At the intersection of corn and circuit boards, Cobber musicians, electronics, and video will come together at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 14, in Christiansen Recital Hall, Hvidsten Hall of Music, for the annual circuit721 concert.
The electroacoustic concert, originated and curated by Dr. Steven Makela, assistant professor of music theory and composition, is one of Concordia’s newer traditions. Typically, it includes a primary performance from one of Makela’s colleagues, along with at least one composition by a member of the music faculty.
This year, Dr. Erika Izaguirre, assistant professor of trumpet, will perform in “Two Sides of the Coin,” by Whitney E. George and “Thoughts and Prayers,” by Roy Magnuson.
The other performances are prerecorded audio and video. Compositions include “Cygnus,” by Dr. Doug Harbin, associate professor of music theory and composition at Concordia, and videographer Michael Abramyan ’18, as well as “Once Claimed Dominion,” by multimedia artist Carter Rice ’11 and multimedia artist Gabrielle Cerberville. “Things I Have Seen in My Dreams,” created by multimedia artist João Pedro Oliveira, will round out the program.
“The concert is open to everyone and is quite varied in terms of what the audience will experience,” Makela said. “Some of the music/video is quite relaxing and meditative, while other portions of the concert are more intense.”
Anyone interested in new music and the visual arts, including abstract film and time-lapse photography, might be particularly interested, he added.
“As for how circuit721 got its name, I was searching for a term that had something to do with both the field of electronics and corn — because we are the Cobbers, after all,” Makela said.
In his research, he discovered that the density of shelled corn is 721 kilograms per cubic meter, a number also used as a model number for a 1980s gaming system’s circuit board.