Elliott Sharp leads SysOrk, Orchestra Carbon, Terraplane, and Tectonics, and pioneered the use of fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetics in musical composition and interaction. His opera Port Bou premiered in 2014 at Issue Project Room; his suite Tribute: MLK Berlin '64 opened the 2014 Berlin Jazz Festival. Storm of the Eye appears on Hilary Hahn's Grammy-winning album In 27 Pieces, and Turing Test premiered at the Venice Biennale in 2012. Sharp has been featured at New Music Stockholm, Darmstadt, Donaueschingen, and Au Printemps, and is the subject of the film Doing The Don't. He received the Berlin Prize (2015), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2014), a Fellowship from the Center for Transformative Media (2014), and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Fellowship (2003). His collaborators include Radio-Sinfonie Frankfurt, Debbie Harry, Ensemble Modern, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Hubert Sumlin, Pops Staples, Cecil Taylor, Christian Marclay, Pierre Huyghe, and Bachir Attar of the Master Musicians of Jajouka.

How would you describe music?

Music, for me, is best defined by Edgard Varese as "organized sound". I would add that listening to music causes psychoacoustic chemical change.

What is your relationship to music?

As a composer and instrumentalist, I seek to channel the source of inspiration, whatever it may be, into output in the proper band of the spectrum for the material.

What draws you to the instrument(s) you play, and/or to composing?

So many factors: sound, of course; tradition and history; speculative thought, experimentation. I'm always trying to expand the range and timbres of the instruments that I play or write for when composing.

What groups or musical communities have you been part of, and how have they influenced your playing or composing today?

Too many to list though I would include band and orchestra as a child, working with electronics, playing in blues and psychedelic rock bands in the 1960s & 70s, jazz and free-improvisation groups in the 70s, improvising with scores of musicians both Western and non-Western, studying musical theory and history, (both Western and non-Western). Major band projects have been Carbon (1983 on), Semantics (1986 on), Terraplane (1991 on),

What musician(s) most influenced your approach to music, and why?
Who or what influences you most outside of music, and why?

Again, too many to list. The artist is an antenna, capturing information of all kinds then processing and outputting in the proper place in the spectrum. This includes musicians, of course, but also all sounds, natural forms and processes, mathematics, philosophy, literature

What deceased performer(s), improviser(s), or composer(s) would you most like to have a conversation with, and why?

Edgard Varese because of his revolutionary sonic approaches and understanding of music

What advice would you give to a young musician entering your field?

Follow your deepest passions and visions - don't give in to the corporate mindset, the AI nonsense, the dumbing down of music.

What do you hope audiences take away from experiencing your music?

Again, psychoacoustic chemical change - I can't tell them what to take away but I can hope they experience it in the same way that I do while making the music.

Where do you see the music you're involved in heading in the coming years?

We who make music have no choice but to continue. It would be wonderful if all musics were welcomed and offered the opportunity to be disseminated but with AI being shoved down everyone's throats, those of us who make more radical musics might find our work to be increasingly marginalized.

If you could shape the future of this music, what would it look like?

It would be extensive participatory music education for all children from an early age (adults too!). Community orchestras performing improvisation, conductions, graphic scores - cross cultural and open to all.

Short Bio

ELLIOTT SHARP leads SysOrk, Orchestra Carbon, Terraplane, and Tectonics and pioneered use of fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetics in musical composition and interaction. His opera Port Bou premiered October 2014 at Issue Project Room and his suite Tribute:MLK Berlin '64 opened the 2014 Berlin Jazz Festival. Storm Of the Eye appears on violinist Hilary Hahn's Grammy-winning album In 27 Pieces and Turing Test for the Neue Vocalsölisten Stuttgart premiered at the Venice Biennale in 2012. Sharp has been featured at festivals New Music Stockholm, Darmstadt, Donaueschingen, and Au Printemps and is the subject of the documentary film Doing The Don’t. Sharp was awarded the Berlin Prize for Music Composition for 2015; a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014; a Fellowship from the Center for Transformative Media in 2014. In 2003, he received a Fellowship from the Foundation For Contemporary Art. Sharp’s collaborators have included Radio-Sinfonie Frankfurt; singer Debbie Harry; Ensemble Modern; Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples; pianist Cecil Taylor; multimedia artists Christian Marclay and Pierre Huyghe; and Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians Of Jajouka.

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