The focus of this workshop is to highlight a concern for personal discourse in computer music. Madalyn will discuss her 10+ years of using Max MSP to develop synthetic instruments for improvisation with an in-depth look into her main performance patch, and will give an overview of her research into early electronic music in Italy.

This is not a Max class, but rather a look into a sophisticated and individualized instrument with the hope that workshop goers will take inspiration to push forward with their own creative projects.

Madalyn Merkey is a composer and performer of live computer music based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Merkey creates sound events with elemental sonic material—voice, sine waves, and pulses—to generate lush synthetic environments with the aid of acoustic readings from microphones and sensors. Her recent work observes the principles of acoustic instruments and material spaces to design real-time sound synthesis programs. She has performed solo computer music compositions at Yale Union, Issue Project Room, and Block Cinema, and designed sound installations for Robert Irwin’s Central Garden at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.