Steven Kazuo Takasugi

Born in 1960 in Los Angeles. Steven Kazuo Takasugi is a composer of electro-acoustic concert music. This involves the recording and collecting of acoustic sound samples into large databases, each classifying thousands of individual, performed instances. These are then subjected to computer-assisted, algorithmic composition, revised and adjusted until the emergent sound phenomena, energies and relationships reveal hidden meanings and bewildering contexts to the composer. Against this project of fixed-media is the addition of live performers, described as an accompanying project of music theater: “When people return…” This relationship often creates a “strange doubling” playing off the “who is doing what?” inherent with simultaneous live and recorded media: a ventriloquism effect of sorts.

Steven Kazuo Takasugi is teaching composition for the second time as part of the Darmstadt Summer Course.