Composer John Morton, whose manipulation of music boxes, use of natural spaces, and large-scale installation works have earned him press from NPR and The New York Times, returned to our Mezzanine studio last month for a spirited session of strings and real-time electronic processing.

Morton is a lifelong musician with a curious ear for new sounds. His studies began under composer David Sheinfeld, and later continued at the California Institute of the Arts under Morton Subotnick and Lucky Mosko. Morton’s work has been described as being in dialogue with other 20th century instrument manipulators like Conlon Nancarrow and John Cage.

Dubway engineer Russell Castiglione monitored the board as Morton and his players created the sound-world of the piece, routing the string instruments into Morton’s laptop for real-time processing using Max/MSP, a ubiquitous tool for sound artists and composers looking for live electronic manipulation of sounds (and video, and just about every other conceivable form of data).

Check out some photos from the session below, and stay tuned for an upcoming release!