Deep Evening: Music That Improvises Itself

How can music compose itself in real-time, and how can this kind of procedurally-generated music react and respond to the world around it in a nature-oriented way? 'Deep Evening,' Walker's latest electronic music project, is a procedural performance system which 'improvises' music using a modular approach. This performance is constantly adjusted based on current time relative to local sunset, and the mood of the music gradually changes to mirror the change of day into night.

In their presentation, Walker will cover some basics of pitch and tuning theory to help explain how 'Deep Evening' handles arbitrary micro-pitch scales (and why you should care), and then 'pop the hood' and give a detailed explanation of how the performance modules work.

Walker Williams (they/them) is an eclectic composer from rural West Virginia, whose compositional style runs the gamut from conservative tonality to avant-garde performance art (admittedly with a tendency towards ‘pretty music’). Walker is a doctoral candidate in composition at the University of British Columbia, and they hold a MMus from UBC, and a BA from Shepherd University in West Virginia.

As a white settler, Walker has benefitted from the ongoing act of colonization in both the United States and Canada, and would like to acknowledge that their upbringing and education has taken place primarily on the homelands of the Massawomeck, Manahoac and Musqueam nations.

Walker’s compositions have been performed throughout Europe and North America, including the Alba International Music Festival, and the Blackstad in Residence program. In 2019, Walker's Vandalia for string orchestra was selected as the audience favourite at The EAR classical concert in New York City.