SPLICE
About
SPLICE is a performing arts and educational organization dedicated to the advancement of technology-mediated music performance. SPLICE connects communities of performers, composers, technologists, presenters, and audience members through educational programming and concerts.
SPLICE is committed to providing equal opportunities to all musicians regardless of race, sex, color, creed, religion, age, national origin, disability, marital status, status with regards to public assistance, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or status as a U.S. veteran.We are dedicated to supporting a diverse community. We strive to be inclusive in all aspects of our organization and activities, and to promote voices that are underrepresented in the electroacoustic music community.
People
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Adam Vidiksis, president
Per Bloland, secretary
Sam Wells, treasurer
Christopher Biggs, Institute director
Keith Kirchoff, Festival director
STAFF
Becky Brown, technical director
Robin Meiksins, social media coordinator
SPLICE Institute
SPLICE Institute is an online, week-long, intensive summer program for performers, composers, and composer-performers interested in music that combines live performance and electronics. SPLICE Institute 2023 took place at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI from June 25 to July 1, 2023.
Each year, SPLICE Institute faculty and participants present up to nine concerts featuring some of the most exciting contemporary music involving live performance and electronics. Since 2015, hundreds of works for live performance and electronics, including 123 world premieres, have been programmed at SPLICE Institute.
The SPLICE Institute’s infectious enthusiasm was clear... No doubt the SPLICE Institute will continue to grow as a hub of contemporary electroacoustic performance.
-I Care If You Listen, August 2016
Featured Concert: The FLOODS Live Performance
More Info
In the Media
Relevant Tones Podcast:
#438 SPLICE Festival part 1 (August 12, 2024)
#439 SPLICE Festival part 2 (August 19, 2024)
Join host Austin Gray Williams on this deep dive into the people, music, and culture that create the SPLICE Institute. SPLICE is a week long intensive focusing on electroacoustic concert music.
There are a number of Electroacoustic music festivals and conferences that composers have participated in the past, namely SEAMUS and EMM. SPLICE is here to shake things up. From the beginning with composer Christopher Biggs and Composer/Performer Keith Kirchoff, there was a huge emphasis on education and community.
Both organization founders felt compelled to create a program to support performers and composers of Electroacoustic music and create successful collaborations between them. Through a variety of conversations and interviews we find out how the last 10 years has created a community and relationships that expand well beyond the SPLICE institute and into artistic careers.
SPLICE Ensemble
SPLICE Ensemble is a trumpet, piano, and percussion trio focussed on cultivating a canon of electroacoustic chamber music. Called a “sonic foodfight” by Jazz Weekly, SPLICE Ensemble works with composers and performers on performance practice techniques for collaboration and integrating electronics into a traditional performance space, and they were recently awarded a Chamber Music America grant for a commission of a new 25-minute work with composer Caroline Miller. The resident ensemble of both SPLICE Institute and SPLICE Festival, SPLICE Ensemble has been a featured ensemble at M Woods in Beijing, SEAMUS, the Electroacoustic Barn Dance, SCI National, Electronic Music Midwest, and New Music Detroit’s Strange Beautiful Music 10. They have recorded on both the SEAMUS and Parma Labels.
The mission of SPLICE Ensemble is to:
present dynamic and virtuosic performances that exemplify and expand the field of electroacoustic performance;
bring educational opportunities to musicians and students with a focus on developing forward-looking music practices that embrace electroacoustic performance; and
commission and collaborate with composers and musicians with the aim of meaningfully developing the repertoire of electroacoustic music.
Members
Sam Wells, trumpet
Keith Kirchoff, piano
Adam Vidiksis, percussion
Featured Performance: Ansible by Caroline Miller
Featured Performance: Motor Culture by Steven Ricks
SPLICE Festival
SPLICE Festival is a three-day festival that blends engaging live performances with new technologies. Composers, performers, and composer/performers gather online for a weekend of concerts and presentations covering topics such as aesthetics, technology, and issues of performance practice, with the goal of inspiring, educating, and sharing information amongst the attendees and the students at the host institution. SPLICE Festival is designed to foster community and to create bonds between performers and composers dedicated to music that involves dynamic, live performance with technology.
SPLICE Festival I: Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI, January 26-27, 2018
SPLICE Festival II: Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH, November 8–10, 2018
SPLICE Festival III: Miami University in Oxford, OH, February 20–22, 2020
SPLICE Festival IV: University of Georgia in Athens, GA, October 22-24, 2020
SPLICE Festival V: Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, November 2-4, 2023
SPLICE Festival VI: Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI, January 23-25, 2018
