Seth Shafer is a composer and researcher whose work hybridizes technology, new media, and art/science, with a specific focus on real-time notation, interactive music, and algorithmic art. His artistic practice represents musical exploration at the extreme edge of performance. He develops interactive installations and improvisational performance environments that are audience-involved meta-instruments. His work includes generative pseudo-hologram installations, interactive floor projection systems, and live data sonification exploiting privacy loopholes and feedback networks. He also looks for opportunities to explore ephemerality and multiplicity in live performance. This often involves performance situations that have limited or impossible rehearsal scenarios, purposeful impediments to ensemble coordination, live sight-reading, and unavoidable failure.
Seth’s compositions have been performed internationally and across the USA. Recent performances include the 2021 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 2021 International Computer Music Conference (Santiago, Chile), 2021 New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, 2021 Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (Hamburg, Germany), 2021 SEAMUS Conference (Virginia), and 2020 International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference (Montreal). Other notable performance include the 2019 SEAMUS Conference (Boston), 2019 Omaha Under the Radar Festival, Stonewall at 50 at La Mama (NY), 2019 Open Circuit Festival (Liverpool), 2018 International Computer Music Conference (Daegu, South Korea), 2018 Sound and Music Computing Conference (Limassol, Cyprus), 2017 Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (A Coruña, Spain), the 2016 Sound and Music Computing Conference (Hamburg, GE), 2015 Shanghai Conservatory Electronic Music Week (China), the 2014 International Computer Music Conference (Athens, GR), and the 2013 Festival dei Due Mondi Spoleto (Italy). His sound installations have been shown at Kaneko (Omaha), the Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas), Long Beach Museum of Art’s Pacific Standard Time Exhibit, and the Long Beach Soundwalk.
Seth is Assistant Professor of Music at Cal State San Marcos and was previously affiliated with the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He holds degrees from the University of North Texas and California State University, Long Beach.
As a performer, Seth has played his own music at Omaha Under the Radar, Electronic Music Midwest, and Electrobrass festivals. He founded and directed TAPEnsemble, an experimental technology-centric ensemble, at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and co-founded and co-directed the Los Angeles Laptop Collective. He played tuba in the Golden State Pops Orchestra, in various new music ensembles, and in several popular acts including a performance on the Grammy-winning Vampire Weekend album Modern Vampires of the City.
Short Bio
Seth Shafer is a composer and researcher whose work hybridizes technology, new media, and art/science. His artistic practice represents musical exploration at the extreme edge of performance where he often looks for opportunities to explore ephemerality and multiplicity. This often involves performance situations that have limited or impossible rehearsal scenarios, purposeful impediments to ensemble coordination, live sight-reading, and unavoidable failure. Seth is Assistant Professor of Music at Cal State San Marcos and was previously affiliated with the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He holds degrees from the University of North Texas and California State University, Long Beach.
CV
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