SPLICE is an organization dedicated to the performance, creation, and development of music for performers and electronics. SPLICE is made up of three parts:
Institute: a weeklong, intensive program for performers and composers to experience, explore, interpret, and create music for instruments and electronics.
Ensemble: an electroacoustic trumpet, piano, and percussion trio focussed on cultivating a canon of the most important works composed for instruments and electronics.
Festival: a three-day festival that blends engaging live performances with new technologies.
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 2024 took place at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI from June 23 to June 29, 2024.
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 2024 SPLICE Institute marks our 10th year! To celebrate this SPLICE-iversary we will offer a SPLICE retrospective, featuring previous guest artists Kyong Mee Choi, Paula Matthusen, and Sam Pluta. Faculty and guests will lead workshops exploring topics and technologies including Max, signal processing basics, aesthetics, SuperCollider, performing using technology, and more. Guest artists will offer masterclasses and lessons. SPLICE Institute guests, faculty, and participants present nine concerts featuring some of the most exciting contemporary music involving live performance and electronics.
The SPLICE Institute’s infectious enthusiasm was clear... No doubt the SPLICE Institute will continue to grow as a hub of contemporary electroacoustic performance.
in the media
Relevant Tones Podcast:
#438 SPLICE Festival part 1 (August 12, 2024) Listen on Web Listen on Spotify
#439 SPLICE Festival part 2 (August 19, 2024) Listen on Web Listen on Spotify
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.
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: The Cottonwood Florilegium by Sam Wells
Festival
SPLICE Festival is a three-day festival that blends engaging live performances with new technologies. Composers, performers, and composer/performers gather 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. Unlike the SPLICE Summer Institute, the Festival takes place at a different location each year.
SPLICE Festival 6 will be hosted by Western Michigan University from January 23-25, 2025. Activities will include concerts, presentations, and hands-on workshop sessions. Concerts will feature performances selected from submitted works and a curated concert by the SPLICE Ensemble. Lectures and workshops will be presented by participants and SPLICE faculty.
Past Festivals:
SPLICE Festival V: Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, November 2-4, 2023
SPLICE Festival IV: University of Georgia in Athens, GA, October 22-24, 2020
SPLICE Festival III: Miami University in Oxford, OH, February 20–22, 2020
SPLICE Festival II: Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH, November 8–10, 2018
SPLICE Festival I: Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI, January 26-27, 2018