60x60


60x60 is a collection of 60 electroacoustic or acousmatic works from 60 different composers/artists, each work 60 seconds or less in duration. 60x60 project showcases sixty new works, each sixty seconds or less, by sixty composers in a continuous sixty-minute concert, for a one-hour cross-section of contemporary music. The 60x60 project was conceived and developed by the new music consortium, Vox Novus and its founder, Robert Voisey.
60x60 was designed to showcase the diversity of the contemporary music and has succeeded in presenting thousands of composers in hundreds of performances around the world since 2003. The 60x60 project puts out a call for submissions for recorded media 60 seconds or less in length 60 one-minute works are selected from the submissions. The 60 works are then ordered to create a one-hour music mix. The 60x60 mix is then synchronized with an analog clock where the beginning of each new minute brings the beginning of a new musical work by a different artist. The 60x60 mix is then presented in several venues throughout the world. Later in the performance season, 60x60 collaborates with artists of different disciplines to create multimedia performances with dance, video, and/or fine arts.

Performance, participants and purpose

The performance of 60x60 consists of the 60 works played over loudspeakers in succession without pause for 1 hour. It is played in conjunction with a synchronized analog clock. Works less than 60 seconds are artistically placed within a minute time frame; the rest of the minute is filled with silence until the next minute begins.
60x60's primary focus is to create an artistic representation of the electronic music being created in society today and to present that music to a large audience, "to represent diverse composers from all walks of life" Each 60x60 performance mix contains a wide variety of musical styles and aesthetics. "Founder Robert Voisey said the 60-centric format – inspired by other intermission-free performances in New York – is designed to retain audiences' attention. And through "60x60," he hopes to expose newcomers to electronic music."
More than 2000 composers have been included in the project. A few notable composers in the 60x60 project include: Liana Alexandra, Ernst Bacon, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz, Eve Beglarian, Stephen Betts, Colin Black, James Brody, George Brunner, Warren Burt, Monique Buzzarté, Christian Calon, David Campbell, Robert Carl, Gustav Ciamaga, :fr:Paul Clouvel, Noah Creshevsky, Francis Dhomont, Robert Dick, Emma Lou Diemer, Moritz Eggert, Arne Eigenfeldt, Karlheinz Essl, Carlo Forlivesi, David Gamper, J. Ryan Garber, Robert Gluck, Daniel Goode, David Gunn, James Harley, David Evan Jones, Richard Kostelanetz, Gintas K, Joan La Barbara, Le Tuan Hung, Mary Jane Leach, Elainie Lillios, John Link, Guy Livingston, Annea Lockwood, Chris Mann, Al Margolis, Mike McFerron, Diana McIntosh, Christian McLeer, David Morneau, John Oliver, Pauline Oliveros, Marco Oppedisano, Cezary Ostrowski, Frank J. Oteri, Robert W. Parker, Maggi Payne, Sarah Peebles, Anne van Schothorst, Daria Semegen, Alex Shapiro, Judith Shatin, Alice Shields, Juan Maria Solare, Laurie Spiegel, Allen Strange, Robert Scott Thompson, Barry Truax, Eldad Tsabary, Robert Voisey, Jane Wang, Rodney Waschka II, and Hildegard Westerkamp
60x60 is a project in which promotes both established and emerging composers and artists alike. 60x60 is a platform for the contemporary composer to promote his or her career and expose their style and aesthetic to audiences around the world. Some of the emerging composers include: John Akins, Christopher Ariza, Jason Bolte Scott Brickman Mikel Butler, Russel Cannon, Maurilio Cacciatore, Dan Sedgwick, Marji Gere, Nicholas Chase Brad Decker, Kevin Lewis Noah Meites, Mason Leiberman, Michael Pounds, Garry Wickliffe, Greg Yasinitsky
Bruce Hamilton Aaron Krister Johnson, Mark Eden, Robert Fleisher, Tova Kardonne Mason Leiberman. Molly Crain, Joey Perkins, Nadia Smith, Maurilio Cacciatore, Greg Hoepfner, Erdem Helvacıoğlu Michael Wittgraf Lynn Job, Melissa Grey, Adam Sovkoplas, Brad Decker, Nivedita ShivRaj, Chris Flores, Aaron Word, Ricardo Arias, Moises Linares., William Price, Alan Shockley Bettie Ross, Yoko Honda, Lucrecia Ugena, Jennifer Merkowitz, Mary H. Simoni, and Stephen Lias.
A complete list of composers who participated in the 60x60 project can be found on the
The 60x60 project is more than just a single performance. It is a venue where a large community of composers and sound artists come together to present their music. Each year after the call for works a Radio Request Extravaganza is held. This is a radio show where any work submitted to the project may be requested for airplay. Afterwards, a selection panels finds 60 works for the 60x60 International mix for that year; when 60 composers of a particular region or style are found an alternate mix is created to represent them. When this happens the project presents the alternate mix as well as the international mix in its concert season. After the project has presented the audio mixes, usually presented with an analog clock, 60x60 collaborates with an artist in a different media. A second performance season is held promoting the multimedia collaboration. In conjunction to the performances of the project a CD is made each year to represent the submissions sent to the project.
60x60 has been presented in various types of venues throughout the world from concert halls to classrooms; from contemporary museums to art galleries; from projections on building walls to installations in storefront windows; from large public atriums to bars and nightclubs. 60x60 uses "guerrilla" production tactics to bring it to the broadest audience possible. Some notable venues include: the World Financial Center Winter Garden Atrium, Stratford Circus, The Sheldon the Essl Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Kemper Museum, the Weisman Art Museum, storefront window at chashama, and Galapagos Art Space. 2010 sees the European debut of 60x60 Dance in London at Stratford Circus.
Other performances include: A*Devantgarde festival, Arts NOW Series, Athena Festival, eArts at Mansfield University, Electronic Music Midwest festival, International Electroacoustic Music Festival, EuCuE Free Play: Listening chamber, The Fresno New Music Festival, Kentucky New Music Festival, New Music Days festival, Outside the Box New Music Festival, Spark Festival, Oklahoma Panhandle State University Birmingham New Music Festival, Dance Parade, Sedbergh Music Festival, Minifest Transylvania University's Studio 300: Digital Art and Music Festival, International Sound Art Festival Berlin 2010, and eArts 2010 : Sound & Vision. Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium, 2009 Conference of the Texas Chapter of The National Association of Composers
60x60 has been presented in all forms of media throughout the world including Television, radio, and Internet.

Multimedia collaboration

"Robert Voisey collected and culled 60 musical arrangements from many more submissions, all to inspire the performers and stimulate the audience." -Minute to Win It, Alison Sieloff
Embracing its vision to reach a diverse audience 60x60 has collaborated with artists outside the acoustic medium to create multimedia performances. 60x60 has collaborated with experimental film makers, photographers, improvisational videographers, sculptors, choreographers and dancers. Some of the artists the project has worked with include Viv Moore, Hettie Barnhill, Stephanie Bernard, Andy Haspenpflug, Justine Linnehan, Sabrina Pena Young, Adriana Pegorer, Erin Bomboy, Amiti Perry, Patrick Liddell, Zlatko Ćosić, Jeramy Zimmerman, Gisela Gamper, Shimpei Takeda, and Nick Zedd.

60x60 Dance

60x60 Dance is a collaboration pairing the 60 audio works with 60 different dances. Exactly like the audio performances, the 60 dances are performed continuously back to back for an hour synchronized with an analog clock. While the music of 60x60 Dance can be from any of the 60x60 mixes, the dancers and choreographers are pooled from the local area where the performance is being held. This creates a "grassroots" touring show which is community based utilizing the dancers from the immediate region. 60x60 Dance has had performances at churches, performance art spaces, art galleries, dance clubs, theaters, The Sheldon, and the World Financial Center Winter Garden Atrium where it was described by The New York Times as a "masterpiece of organization"
60x60 Dance embraces the same philosophy for its dance performances as it does with its music productions. It is specifically designed to promote and expose to audiences around the world to many different choreographers and dancers with the vast wealth of vary styles and aesthetics that present day dance has to offer. A few of the choreographers who have participated in 60x60 Dance include: Germaul Barnes, Hettie Barnhill, Rob Bettmann, Mary Cochran, Ginger Cox, Tina Croll, Erin Jennings, Jason Dietz Marchant, Vivien Moore, Adriana Pegorer, Amiti Perry, Sasha Soreff, Jessica Stack, Alicia Walsh, Rachel Wynne, Jeramy Zimmerman as well as dance companies: ExtrACTION Dance Theatre, Columbus Movement Movement, Midwest Dance Theater, First Dance Saint Louis, Kari James Dance Network, Stardance, aTrek Dance Collective, and Ashleyliane Dance.

60x60 Video

60x60 Video is an hour of video which is synchronized to the audio mixes of 60x60. 60x60 Video has collaborated with video artists, experimental filmmakers, and VJ's to pair the 60 different audio compositions with video.
60x60 Images is a 60x60 multimedia collaboration based on fine art works that are 60 centimeters in length and 60 centimeters in width and then paired with a 60-second audio work in an art installation or performance. the project first started in Teatro Nuovo Giovanni in Udine, Italy with an idea by Vittorio Vella, and Francesca Agostinelli and Taukay Edizioni Musicali The project has since be reproduced in Mexico and in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Radio Request Extravaganza

In the beginning of each 60x60 concert season, the project holds a Radio Request Extravaganza. This is an all request radio show where composers and their fans call into the hosting radio station request works that have been submitted to the 60x60 project that year. Different new music radio programs and radio stations host the Extravaganza. In the past the 60x60 Radio Request Extravaganza has been hosted on Relevant Tones hosted by Seth Boustead on WFMT in Chicago, Afternoon New Music on WKCR New York, New York; Martian Gardens Radio Show on WMUA Amherst, Massachusetts; Kalvos & Damian New Music Bazaar on WGDR Plainfield, Vermont; Foldover, on WOBC-FM Oberlin, Ohio; and Sculpted Word on WBAR in New York, New York.
For the 10th Annual 60x60, Jim Cross on What's Next? on WGDR hosted a 10-hour marathon of the 60x60 Radio Requset Extravaganza

Alternate Mixes

The project uses grassroots ideology to grow and promote its mission to expose electroacoustic music. When the project receives more than 60 compositions of a particular theme or from a particular region, the project creates a themed mix to be represent that subsection of its submissions. The project has created many different mixes besides its main "International Mix" which is a representative selection of the entire submissions made to the project for that year. Alternate Mixes created by the 60x60 project include: the Athena Mix, the Canada Mix, the UnTwelve Mix, the Presenters Mix, the Pacific Rim Mix,
Midwest Minutes Mix,
New York Minutes Mix,
UK Mix, Munich Mix, Environmental Mix, the Order of Magnitude Mix, the 60x60 Surround Sound Mix utilizing 5.1 Surround Sound and the 2010 ICMC RED Mixes.

360 degrees of 60x60

360 degrees of 60x60 was a special project of 60x60 created specifically for the International Computer Music Conference at Stony Brook University in 2010. ICMC 2010 was dubbed the "RED" edition as an acronym for research, education, and discovery and the 60x60 mixes were named shades of red to commemorate it. The "RED" Mixes are a special 60x60 project containing 6 different mixes with 360 different one-minute audio pieces by different composers. Each of the 6 different 1 hour 60x60 mixes are named a shade of red titling the mix: including the Burgundy Mix, Crimson Mix, Magenta Mix, Sanguine Mix, Scarlet Mix, and the Vermilion Mix. The 60x60 "RED" mixes have received close to 100 performances in around the world. Patrick Liddell created video for all 6 hours of 360 degrees of 60x60.

Athena Mix

The Athena mix was created in 2011 and it contains works only from women composers. The mix was named after the Athena Festival and was "macro-composed" by Sabrina Peña Young The first all women 60x60 mix contained the notable composers: Eve Beglarian, Joan Labarbara, Annea Lockwood, Pauline Oliveros, Maggi Payne, Alice Shields, Daria Semegen, and Laurie Spiegel.
"The 60×60 Athena Mix accomplishes much in its showcase of talented women from a global perspective. The 60×60 Athena Mix is a creative way to celebrate International Women's Day, a day set aside to celebrate the accomplishments and achievement of women around the world."
In 2012 Sabrina Peña Young coordinated another Athena Mix of all women composers to contribute to the 60x60 projects decade celebration. The concert performed on International Woman's Day on Friday 8 March 2013 at Harris Museum & Art Gallery in Lancashire, United Kingdom.

Canada Mix

The 60x60 Canada mix contains works from composers from and currently living in Canada. The 60x60 Canada mix started in 2008 with Eldad Tsabary as the macro-composer/music coordinator and co-producer. Two Canadian mixes were created in 2008: a concert version which was premiered at Concordia University as part of the ÉuCuE performance series and a "SONUS Gallery" mix that was published in the CEC's electronic journal of electroacoustics, eContact!
The 60x60 Canada Mix was presented at the 5th Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium a co-presentation of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community and New Adventures in Sound Art.

Environmental Mix

The 60x60 Environmental mix is the first 60x60 mix to include work entirely with the theme of nature and the environment both rural and urban.
Composers from over a dozen countries are represented, and pieces including everything from field recordings at unique locations to sounds from outer space, from insect and animal sounds to urban noises, to expressions of the feelings people have for the places they inhabit, to lots of water sounds, will be heard. This mix received its premiere in California March 2012 as part of the project's decade celebration.
Robert Voisey is the audio coordinator for the 60x60 Environmental Mix.

The UnTwelve Mix

The 60x60 Untwelve Mix contains 60 second audio works with tonal systems that go beyond the traditional tonality in Western music and twelve tone music. Started in 2010 in collaboration with , the UnTwelve mix captures the work of composers in the same format as the classic 60x60 concert, however, the emphasis is on pieces whose pitch content is of interest in that it goes beyond the bounds of the traditional 12-tone equal tempered system. Aaron Krister Johnson is the "macro-composer" or music coordinator of the 60x60 UnTwelve Mix and co-produced the mix with Robert Voisey at Vox Novus. was The UnTwelve mix had a proto-premiere in Istanbul, Turkey, on April 14, and the official premiere was April 27, 2010, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. It has since had performances in Kansas City, Missouri, Charlestown, Massachusetts and is slated to have a performance at Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA, on October 7, 2010, and a Chicago repeat performance on October 20, 2010, with video art by Patrick Liddell. The 60x60 UnTwelve Mix also has had several performances in Boston at Mobius, "Signs of Our 60 Times 60 II"

The 5.1 Surround Sound Mix

60x60 in collaboration with Harvestworks, curator Hans Tammen created the first 60x60 mix utilizing 5.1 Surround Sound premiered at the Harvestworks studios in New York City. Receiving 160 submissions the 60x60 Surround Sound Mix exemplifies the variety possible with the 5.1 speaker configuration, "this exhibit is about multichannel sound, we chose a few works that are exemplary in terms of spatialization of sounds, while most others employ these means in a more subtle way. Everything you can do beyond stereo with 5.1 channels is there: 5.1, 5.0, 4.1 and 4.0. There is even a 3.1 work, it does spatialization solely with the center and rear speakers." -Curator Hans Tammen

Wave Farm Mix

In 2014Vox Novus and Wave Farm collaborated to put out a call for works to create the Wave Farm mix. This mix was broadcast several times on Wave Farm's WGXC 90.7-FM, available for download, and featured in a series of listening events.

Macro vs Micro

Micro

60x60 is a collection of miniatures or "signature" works from 60 different composers/sound artists. Each work is 60 seconds in length and are sequenced in order to fit neatly within each minute of the hour; each new minute is a different piece from a different artist.
60x60 ensures that no individual piece of music lasts too long--you'd be hard pressed to find someone who couldn't sit through one minute of music that didn't appeal to them.

60x60 creates a unique challenge for the composer/sound artist to express themselves in the concise time frame of one minute. Besides that one restriction, artists are free and specifically encouraged to express themselves in any way that they wish.
Voisey states, "A minute can be plenty of time to express a whole gamut of imaginative sounds and movements, or it can be a challenge, forcing the artist to isolate what is most important in his/her work."

Macro

60x60 is much more than a collection of short works played one after another. The entire hour of 60 on-minute works is specifically curated or composed as a one-hour-long "macro-composition" containing the 60 works. All 60x60 mixes are put together by artists to create an artistic hour for audiences to enjoy.
60×60 involves macro-composition, which Voisey describes as, "the act of creating a musical work incorporating several fully formed ideas or complete works." And just as "ballet, operas, and movies are all perfect examples of many artists contributing to a greater artistic whole orchestrated by the 'macro-artist',"

As the creator and leader of 60x60, Robert Voisey has created and "macro-composed" the most mixes and is responsible for the "main" annual 60x60 International mix since 2003. He has put together several other 60x60 mixes including: Pacific Rim mixes, Midwest mixes, 2006 New York Minutes Mix, Munich Mix, Electronic Music Midwest Mix, Evolution Mixes, the UK Mix, the Burgundy Mix, the Magenta Mix, the Sanguine Mix and the Scarlet Mix.
Several other composers have put together different mixes. Eldad Tsabary has been responsible for putting together the Canadian Mixes as well as the Vermillion mix and the Order of Magnitude Mix. Aaron Krister Johnson was responsible for the UnTwelve Mix and the Crimson Mix. Sabina Pena Young was responsible for putting together the Athena mix. Robert Ratcliffe for the Presenters Mix. Melissa Grey for the 2012 New York Minutes Mix. James Finnerty for the 2012 Canadian Mix. Thomas Gerwin for the 2012 Voice Mix.

Past, present and future

There is a history of electroacoustic "shorts." In 1982, Elliott Sharp created an album of shorts called "State of the Union" to accompany an issue of Zone Magazine. In the mid-1980s when the Association pour la création et recherches en électroacoustique de Québec launched an annual competition for "Electroclips", most pieces being between one and three minutes in duration. In the late 1980s, Jean-François Denis and Claude Schryer of Montreal, commissioned 25 three-minute pieces for the "25 instantanés électroacoustiques", Électro Clips, published by empreinted DIGITALes in 1990, IMED 9004. In 1998, Larry Polansky created "The Frog Peak Collaborations Project" a double album of shorts based on an audio sound file from Chris Mann.
In the tradition of projects before it 60x60 has inspired several electroacoustic miniature projects such as David Morneau's 60x365, where he blogged a 60-second composition once every day for a year.
And the miniature form continues in many other projects such as Jon Nelson's 50/50 project.

History

2016

Discography

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