Native Alien is a long term project – a search for a software that can “hold its own” in an improvised situation with a human performer. We have been building this research in close dialogue with a research group on machine improvisation at the IRCAM Centre Pompidou in Paris (Gerard Assayag / Benjamin Levy).
Over the past five years, the Native Alien team (Sandeep Bhagwati / Navid Navab / Julian Stein) have developed advanced compositional, comprovisational and sonic software architectures that now are being tried, modified and improved upon in close practical collaboration with outstanding solo performers from many different music making traditions.
These performers include:
- Mike Svoboda (Trombone, Jazz/Contemporary Western Art Music, Switzerland)
- Amelia Cuni (Dhrupad Singing, North Indian Art Music, Vicenza).
- Vinny Golia (Flutes and saxes, Los Angeles)
- Rohan de Saram (Cello, Contemporary Western Art Music, London)
- Wu Wei (Sheng, Chinese Art Music, Berlin)
- Lori Freedman (Bass clarinet, Musique actuelle, Montréal)
- David Rosenboom (Contemporary Western Art Music / Free Improvisation, Los Angeles)
- Dhruba Ghosh (Sarangi, North Indian Art Music, Mumbai).
- Felix Del Tredici (Trombone, Montréal)
- Mei Han (guzheng, Vancouver)
- Cheryl L’Hirondelle (Cree recitation, Vancouver)
- Lan Tung (Erhu, Vancouver)
- Coat Cooke (Sax, Vancouver)
All these musicians are international stars and leaders in their tradition, and recognized for their adventurous spirit and openness to other music traditions. NATIVE ALIEN is supported by a substantial Research/Creation Grant from the Fonds Quebecois de Recherche en Societé et Culture (FQRSC) as well as by the Canada Research Chair for Inter-X Art. This project was genereously supported by FQRSC.