Bleep/Blorp Festival of Synthesizer Music

Bleep Blorp 2022 is a festival of synthesizer music that will be held at Stonehill College on March 26th, 2022. This year’s guest artist is Stephanie Vasko. The keynote and live performances will be featured in the Martin Institute Auditorium. The festival will also feature a video gallery in the Carole Calo in Cushing Martin. Admission is free for performers, selected artists, as well as faculty, staff, and students of Stonehill College. Admission for others will be $5. Attendees will be required to follow Stonehill College’s Visitor and Guest Protocols.

Schedule:

4 P.M. Keynote: Stephanie Vasko, “Synthesizing the Sound of Space”

About Dr. Vasko

Dr. Vasko is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar who creates short, experimental sound pieces through combining and layering field recordings, software synthesis, tape loops, and circuit bending.

As guest artist, Dr. Vasko will be delivering the festival’s keynote lecture, “Synthesizing the Sound of Space.” This lecture chronicles Vasko’s digital humanities project of the same name. The project explores how the development of the silicon transistor has shaped the ways in which the sounds of space are recorded and created. Initial work during the pilot year of this project has focused on archival and online research, creating a beta version of a website, and developing an open-source lesson plan to teach about how to synthesize your own space sounds. This keynote will cover an introduction to this project and deep dive into the sound creation activity, including addressing accessibility concerns, sound samples, and a tools/platforms comparison.

Her performance, Layers, at the end of the Bleep/Blorp 2022 will feature patches created using VCV Rack, sound samples, and tape loops.

Performances:

5 P.M. UMass Lowell Contemporary Electronic Ensemble
5:20 P.M. Metal Tiger
5:40 P.M. Don Nothing
6:00 P.M. J. Lym
6:20 P.M. Travis Johns
6:40 P.M. The Square Root of Negative Two
7 P.M. William Auringer, AJ Smaha, Thomas Hiscock, Sam Marston
7:20 P.M. Overclock Orchestra
7:40 P.M. Maestra Chameleon, “The Space Inbetween”
8 P.M. xperseai, “lost in the sauce”
8:20 P.M. Michael Bierylo
8:40 P.M. Stephanie Vasko

Video Gallery:

Eric Halin
Eric Lennartson
Darth Presley
Recursor
Allison Tanenhaus