Michael J. Love, tap dance artist

with guests

JohnPaul Beattie, ambisonic sound
kennedy taylor dixon, viola
James Moore, electronic processing
Study Group: Adam Sliwinski, bitKlavier;

Jason Treuting, drum kit; Dan Trueman, hardanger d’amor
Sō Percussion: Eric Cha-Beach; Josh Quillen;
Adam Sliwinski; Jason Treuting

James Moore
How to Chase My Blues Away

James Moore, electronic processing
JohnPaul Beattie, ambisonic sound

I’ve been enjoying working with Michael to develop a series of improvisational parameters for
processed tap-dancing, and I am very excited to see what happens when these powers are
combined with those of ambisonic sound wizard JohnPaul Beattie.
The title is taken from the lyrics to Whitney Houston’s iconic song I Wanna Dance with
Somebody (Who Loves Me). Working up sonic and spatial ideas for this piece, I have also
found inspiration from Fred Astaire’s classic anti-gravity dance routine to You’re all the World
to Me, Lionel Richie’s own take on this idea with Dancing on the Ceiling, and the awkward
music video to the disco hit Love is in the Air by John Paul Young.

kennedy taylor dixon
here I stand

kennedy taylor dixon, viola

here I stand (2021), for improvised viola and fixed media—the black voice (viola) against a
white society (fixed media). This piece was in response to the 2020 protests taking place
nationwide. The solo viola represents the black voice, being once supported by society (fixed
media), however the fixed media quickly begins to overshadow the viola, interrupting phrases
to share its opinions—a theme I have seen repeatedly.

Hope Littwin
Cathedrals of Production

INTERMISSION

Dan Trueman
Machines for Listening

#5
#9

Study Group:
Adam Sliwinski, bitKlavier
Jason Treuting, drum kit
Dan Trueman, hardanger d’amor

Machine Listening is an important and complex field, focusing on teaching machines (or
having them learn) to listen and parse sound. But what about machines for listening, things
that invite us to listen, teach us to listen? This seems particularly pertinent today with all the
intense discussion around AI.

The nine sketches in Machines for Listening are intended as active listening guides for
bitKlavier, a kind of digital musical machine configured in specific ways to process the
operator’s input and generate sound. Each “listening machine” has specific settings and
interconnections that yield sometimes unexpected rhythms and textures, but are in fact
completely deterministic—anything that seems like randomness is a product of the specific
interactions between operator and machine. They emerged from a long-standing interest of
mine: exploring the relationships between musicians and machines.

These are “open form” sketches, providing seeds, specific materials, and intentions for the
operator to work with, strictly or loosely. They can be open ended, used at home as listening
meditations, or can be the starting points for collaborations with other listeners and
instrumentalists, perhaps through collaborative recording, or even live performance. The
“operator” may also choose to integrate other instruments or machines into the process,
occasionally feeding the listening machines and then reaching out with these others to
contribute and listen more deeply.

Machines for Listening were sketched during June of 2020, with the world in imperfect
lockdown and raging against centuries of racial injustice: silence is not an option, but listening
is required. I’m indebted of course to the legacy of Pauline Oliveros, whom I had the pleasure
of playing with many times years ago, and whose “machines for listening” are monumental.
The cover artwork that I used for the score is from a piece by my mother, Judy Trueman, that
she used for her holiday card in the year 2000, a month after my daughter was born in
Kingston NJ; in it she wrote “Happy Holidays to you two, the Princess of Kingston, the World,
and the Universe.” We are in this together, after all.

For the past year, Jason, Adam, and I have been exploring these machines informally:
listening, asking questions, experimenting, trying things… studying. And we decided early on
that we would NOT make performing a priority, but rather focus on just the music-making and
listening we can do together: Study Group was born. But the temptation to perform can be
irresistible, so here we are tonight, prompted by the opportunity to deepen our studying with
Michael J. Love joining us, which has been an extraordinary—and eye-opening—pleasure!

Ellie Cherry
Euphoria

The current popular dialogue on trans issues from a cis perspective has a heavy focus on the
negative motivation for transitioning, namely gender dysphoria. But this one-sided
understanding of the trans experience as something rooted in discomfort and distress
detracts from the presence of positive motivation as an equally, if not more powerful incentive
for transitioning. I wrote (gender) Euphoria in collaboration with my two trans friends, River
and Steve, in celebration of the beauty of feeling at home in your body and loving yourself. I
am deeply grateful for the presence of River and Steve in my life as inspiring examples of
what it means to be authentically yourself and freely enjoy what makes you happy. I hope that
Euphoria helps shed light on the trans experience as something positive and empowering—an
example of transcending restrictions and norms that we can all look up to.

“I encourage the audience to digest the piece not only as an outward portrayal of others,
but also an opportunity to look inward and explore ignored aspects of themselves.”
— Steve

“When I was first beginning to explore my gender in high school, I tentatively asked
friends to try out ‘they’ or ‘he’ pronouns for me. I had not begun any kind of physical
transition whatsoever. For a few weeks my friends only tried using ‘they / them’ pronouns.
It wasn’t until one day, one of my friends took the leap and used ‘he’ for me, that I felt a
rush of understanding. It was the joy of hearing that my true self could actually exist in the
real word that allowed me to commit to the transition I needed. It was never the
discomfort or distress that did that.”
— River

Jason Treuting
A Better Genome

Sō Percussion:
Eric Cha-Beach
Josh Quillen
Adam Sliwinski
Jason Treuting

In the fall of 2022, Sō Percussion got one of the strangest commissions / gigs we’ve ever
gotten / played. As we were coming out of a time of not so many strange commissions / gigs,
we jumped in. We were asked to make a short piece based on the human genome to open a
conference in San Diego. We made a 3-minute piece for percussion based on the first slice of
genome we found online, commonly notated as GTGCATCTGACTCCTGAG. We liked the
music but didn’t like the gig, so when we looked for a jumping off point for a work with
Michael J. Love, for Sō plus tap dancer, we expanded on these and more ideas.

Coming out of this period of not so many collaborations / gigs, we couldn’t ask for a more
fearless and genuine creative partner than Michael. The process has been exhilarating for the
four of us in Sō and we are excited to share the results tonight.

JohnPaul Beattie is a spatial music composer, Adjunct Associate Professor, and Director of
Music Technology for the School of Music at University of the Arts. He earned his MFA in
Music Composition from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2018. Beattie has received a
research grant exploring the emotional impact of spatial audio from the Center for Immersive
Media and the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy at UArts. Beattie also received the
President’s Award for Excellence—a microgrant to build a spatial audio controller prototype,
of his own design—to aid his research. Beattie is currently teaching Binaural Recording,
Spatial Music Composition, Introduction to Acoustics, Introduction to Audio Programming,
and Audio Programming II at University of the Arts.

Ellie Cherry is an electroacoustic composer fundamentally compelled by the belief that as an
artist she is first and foremost an observer: be it the acoustic properties of the bark of a beech
tree or the childhood experiences of an audience member, every element in our shared reality
is worthy of consideration. Her composition therefore takes a holistic approach, in which
spectral theory, physics, psychoacoustics, and historical and political context are all
thoughtfully intertwined. She is particularly interested in exploring how new music
composition can provide an effective platform for activism, frequently addressing topics such
as environmentalism, gender and class inequality, and trauma.

Described as a “vibrant musical voice,” Kennedy Taylor Dixon is a violist, composer and
scholar currently pursuing a PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University. Some recent
highlights of her career include receiving the Hear & Now Commission for Emerging BIPOC
Composers (Westminster College, April 2023), a commission through Castle of our Skins and
the Boston Children’s Chorus (May 2023), a premiere at Electric Music Midwest (here I
stand, 2022), and attending Bang on a Can Festival 2022 as a Performance Fellow. Dixon’s
work mainly consists of graphic notation and handwritten scores. This allows for players of her
work to explore and interact with the music in unique ways. Drawing inspiration from Wadada
Leo Smith’s work, Dixon challenges her performers to think outside the lines and creating a
sound world that is new and special each time. Dixon holds a MA in Music Composition in
addition to her dual undergraduate degrees in viola performance and music composition from
Western Michigan University. This fall, Dixon will be starting her PhD in Music Composition at
Princeton University.

American composer and music producer Hope Littwin grew up in dance and theater before
she took to music, first as a singer-songwriter then as a classical singer and now as a
composer and music producer. She loves to collaborate with artists of all kinds on big, daring,
expressive works. Hope’s compositions fuse chamber music, songwriting, free jazz and
electronics. She has been commissioned by choirs, chamber ensembles and theater and
dance companies to create original works that combine electronics, acoustic instruments,
vocals with a strong poetic narrative. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Music Composition
at Princeton University. Hope’s original works (including Songs of Communal Becoming,
Kitchen Dances and Colonize Mars) are available for streaming on Bandcamp and YouTube,
albums (Wild Beast, Husk and others) can be found on Spotify and iTunes. Find Hope on
instagram @hopelittwin

Michael J. Love is an interdisciplinary tap dance artist, scholar, and educator. His embodied
research intermixes Black queer feminist theory and aesthetics with a rigorous practice that
critically engages the Black cultural past as it imagines Black futurity. Currently, Love is a 2021
– 2023 Princeton University Arts Fellow and Lecturer at Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts.
Most recently, he was one of four dancers / choreographers featured in visual artist,
filmmaker, and curator Tiona Nekkia McClodden’s multidisciplinary exhibition The Trace Of
An Implied Presence at The Shed in New York. Love’s work has been supported and
presented by Fusebox Festival and ARCOS Dance and his writing has been published in the
journal Choreographic Practices. Love has collaborated with anti-disciplinary, film-based
artist Ariel “Aryel” René Jackson on video and performance projects that have been screened
by The Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum in New York; featured in The New York
Times Style Magazine’s #TBlackArtBlackLife Instagram series; and programmed by Big
Medium in Austin, Digital Arts Resource Centre’s Project Space in Ottawa, CUE Art
Foundation in New York, the Galleries at the University of Northern Colorado, and the Jacob
Lawrence Gallery at the University of Washington. Love and Jackson were the recipients of
the 2021 Tito’s Vodka Prize. Love’s performance credits include the Broadway laboratory for
Savion Glover and George C. Wolfe’s Shuffle Along… and roles in works by Baakari Wilder.
Love holds an MFA in Performance as Public Practice from The University of Texas at Austin
and is an alumnus of Emerson College. Web: dancermlove.com | Instagram: @dancermlove

James Moore is a composer, guitarist, and bandleader who is currently in his fifth year of the
composition program at Princeton. James writes music for an eclectic community of artists,
and performs extensively as a chamber musician, soloist, and collaborator in theater, dance,
and multimedia projects. He can often be found playing with the raucous electric guitar
quartet Dither, the whimsical acoustic group The Hands Free, and the avant-grunge / sloppy-
math band Forever House.

Adam Sliwinski has built a dynamic career of creative collaboration as percussionist, pianist,
conductor, teacher, and writer. He specializes in bringing composers, performers, and other
artists together to create exciting new work. A member of the ensemble Sō Percussion
(proclaimed as “brilliant” and “consistently impressive” by The New York Times) since 2002,
Adam has performed at venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall, The Bonnaroo Festival, Disney
Concert Hall with the LA Philharmonic, and everything in between. Sō Percussion has also
toured extensively around the world, including multiple featured performances at the
Barbican Centre in London, and tours to France, Germany, The Netherlands, South America,
Australia, and Russia. Adam has been praised as a soloist by The New York Times for his
“shapely, thoughtfully nuanced account” of David Lang’s marimba piece String of Pearls. He
has performed as a percussionist many times with the International Contemporary Ensemble,
founded by classmates from Oberlin. Though he trained primarily as a percussionist, Adam’s
first major solo album, released on New Amsterdam records in 2015, is a collection of etudes
called Nostalgic Synchronic for the Prepared Digital Piano, an invention of Princeton
colleague Dan Trueman. In recent years, Adam’s collaborations have grown to include
conducting. He has conducted over a dozen world premieres with the International
Contemporary Ensemble, including residencies at Harvard, Columbia, and NYU. In 2014,
ECM Records released the live recording of the premiere of Vijay Iyer’s Radhe Radhe with
Adam conducting. Adam writes about music on his blog. He has also contributed a series of
articles to newmusicbox.org, and the Cambridge Companion to Percussion from Cambridge
University press features his chapter ‘Lost and Found: Percussion Chamber Music and the
Modern Age.’ Adam is co-director of the Sō Percussion Summer Institute, an annual intensive
course on the campus of Princeton University for college-aged percussionists. He is also co-
director of the percussion program at the Bard College Conservatory of Music, and has
taught percussion both in masterclass and privately at more than 80 conservatories and
universities in the USA and internationally. Along with his colleagues in Sō Percussion, Adam is
Edward T. Cone performer-in-residence at Princeton University. He received his Doctor of
Musical Arts and his Masters degrees at Yale with marimba soloist Robert van Sice, and his
Bachelors at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Michael Rosen.

For twenty years and counting, Sō Percussion has redefined chamber music for the 21st
century through an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” (The New
Yorker). They are celebrated by audiences and presenters for a dazzling range of work: for live
performances in which “telepathic powers of communication” (The New York Times) bring to
life the vibrant percussion repertoire; for an extravagant array of collaborations in classical
music, pop, indie rock, contemporary dance, and theater; and for their work in education and
community, creating opportunities and platforms for music and artists that explore the
immense possibility of art in our time. Recent highlights have included performances at the
Elbphilharmonie, Big Ears 2022—where they performed Amid the Noise, premiered a new
work by Angélica Negrón with the Kronos Quartet, and performed their Nonesuch album with
Caroline Shaw, Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part—and a return to Carnegie Hall where they
performed new collaborations with Nathalie Joachim, and Dominic Shodekeh Talifero. Their
Nonesuch recording, Narrow Sea, with Caroline Shaw, Dawn Upshaw, and Gilbert Kalish, won
the 2022 Grammy for Best Composition. Other albums include A Record Of…on Brassland
Music with Buke and Gase, and an acclaimed version of Julius Eastman’s Stay On It on new
imprint Sō Percussion Editions. This adds to a catalogue of more than twenty-five albums
featuring landmark recordings of works by David Lang, Steve Reich, Steve Mackey, and many
more. In the summer of 2022, Sō performed at the Music Academy of the West Festival,
Newport Classical, at Time Spans in New York, and offered four concerts at Our Festival in
Helsinki—including a performance of Let the Soil… with Caroline Shaw. Other 2022 – 2023
dates include concerts for Cal Performances, at the Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona,
at the Barbican in London, the Kennedy Center, and at University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill. In fall 2022, Sō Percussion began its ninth year as the Edward T. Cone performers-in-
residence at Princeton University. Rooted in the belief that music is an elemental form of
human communication, and galvanized by forces for social change in recent years, Sō
enthusiastically pursues a range of social and community outreach through their nonprofit
organization, including partnerships with local ensembles including Pan in Motion and Castle
of Our Skins; their Brooklyn Bound concert series; a studio residency program in Brooklyn;
and the Sō Percussion Summer Institute, an intensive two-week chamber music seminar for
percussionists and composers.

Jason Treuting is a composer and performer living in Princeton, NJ, and a member of Sō
Percussion, the Edward T. Cone performers in residence at Princeton University.
Dan Trueman is a musician: a fiddler, a collaborator, a teacher, a developer of new
instruments, a composer of music for ensembles of all shapes and sizes. He is, among other
things, Professor and Chair, Department of Music at Princeton University.

A lab for Princeton University composers to collaborate with today’s
finest performers and ensembles, Princeton Sound Kitchen is a vital
forum for the creation of new music. Serving the graduate student and
faculty composers of the renowned composition program at the
Department of Music at Princeton University, PSK presents a wide variety
of concerts and events throughout the year.