Nova Linea Musica returned for a second season with pianist and composer Conrad Tao leading Echoes and Algorithms on Wednesday night. NLM is a music incubator that allow musicians and composers a platform for developing their craft and advancing their compositions. Headed by Executive Director Michele Mohammadi and Artistic Director Desirée Ruhstrat, NLM has scheduled eight performances in the the 2025-26 season, up from four last year. The first performance on Wednesday included a world premiere commissioned by NLM from the composer Christopher Mercer.
Every performance at NLM features a pre-show discussion with violist and journalist Doyle Armbrust. Tao and Mercer were eloquent and entertaining describing the process of melding more harmonic music with computer-generated sounds. Mercer described his piece as aleatoric, which literally means chance, but also allows the performer to respond to elements of the computer language.
Tao spoke of the pandemic shutdown in 2022, when there was forced into solitude. Here is a musician who has played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, and storied venues all over the world, and in that confinement expanded new music and collaborated with other composers through computer-generated and programmed sounds. Tao and Mercer shed some light on how AI and technology can contribute to a composition on an organic and granular level.
The first piece was Tell Me Again for piano, handbells, and electronics by Ben Nobuto. The composition incorporates sounds and rhythms that are playful, dramatic, and literally colorful. The set of handbells was in dazzling primary colors, sitting where the music rack sits. They were balanced on a board that created a visual sense of precariousness. Tao has a synesthetic performance style. It is physical and almost trance-like, where he and the piano become one entity. In this case, it was Tao, the piano, handbells, and a tech setup to the side. It was a stunning start to an extraordinary evening of music.
Impromptu: Fluorescing by Mercer was the world premiere composition commissioned by NLM. Mercer described his style as pianistic, creating harmony and melody as a challenge to the computer sound. Impromptu: Fluorescing was created with the pianist reacting in real-time to sounds from the computer, thus creating an origin versus progeny effect. When he described it in the pre-concert talk, my head was spinning from the term "Super Lydian," which involves creating a chain of multi-octave patterns. I did not know precisely what it meant, but I recognized it when I heard it. It has a bright cinematic sound like being in pure nature. I had my own moment of synesthesia, imagining the lovely smell after a light rain, listening to the notes.
The third piece was from composer John Supko and was written with Tao in mind. One Hundred Thousand Billion Pieces for Piano and Computer was a mind-bending mix of technology and acoustic piano. The composition was written with Tao's talent for responding in real time to random sounds generated by a program built by Supko. It could be different every time it is performed. It is like an infinite sum of combinations, sounds, and phrases, with Tao being able to compose a completely different piece spontaneously. One Hundred Thousand Billion Pieces premiered in New York, written with Tao in mind as one who could literally create an infinite number of compositions, taking cues from the computer. It was a musical mind bender of spontaneity, asking, "What are You Thinking in the Moment?"
Extended Circular Music No. 2 by Jürg Frey was an exploration of the relationship between music, sound, and space. Moments of computer-generated static, mixed in between phrases, gave me a feeling of being between creation and apocalypse. Either one could be considered utopia, as hearing music is a subjective experience in the listener's mind. Tao's composition Hot Air followed as the finale to the concert. It was written during lockdown and is an expression of Tao making music with his environment during the COVID-19 lockdown. The use of technology to convey sound and emotion is bringing the inanimate to life. Tao took inspiration from surfaces, objects, and sounds, and programmed them into a computer to create an aural environment.
I was deeply moved by the incorporation of technology into such an organic form as music and sound. The term "artificial intelligence" usually raises the hair on the back of my neck. I had not heard technology used in this manner. It feels and sounds completely original. A sentient human being programmed the sounds to combine with acoustic sounds. It resulted in something meta-human, akin to a symbiosis, creating a new organic entity. This is new music in the classical genre at its best. It may not be a classical purist's cup of tea, but it elevates and builds the art form. I felt optimism rather than prescient science fiction. I heard depth and recognition of the human condition. It promises to be an exciting season two with Nova Linea Musica.
Nova Linea Musica presented Echoes and Algorithms featuring Conrad Tao, on September 10, 2025, at Guarneri Hall, 11 East Adams in Chicago's Loop. The next performance is scheduled for October 29, 2025, featuring the Owls presenting a program called "Rare Birds." For more information and the schedule for the 2025/2026 season at NLM, please visit novalineamusica.org
