computer sound

Most computer sound cards and outputs are meant for “consumer grade” audio, and can be less than ideal for recording professional audio.

At the same time, the electronics probed the expressive possibilities and limitations of computer sound, now functioning as a duet partner with the piano, now pulling in extra-musical allusions to evoke, for instance, the quiet, unrelenting beeps of an alarm clock.

Some rivals use Dolby Home Theater and Advanced Audio to enhance computer sound.

The Kronos Quartet, Ethel and the cellist Maya Beiser have been presenting semistaged programs for years, often with video and computer sound, and productions of that sort have become the standard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival.

The Scottish-born Mr. Dillon, 60, who has also studied linguistics, art, acoustics, computer sound technology and more, describes “Nine Rivers” as “a mythos of imagined waters, of fairies and snake-gods, a melancholy of flow, a requiem for poisoned rivers, an odyssey, a theater of memory.”