New Music + Technology Festival
Wednesday, April 2, 2025 at 8 p.m. - Cube, Moss Arts Center
Thursday, April 3, 2025 at 8 p.m. - Cube, Moss Arts Center
Friday, April 4, 2025 at 8 p.m. - Cube, Moss Arts Center
Saturday, April 5 at 3 p.m. - Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke
View program here

Read: New Music + Technology Festival expands to Roanoke

The School of Performing Arts and the Institute of Creativity, Arts, and Technology present the New Music + Technology Festival, showcasing the ever-broadening field of music technology, focusing on new compositions and performance systems. 

Since its inception in 2021, the New Music + Technology Festival has presented multi- and interdisciplinary performances while furthering research at the nexus of music, theatre, cinema, dance, visual art, creative coding, computer science, neuroscience, molecular biology, robotics, and cyber security.

Wednesday, April 2 will feature guests Wayne Horvitz and Sara Schoenbeck. Horvitz is a composer, pianist, and electronic musician, and received The American Prize in Orchestral Composition in 2019.

Bassoonist Sara Schoenbeck performs her own work and collaborates as an improviser, interpreter, and composer, using her instrument explore new sounds and contemporary music.

Thursday, April 3 will welcome The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker, New Renaissance Artist. Baker embraces a constantly evolving practice, with past works including those that involve new systems of notation and building virtual instruments. Her practice also includes exploration of sonic and visual elements.

Two pieces composed by Baker will make their world premiere — “HOLOGRAM” for bass saxophone and electronics, and “the possibilities before” for speaking string quartet and electronics, performed by Virginia Tech School of Performing Arts faculty members Kyle Hutchins, John Irrera, Molly Wilkens-Reed, Chris Campo-Bowen, and Alan Weinstein.

Friday, April 4 will feature Virginia Tech faculty and friends performing works by Ico Bukvic, David Durant, Tomás Henriques, and Eric Lyon with performances by Hutchins, Esther Lamneck, L2Ork, and Weinstein.

On April 5, 2025 the festival continues in Roanoke at the Taubman Museum of Art, featuring October Sky Ensemble premiering three new pieces written for them by composers Michael Burritt, Edgar Girtain, and Jon Grier. October Sky Ensemble is a mixed-instrument quartet (tenor, violin, cello, and percussion) made up of Virginia Tech music faculty members Irrera, Weinstein, Brian Thorsett, and Annie Stevens).