo or collaborative performance project for video game controller and improvising musicians).
iMonkeypants (for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch and available on the App Store) is a collection of five electronic compositions in which every sound is synthesized in real time from code written in RTcmix. This code incorporates data from the accelerometer of the device, allowing the listener to control aspects of the sound through motion. iMonkeypants links to iRTcmix, a library developed by Brad Garton and Damon Holzborn, which fully encapsulates the RTcmix language and includes Objective-C classes for communicating with the audio engine. With iRTcmix, developers can add sophisticated interactive audio to iOS apps with minimal code.
Headless Monkey Attack is a solo or collaborative electronic (and sometimes also acoustic) performance project. At its core, Headless Monkey Attack performs music synthesized in real time from code (also written in RTcmix), which is embedded in Max/MSP using the rtcmix~ object. The code responds to input from a video game controller (the “Gametrak”), which features two retractable tethers that can be pulled in any direction. Because iRTcmix and rtcmix~ both fully encapsulate the RTcmix language, code written for one environment can easily be ported to the other, bridging iOS development and laptop performance.
BIO:
Ryan Carter is a composer of music for instruments, voices, and computers. Praised by the New York Times as "imaginative...like, say, a Martian dance party," Ryan's music has been performed throughout Europe and North America by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Nieuw Ensemble, the JACK Quartet, the Argento Chamber Ensemble, NOW Ensemble, and many others. Ryan has received commissions from Carnegie Hall, Present Music, The Milwaukee Children's Choir, the MATA Festival, the Metropolis Ensemble, the Princeton Laptop Orchestra, and the Calder Quartet, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, the American Composers Forum, and Meet the Composer. Ryan has been awarded the Lee Ettelson Award, the Aaron Copland Award, the National Association of Composers/USA Composer's Competition, the Left Coast Composition Contest, and the Publikumspreis at the Heidelberg Spring Festival. Ryan was also a finalist for the 2005 Gaudeamus Prize and was chosen as one of NPR and Q2's favorite "100 Composers Under 40."
In addition to composing acoustic music, Ryan is an avid computer musician and programmer. His iMonkeypants app (available for download on the App Store) is an album of algorithmically generated, listener-interactive electronica. Ryan also serves on the Board of Directors of SEAMUS (the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States).
Raised in Wisconsin, Ryan holds degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and SUNY - Stony Brook, where his primary teachers included Richard Hoffmann and Daniel Weymouth. After finishing his Master's, Ryan spent a year studying with Louis Andriessen and Gilius van Bergeijk at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague (the Netherlands) and is currently completing a PhD at New York University, where he has worked with Elizabeth Hoffman and Matthias Pintscher. Ryan has pursued additional studies at the Computer Music Center at Columbia University with Brad Garton and Miller Puckette. Ryan lives mostly in New York City and sometimes in Cleveland, Ohio.
Open to the Public