MERIDIAN GALLERY
535 Powell Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
Phone: 415 398 7229

The Meridian Gallery presents an [http://www.meridiangallery.org/en/concerts/masaoka_wessel_bultmann.htm|evening of improvisations] performed by:
Miya Masaoka, koto and electronics
David Wessel, SLABS
Nils Bultmann, viola

Miya Masaoka resides in New York City and is a classically trained musician, composer and new media artist. Pioneering the koto in contexts of improvisation, computer processing, new music and sound installations, she has expanded the koto to include lasers (Laser Koto), as well as the traditional costume while playing the koto -- the kimono -- to include responsive and wearable technology with thousands of hand-embroidered LED's. She creates works that hover the boundary of music, sound, movement and light and that both investigate and reveal these fluid relationships.

Her works have been performed by Bang on a Can, So Percussion, ROVA, ex-Kronos cellist Joan Jeanrenaud, SF Sound Ensemble, Volti, San Francisco Chorale Soc., Piedmont Children's Choir, Kathleen Supove.

Since graduating from Mills College in 1994, she has received the prestigious Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, The Alexander Wallace Gerbode Foundation Award, Asian Cultural Council, residencies at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Steim (The Netherlands), Western Front, (Canada), Harvestworks, Oberlin Conservatory of 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.

Nils Bultmann is a violist, improviser, and composer, committed to developing his own voice within the context of a wide variety of musical styles and art forms. His background ranges from undergraduate studies in German literature, violist with the New World Symphony, to recording and touring with jazz Saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell. He has been active in collaborative projects of dance and film in the United States and Europe, and has been the recipient of numerous grants including residencies at the Djerassi, Music Omi, and Ucross foundations. He is currently pursuing doctoral studies and UC Berkeley in music composition.