Keith Whitman will be in town to present "STS" - an ongoing composition for voice & the Serge modular synthesizer. The piece will be running from noon until 4pm, coinciding with a neighborhood gallery walk hosted by Ulises, part of the Common Field Convening Philadelphia 2019. Come pop in and have a listen! Refreshments & good vibes will be provided.

“STS (2019) is an 8-channel installation work comprised of recordings made over a 15-year period on differing Serge Modular systems recorded at the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity, the Columbia Computer Music Center, Elektron Musik Studion, the Groupe de Recherches Musicales, Harvard University Studio for Electro-Acoustic Composition, and Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio convolved with fragments of speech, recitation, and extra-textual verbal communication.

Partly an homage to formative speech-transformation works such as Herbert Eimert’s “Epitaph für Aikichi Kuboyama (1960-1962)”, the mapping of the frequency spectra of time-aligned formants to a catalog of full-range synthesizer signals yields a warm, attenuated field of sustained sound that ebbs through each space at a modest volume, inviting the listener to dwell on individual timbres, phrases, and conversations while assessing the overall sound-field.

Utilizing a sliding, modular structure to diffuse linked stereo pairs of convolutions into 4 discrete chambers, the individual parts become groups of voices heard distinctly, overheard from the next room, or made subliminally aware of via bleed-through from each adjoining space. ”