MiLO at the Kenilworth Open Studios

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Kevin

On Saturday April 21st the Milwaukee Laptop Orchestra (MiLO) will performed during the Kenilworth Open Studios, a collection of exhibitions from all areas of the Peck School of the Arts. MiLO played a live realization of Ligeti’s Artikulation, my structured improvisation Collision, and electro-acoustic improvisations.

MiLO is: Chris Burns, David Collins, Nolan Dargiewicz, Adam Murphy, Elliot Patros, Kevin Schlei, Steve Schlei, Amanda Schoofs, Sebastian Valenzuela.

For more information about MiLO, check out the new MiLO tumblr. You can also listen to the full performance on MiLO’s SoundCloud page.

Here are a few shots from the event:

Collision (2011) at the Unruly Music Festival

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Kevin

‘Collision’ is a piece that revolves around a machine conductor that directs the players and their improvisations. The conductor decides when and how to ‘collide’ the players together, forcing them to play at the same moment in the same way. This is the driving force of the piece: players can improvise in and out of the collisions, but they are never allowed to stray too far from one another.

The instrument used is Napsynth, my early research into multi-touch control that eventually became TC-11. The trackpads gather the multi-touch data using a program called Tongseng. Then Processing and Pd are used to analyze and distribute the control data for synthesis. The visuals also feed from that data, and are drawn using OpenFrameworks.

David Collins joined me for this performance at the Unruly Music Festival at Vogel Hall in 2011. Collins is a Milwaukee native, composer, and performer.

Collision (2011) at the Unruly Music Festival from Kevin Schlei on Vimeo.

Upcoming performance with David Collins

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Kevin

This Friday David Collins and I will be performing at the Sugar Maple as part of Gallery Night. We’ve got some premiere pieces, innovative control schemes, and live video. It should be a great night! Here’s the info:

Location: Sugar Maple
Friday – June 3rd

Featuring
Collision: Directed improvisation with multi-touch synthesis + visuals
Poly Patter: Networked synthesis environment