L2Ork » Linux Laptop Orchestra

04Apr 2011

Upcoming Spring Events

Posted in Announcements

The spring is in the air, which means it is time for the spring DISIS and L2Ork events. To start the season right, this past Friday L2Ork had a sneak preview performance at Roanoke College. More so, this coming weekend we are having a truly special series of events with the return of the Boys & Girls Club laptop orchestra whom we’ve been working with this semester. In addition, the spring DISIS event will also include guest artists and scholars Ron Coulter, Brad Garton, Peter Kirn, and Dave Phillips. The upcoming events include:

Thursday April 7 @ 3:30-4:45pm in DISIS presentation by Brad Garton
Friday 10am-1pm lectures in the Arts Armory by Brad Garton, Peter Kirn, and Dave Phillips (free admission)
Friday April 8 @ 7pm in Dumas Center (Roanoke, VA) children’s concert featuring Boys & Girls Club laptop orchestra and L2Ork
Saturday April 9 @ 7pm in Squires Recital Salon children’s benefit concert (an Arts Fusion event) featuring Boys & Girls Club laptop orchestra and L2Ork followed by a hands-on laptop orchestra demo session for kids and families ($5 general, $3 children/students/seniors, with all proceeds benefiting Boys & Girls Club) Press Release
Saturday April 9 @ 8pm in Squires Recital Salon benefit concert (an Arts Fusion event) featuring Ron Coulter, Brad Garton, Peter Kirn, Dave Phillips, and L2Ork ($5 general, $3 children/students/seniors, with all proceeds benefiting Boys & Girls Club) Press Release

This year we’ve also partnered up with the Virginia Tech Kids’ Tech University program (KTU blog) to expand our outreach to young audiences. For additional info on the upcoming events, please visit our Events page or our Facebook Event page. To keep up with the latest updates, join us on Facebook.

As if that weren’t exciting enough, earlier this weekend we’ve made yet another public release of pd-l2ork with even more cool features and fixes. Our site has been also updated with the new promotional materials and photos. Yet, in the spirit of Steve Jobs’ keynote speeches we’ve left the best for last. Stay tuned for more exciting updates soon ;-)

03Mar 2011

1st Prize

Posted in Announcements

As usual, things are rather busy in L2Ork-land. As a matter of fact, so busy we’ve completely forgotten to blog (which reminds me I need to update both L2Ork and DISIS sites)…

We are once again thoroughly excited to be working with the 4th and 5th graders of the Boys & Girls Club of Roanoke, VA, we recently returned from the national SEAMUS 2011 conference, we just got a brand new piece finished that incorporates Taiji (a.k.a. Tai Chi) choreography, pd-l2ork is progressing beautifully with already hundreds of bug-fixes and improvements committed since last November (and now with a comprehensive documentation on how to install it), and we are only a month away from series of our spring performances (which once again, reminds me, I really need to update the “upcoming events” page asap). As if that weren’t enough, a couple weeks ago I learned that the revamped version of Half-Life composition for laptop orchestra and narrator (based on a piece originally written for L2Ork) has won the first place on the first international laptop orchestra composition commission competition sponsored by our sister MONSTER laptop orchestra at Montana State University. Yay!

All that said, provided next couple of weeks go as planned, we are gearing up for another huge announcement, so stay tuned for more L2Ork goodness! In the meantime, as a shameless plug for my DISIS computer music students, they’ve just released their first Max album in the “aural pixels” series featuring real-time generated experimental tunes. So, head over to the DISIS portfolio page for some screechin’, FMlicious goodness.

19Jan 2011

We’re going on tour!

Posted in Uncategorized

Yeah!!!!

Why did I stay up all evening working on music and watching Dexter’s Lab instead of sleeping?

Because we’re going on tour! And we’re leaving at six! In the AM!

Well, that is actually awful logic on my part, but I figure I’ll be able to sleep in the tour van and work on my other max/pd music endeavors.

I think we’re all pretty stoked for SEAMUS. It looks to be more than just very reputable event, but a truly awesome collective of performers, ideas and music. I really feel L2Ork is just like any other music group that’s been around for this period of time, we’re just trying to get out there and play. It’s all about spreading the love/music, although in this case, we have the privilege of spreading this love in an open source/linuxy fashion. Ahhhh yeahhhhh.

Let’s talk about myself so I can figure out if I’ve packed everything and tell you what gear I’m personally using at the same time. Zing. In the backpack I got:
-Novation Launchpad
-Livid Ohm Classic
-Edirol UA-1G
on a Toshiba Satellite and into my head with some Sennheiser HD 380 Pros

Yeah, tis lookin like it’ll be a productive car ride unless I just pass out for the entire 15 hours.
Tour! Yeah! Tour! Neat! SEAMUS!

-Adam

15Nov 2010

L2Ork + Renoise = Love at First Sight

Posted in Announcements

Greetings from the L2Ork central! Amidst tons of software updates we’ve been posting over the past couple days on our Software page, earlier today I learned that L2Ork has received a generous sponsorship from the Renoise folks, makers of the amazing and quite unconventional Renoise computer music composition & performance software in a form of a site license covering the entire L2Ork ensemble. One will surely wonder, what do we want to do with all these copies? ;-) While we keep you in suspense, why don’t you go and check out the latest and greatest in the L2Ork iteration of Pd (which BTW has seen dozens upon dozens of crucial bug fixes and usability improvements covering both the core program and supporting externals) available on our Software page. Stay tuned for more updates soon!

02Nov 2010

“With Good Reason”

Posted in Announcements

This past weekend L2Ork was featured as part of an interview on the “With Good Reason” radio show that airs in Virginia and D.C. I would like to use this opportunity to extend special thanks to the radio show host Sarah McConnell, associate producer Elliot Majerczyk, as well as the rest of the production team for this wonderful opportunity. To find out more, (including interview audio footage) please click here or visit WGR website.

P.S. Apparently, the same story also aired on on Roanoke’s WVTF (89.1) on Wednesday, November 3 at 7:30 PM, and as part of the morning NPR segment on the 4th. VT press release can be accessed by clicking here.