A series of three pieces/suites; 'Leapday Night', 'A Traveler's Dream Journal', and 'Interspecies Smalltalk' involving Rhys Chatham/Ben Neill (on trumpet/mutantrumpet), Fluxus mainstay Takehisa Kosugi (violin), and David Behrman himself on electronics. Behrman creates thickly layered liquid sounds utilizing this complex computer music system which absorbs, actually hears, the sounds of instrumentalists, then plays off their improvisations with its own synthesized reactions. The system consists of pitch sensors ("ears" with which it listens to the performing musicians), various music synthesizers (some homemade), a computer graphics color video display and a personal computer. "Heavy period-synth float with bare accompaniment, thankfully just-pre DX-7.
Leapday Night and Interspecies Smalltalk are sets of compositions for instrumental performers and a computer music system which I designed and assembled during the 1980s. The system consists of pitch sensors ("ears" with which it listens to the performing musicians), various music synthesizers (some homemade), a computer graphics color video display and a personal computer.
Each composition is built upon a computer program governing interaction between performers and the system, and creates situations rather than set pieces. The performers have options rather than instructions, and the exploration of each situation as it unfolds is up to them.
Leapday Night was developed in the course of rehearsals and performances with Ben Neill and Rhys Chatham from 1983 to 1986. Interspecies Smalltalk was commissioned by John Cage and Merce Cunningham as music for the 1984 Cunningham Dance Company repertory work "Pictures," and was made for performance by Takehisa Kosugi.