Wheels is Madelyn Byrne, Ellen Weller, and Randy Hoffman.
Madelyn Byrne is a composer of both acoustic and electro-acoustic music, and much of her recent work combines acoustic instruments with computer-generated sounds. Some compositions in this area include For ANWR (commissioned by Yoon Jeong Heo), Rain, Sea, and Sky (commissioned by the NOISE Ensemble), and Dream Tableaux (commissioned by Colin McAllister). Past honors include ASCAPlus Awards, honorable mention in the “Suoni di Legno” competition, winner of the Friends and Enemies of New Music Composition Competition, and recordings on CRI Records and Innova Records. Madelyn’s music has also been selected for a wide range of new music festivals including several International Computer Music Conferences, Electronic Music Midwest, WIU’s New Music Festival, Imagine II, and Merging Voices among others. Her music has received additional national and international performances and broadcasts on television, radio, and the internet. Madelyn completed her DMA in Composition at The Graduate Center in 1999 and joined the Palomar College Faculty in the Fall 2000 semester. Madelyn has also been a guest composer at Columbia University’s Computer Music Center.
Multi-winds/Pianist/Ethnomusicologist/Improvisor/Composer Ellen Weller divides her musical performance activities between improvisation, jazz, klezmer and classical music. An active member of San Diego’s Trummerflora Collective and one of the original members of Maiden Voyage, an all-female big band out of Los Angeles, Weller has performed with George Lewis, Vinny Golia, Lisle Ellis, Anthony Davis, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jason Robinson, Nathan Hubbard Skeleton Key Orchestra, Lesli Dalaba, Carla Kihlstadt, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Hans Fjellestadt, Vanessa Tomlinson, Marcos Fernandes, Michael Dessen, Michael Friedman, Second Avenue Klezmer Ensemble and the Weller Family Jazz Quartet. She has recently appeared at several festivals, including the SF Alt Festival, the Spring Reverb 04 (San Diego), and the Big Sur Sound Shift. Her compositions have been performed in New York, Detroit, San Diego and Los Angeles, and include music for the 1996 UCSD revival production of Terminal directed by Joseph Chaiken.
For SW2011 longtime Soundwalk participants Byrne, Weller and Hoffman returned with “The Pillow of Connection: making contact in an over-mediated universe”. Inspired by the 1959 movie, “Pillow Talk,” this work sonically explored the diversity of human connectivity modalities through interactive improvisations featuring percussion, multi-winds and computer-generated soundscapes. Rhythmic grooves, a basic and ancient form of communication, form the foundation over which processed soundbites, audience participation, and of course, talking pillows, form an engaging counterpoint. Personal ads, online dating video satires, ringtones and melodic fragments of pop songs weaved a rich tapestry of e-harmonic connections.
For SW2012 Credit Card Honky will be a social satire of the banking system and the ensuing crises that have surrounded it. Audience members will be invited to participate by conspicuously consuming nonsense with nonsensical credit cards. Wheels (Ellen Weller, Bob Weller, Randy Hoffman, and Madelyn Byrne) will perform by real-time manipulation of sound using Max/MSP and a host of woodwind and percussion instruments.