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This page contains postings on compositions, performances and press.
On November 13th, 2015, the New York Historical Society Library and Museum presents the opening of "Silicon City, Computer History Made in New York,", highlighting technical innovations in New York City.
It features an exhibit on the Radiodrum, which I have used extensively in various pieces. The Radiodrum was developed at Bell Labs in the 1980s. Prototypes of the Radiodrum will be displayed.
The exhibit is open from November 13, 2015 to April 17, 2016.
Read MoreJust posted a new video here: Descent Into Flatland. Performed by the WestEast Brass Quintet in November 2013. the video includes annotations about the piece.
Also, a video of me playing Impossible Animals on the Zeta violin, from a performance at CCRMA, Stanford University on 3/4/15.
On Feb. 22, 2015, Jack Van Geem and Yi David Yang gave a virtuoso performance of my "Library of Babel", on a recital at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The program ranged from Bach's Chaconne to arrangements of Super Mario Brothers video game themes!
I will be giving a colloquium and concert at the Center for Computer Music in Research and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University; March 4th 2015. Click here for further info.
In the mid-1950s American composer Henry Brant wrote that “single-style music can no longer evoke the multi-directional assaults of contemporary life on the spirit.” In pursuit of a framework for music based on simultaneity, he made a series of experiments and compositions exploring the physical position of sounds as an essential compositional element. David A. Jaffe met Brant in the mid-1970s and became a life-long friend and advocate. In 1979, at CCRMA, he began applying the principles of acoustic spatial music to the computer domain. In this colloquium/concert, Jaffe discusses and presents three of his spatial works, spanning a thirty-year period.
"Silicon Valley Breakdown" for synthetic plucked strings (1982) will be heard in a newly-restored form, a rare opportunity to hear this well-known work in its original 4-channel format. "Impossible Animals" (1986) for live performers and computer-synthesized voices creates a hybrid human-bird vocalise, as if the brain of a bird were transplanted into the body of a wildly-gifted soprano. Finally, "The Space Between Us" (2011), an acoustic spatial work with interactive computer control, uses twenty-one robotic mechanical instruments created by Trimpin, positioned around and above the audience. A video of this work will be presented, featuring CCRMA alumnus Andrew Schloss performing on a new version of the Boie/Mathews Radiodrum, accompanied by eight string players distributed throughout the hall.
On the technical front, Universal Audio announced at NAMM what I've been working on for the last year: "apollo expanded" allows mix/match multi-unit with all audio busses over thunderbolt, as well as a new GUI and other enhancements. More info here.