Electronic Music

Electronic music may come across as cold and unemotional to some, but as filmmaker Iara Lee's documentary "Modulations" bears out, it's anything but.A marvelous film that captures the joy, creativity and innovation behind electronic music, or electronica, "Modulations" serves as the perfect introduction to a world of sounds limited only by the musicians' imagination -- and some of these musicians have tremendous imaginations.Tracing its origins back to John Cale's compositions of the 1930s, electronica comes across as far more than just blips, squeals and squeaks; anyone who's ever seen "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and marveled at the eerie soundtrack, or sat in wonder listening to the range of sounds produced by a Moog synthesizer, already knows how hypnotic electronic music can be.But "Modulations," playing through tomorrow at the Charles, takes us behind the music and introduces us to the faces responsible for it, from Cale and Miles Davis to Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and Afrika Bambaataa.

In a couple of weeks, hordes will descend upon Miami again. It seems people are always mobbing Miami - for international art fairs, for Martin Luther King Jr.weekend, for sporting events, and of course, for those famed beaches, which always seem overwhelmed with bronzed bodies in tiny swimwear. But this crowd - as many as 200,000 over three days - will come wielding glow-sticks, furry boots, designer drugs and paraphernalia promoting their favorite superstar DJs as they descend on the Ultra Music Festival, the largest electronic music festival in the United States.

The Peabody Conservatory will offer a new master of music degree in electronic and computer music starting in September, the first such program in the country to offer three specialized areas -- composition, performance and research.Four faculty members, specialists in different aspects of computer music, will teach the program: Jean Eichelberger Ivey, Geoffrey Wright, McGregor Boyle and Edward Pirali. Wright directs the computer music department and designed the two-year degree program.The computer music department for several years has worked with Johns Hopkins University in cross-disciplinary projects such studying bird song and creating music software.

Artscape, Whartscape, Scapescape — there's been so many -scapes lately, it's hard to keep track. But it's almost impossible confuse any them with Starscape, the overnight electronic and dance music festival that's now in its 13th year. Celebrated annually at Fort Armistead Park, Starscape begins at 2 p.m. Saturday and ends at 6 a.m. Sunday. Major headliners of the genre will perform, among them, Bassnectar, Zeds Dead, Uncle Jesse and Daedelus. DJ Steve Aoki will also be there.

In the early 1990s, Baltimore's underground electronic music scene was just beginning to emerge. While most people spent Friday and Saturday night swilling beer in Fells Point, head-banging at Hammerjacks or dancing to pop music in mainstream clubs, a small but dedicated group was grooving all night to the pounding beat of techno. Among the many warehouse parties and events going on around town for these pioneers of the rave scene, one Thursday night bi-weekly party stood out among the others as the place to be. It was called Fever.

There are so many big-voiced female British singers, it's hard to keep track of them. There's Adele, out with new album "21," and there's Duffy, of the ubiquitous "Mercy. " Then there's Florence Welch and Elly Jackson, of La Roux, not to mention the ones who started it all, Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse. Joining their ranks this year is Ellie Goulding, a 24-year-old singer from Hereford, England, whose new album, "Lights," has already climbed to the top of the British music charts.

Samuel Noah Kramer, 93, a scholar whose greatest passion was poring over 4,000-year-old clay tablets that contained the world's first known written language, the ancient cuneiform script of the Sumerians, died Monday in Philadelphia. He had throat cancer. Mr. Kramer, a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, translated myths, prayers and proverbs that predate the Bible. He also was credited with discovering the world's oldest matrimonial vows, the first juvenile delinquent and the oldest known record of a murder trial -- the 3,800-year-old case of three men who were sentenced to death for the murder of a temple official in Sumer, which is now southern Iraq.

Twelve-year-old Sam Diener knows all about oscillators, waveforms and sequencers. The seventh-grader at Columbia's Wilde Lake Middle School has learned more stuff about the MIDI, a complex keyboard-computer-synthesizer system, than most folks can even imagine.This is thanks to a small class at the west Columbia school on electronic music, one of a handful of courses in the state that offer electronic music instruction to middle-schoolers.The class -- an independent study course for 22 gifted and talented students -- guides youngsters through synthesizers' myriad buttons, knobs and sliders so they can make an infinite range of sounds, both musical and other-worldly.

In a couple of weeks, hordes will descend upon Miami again. It seems people are always mobbing Miami - for international art fairs, for Martin Luther King Jr.weekend, for sporting events, and of course, for those famed beaches, which always seem overwhelmed with bronzed bodies in tiny swimwear. But this crowd - as many as 200,000 over three days - will come wielding glow-sticks, furry boots, designer drugs and paraphernalia promoting their favorite superstar DJs as they descend on the Ultra Music Festival, the largest electronic music festival in the United States.

Jean Eichelberger Ivey does not pay heed to astrology, bu she is the sort of person whose life is governed by the stars.That's why she lives near the Hayden Planetarium in New York ("It's very convenient," she says); that's why she went to New Zealand five years ago ("the southern hemisphere was the best place to see Halley's comet"); that's why she's going to Hawaii nextyear ("solar eclipses aren't exactly every day occurrences"); and that's why Ivey, a distinguished composer on the faculty of the Peabody Institute, has named her recent piece for solo cello and orchestra, "Voyager."

There are so many big-voiced female British singers, it's hard to keep track of them. There's Adele, out with new album "21," and there's Duffy, of the ubiquitous "Mercy. " Then there's Florence Welch and Elly Jackson, of La Roux, not to mention the ones who started it all, Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse. Joining their ranks this year is Ellie Goulding, a 24-year-old singer from Hereford, England, whose new album, "Lights," has already climbed to the top of the British music charts.

theater 'A Bronx Tale': Chazz Palminteri reprises his touching semi-autobiographical story about a boy torn between two "fathers": his upright, bus-driving dad and a charismatic gangster. Palminteri portrays 18 characters in the one-actor show, which runs Tuesday through April 26 at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, 12 N. Eutaw St. Showtimes vary. Tickets are $20-$60. Call 410-547-7328 or go to france-merrickpac.com. Mary Carole McCauley art 'Recent Acquisitions': Since it was founded nearly 80 years ago, the Textile Museum in Washington has seen its collection grow from 335 pieces to nearly 18,000 handwoven textiles from around the world.

Daniel Bernard Roumain, known in the music world as DBR, says the violin has saved his life. Rather fittingly, he uses his life saver to reach out to others and dive into the deepest of topics in his new piece, "One Loss Plus." "For anyone, it's nice to have an antidote, not only in a time of war, but when you are sad and feel alone," Roumain said. "Music can serve as a wonderful antidote to a very harsh and cruel world." Roumain, 36, of Margate, Fla., started playing the violin when he was 5 years old. By age 10, he was composing and playing in rock and jazz bands; by 15 he had "plugged in," or attached his violin to amps; and now he has released an album (etudes4violin&electronix)

He was blinded by science and then disillusioned with the music industry. Now, after a roughly 15-year hiatus from national touring, electronic-music pioneer Thomas Dolby is back on the road with a new live CD and DVD, The Sole Inhabitant. He comes to Sonar on Wednesday with house and electronica artist BT. Though he had two hits with "She Blinded Me With Science" and "Hyperactive," Dolby stopped pursuing a career in music in the late '80s. One of his reasons for leaving was that the industry tried to fit him into a mold, he said.

What happens when art meets technology? A heckuva party, if the Contemporary Museum is at the controls. Almost every aspect of the Contemporary's gala had an electronic / artistic bent. As guests entered the Brown Center at the Maryland Institute College of Art, they were greeted by the sounds of electronic music. Right inside the front door stood a digital photo booth, where folks could pose for pictures and then be rewarded with a strip of four photos. Even the cocktail hour eats were set on glowing trays and tables.

Few Baltimore bars mix it up like Shorty's Martini Bar and Lounge. For five years running, this corner bar where Highlandtown meets Canton has showcased some of the area's better DJs and mixed drinks. Most nights, it's a haven for house and drum and bass - even as the city's electronic music scene loses steam. Saturday night, 10 resident DJs will spin to celebrate the bar's five-year anniversary. DJ Charles Feel Good, aka Charles Fields, opened Shorty's in April 2001. He thought about leaving space for a minidance floor but installed a pool table by the DJ booth instead.

County Executive Janet S. Owens plans to meet with the nonprofit group that operates the county fairgrounds in Crownsville to discuss how to avoid a repeat of a Saturday music and dance event that police described as a "rave," which led to 47 arrests - mostly on drug charges. "We clearly need avenues for young people to come together for music, for fun," Owens said yesterday. "But I don't want anything that encourages drugs coming into our county." No date has been set for the meeting.

Few Baltimore bars mix it up like Shorty's Martini Bar and Lounge. For five years running, this corner bar where Highlandtown meets Canton has showcased some of the area's better DJs and mixed drinks. Most nights, it's a haven for house and drum and bass - even as the city's electronic music scene loses steam. Saturday night, 10 resident DJs will spin to celebrate the bar's five-year anniversary. DJ Charles Feel Good, aka Charles Fields, opened Shorty's in April 2001. He thought about leaving space for a minidance floor but installed a pool table by the DJ booth instead.

Aficionados of live music may have noticed that Sonar has landed a string of impressive national acts in the past few months. And the truly observant would note that all of these acts also played at the venerable 9:30 Club in Washington. Rapper Talib Kweli played both venues in November; hip-hop star Mos Def played both clubs in December. Ditto for punk trio Le Tigre in February. And most recently, Interpol sold out both the 9:30 Club, at 815 V St. N.W., and Sonar, at 407 E. Saratoga St. The scheduling similarities reflect a fledgling business relationship between the owners of the two clubs that, coupled with the recent opening of Rams Head Live in the Power Plant Live complex, may mean Baltimoreans can expect to see more national rock bands than in recent history.

Hotel is billed as the first Moby album that doesn't contain any vocal samples. Well, back to the drawing board. Moby is many things: a true pop-music eclectic, a sonic wizard, a distinctive songwriter, a politically engaged activist, a bridge between the worlds of rock and electronic music. But he's not much of a singer, and by making his detached, deadpan delivery the dominant voice on his new album, he leaves most of the songs as surface decorations, lacking the kind of emotional soul singing (sampled or not)