Meridian Music Composers in Performance Series presents new works by Nils Bultmann, San Francisco-based violist, improviser, and composer with CNMAT composer, improvisor, David Wessel on electronic slabs.

Rooted in classical technique and tradition, Nils Bultmann has developed his own voice within the context of a wide variety of musical styles and art forms. Active as a performer in the United States and Europe, he plays both classical repertoire as well as his own compositions and is involved in collaborative projects of dance, video, and avant-garde improvised music. He has generated an expansive body of work in the recording studio, including solo and multi-track viola music as well as collaborative and improvised musical textures. He also writes through- composed works for traditional instrumentation including solo pieces, string quartets, and orchestral music.

From his high school years onwards, David Wessel's musical activities were central to his life and after his PhD in Psychology he committed himself to blending his science and technology skills with his musical interests. In 1976, at the invitation of Pierre Boulez, he moved to Paris to work as a researcher at the then nascent Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustic/Musique IRCAM where he remained until 1988. For his work at IRCAM he was recognized as Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture.??In 1988, he arrived at UC Berkeley as Professor of Music with the charge of building the interdisciplinary Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT). He organized CNMAT as a laboratory wherein both science and technology people interact on daily basis with musicians. Wessel insists on an instrumental conception - the computer as musical instrument equipped with gesture sensing devices and sound diffusion systems.

This concert is funded in part by the Zellerbach Family Foundation