Meridian Music presents a performance by John Bischoff and Kenneth Atchley, performing an absorbing set of new electronic solo works and the interactive duet, "Bell Field." Atchley's solos feature laptop interpretations of digitally generated sound waves and legacy field recordings that reflect and maintain the current of empirical romanticist leanings. Three recent pieces by Bischoff capture the performer's acoustic timing and recapitulate it in the digital domain as sonic initiations and deformations in synthetic response.

JOHN BISCHOFF (b. 1949, San Francisco) has been active in the experimental music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years as a composer, performer, and teacher. He is known for his solo constructions in real-time synthesis and the pioneering development of computer network music. His performances around the US include NEW MUSIC AMERICA festivals in 1981 (SF) and 1989 (NYC), Lampo (Chicago), and the Beyond Music Festival (LA). He has performed numerous times in Europe at such venues as the Festival d'Automne in Paris, Akademie der Künst in Berlin, Fylkingen in Stockholm, and T-U-B-E in Munich. He was a founding member of The League of Automatic Music Composers in 1978, considered to be the world's first computer network band, with Jim Horton and Rich Gold. He co-authored an article with Horton and Gold on the League's music that was published in Foundations of Computer Music (MIT Press 1985). He was also a founding member of The Hub, a computer network band that further developed network music in new directions starting in 1987. Bischoff was invited to publish an article about his solo work that appeared in the debut issue of the Leonardo Music Journal (Vol.1 No. 1, Pergamon Press). In 1999, he was awarded a prestigious $25,000 grant in recognition of his music from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (NYC). He was also awarded an Alpert/Ucross Composer-in-Residence award in 2001 for a two-week composer retreat at Ucross Ranch, Wyoming. In 2004, noted media theorist Douglas Kahn published his article "A Musical Technography of John Bischoff" in the Leonardo Music Journal (Vol. 14, MIT Press). More recently, two retrospective CD packages documenting computer network music were released: The League of Automatic Music Composers: 1978-1983 (New World Records 2007) and 3-CD set of recordings by The Hub titled Boundary Layer (Tzadik 2008). Recordings of Bischoff's work are also available on Artifact, 23Five, and Lovely Music. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the legendary Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California.

KENNETH ATCHLEY (b. 1954, Lebanon, TN) is a San Francisco Bay Area sound, video, and installation artist who fashions and performs work for laptop computer. His compositions range from pure-tone, electro-acoustic devotionals of sustained sine waves to distortion-studded noise-poems.

K. Atchley has performed with proto-electronic groups Roto-League (1982-83) and MEAL (1980-1982). He has collaborated with John Bischoff, Ben Azarm, Brian Reinbolt, Joe Colley, his wife Kattt Atchley, and the late Phil Harmonic (Kenneth Werner) and Jim Horton. His fountains and music have been commissioned by RoseAnne Spradlin Dance.

Much of his music from 1997 to the present has included the use of fountains in both physical (electro-mechanical) and conceptual forms. Atchley's performances and works have been featured in venues and festivals across the U.S. and Europe including Alternating the Medium (SF), CEAIT (Redcat, Los Angeles), The Kitchen (NYC), t-u-b-e (Munich), Bang On A Can (NYC), CageFest (SF), Rachel Hafferkamp (Cologne), and the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival.

Atchley's CD of solo, electro-acoustic-noise works fountains was released by Auscultare Research. His duet Sealed Cantus with John Bischoff was released on Mr. Bischoff's 23Five CD Aperture. His interpretive score for 14251 was included in SoundVisions (published by PFAU Neue Musik, Germany, 2005). The libretto of his opera Edison's Last Project(ION) and lyrics to the choral work Lumiere de Main were published in the book the guests go in to supper (Burning Books, USA). His article, "An Introduction to the Operatic Works of K. Atchley Including an In-Depth Discussion of an Original Opera Titled Don Giovanni," was published in the Leonardo Music Journal. A profile of his work appeared in the June, 2005 issue of The Wire (#256).

See photos from the concert.