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Play a flute into a microphone. Have the microphone feed the sound into a computer. Hear something different come out.

Such artistic innovations will be among performances at the CHAT Festival Feb. 16-20 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The festival, Collaborations: Humanities, Arts & Technology, will include talks and projects by artists and technologists from around the Triangle and is coordinated by the Institute for the Arts and Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences. Details are available at http://www.chatfestival2010.com.

The University’s music department will supply a cornucopia of offerings during CHAT, all free to the public without advance registration. Besides the type of electro-acoustic music described above, the department will hold a symposium Feb. 18-19, “The Art and Culture of the DJ,” which will include a dance party with DJs. For more information, see http://uncnews.unc.edu/content/view/3264/66/.

Collectively, these CHAT music events will be this year’s Festival on the Hill, which the music department holds every other year, exploring a particular composer or topic through performances, lectures, discussions and more. February’s Festival on the Hill will be all about music expressed through new technologies.

Last year the music composition faculty issued an international call for electro-acoustic music and received more than 120 pieces from composers around the globe.

“We whittled them down to 42 for the festival,” said Stephen Anderson, D.M.A., assistant professor of music and organizer of the electro-acoustic events. All are now on compact discs to be played during CHAT.

Thirty-one will be played from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 16-19 in the Peacock Atrium of the FedEx Global Education Center; five in a “Music in the Rotunda” concert from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m. Feb. 16 in Hill Hall; and four in a student concert at 7 p.m. Feb. 18 in Person Recital Hall.

Two will be part of Festival on the Hill’s main event, a concert at 8 p.m. Feb. 16 in Memorial Hall. In another composition for the concert, “War Peace” by Anderson, music faculty members will play into microphones that send signals to the computer software MAX/MSP. The software will alter the sounds of the instruments as the performers improvise. Video footage from the Iraq war, compiled by David Tinapple of Arizona State University, will be shown.

Other composers whose pieces will be played in the concert are Allen Anderson, Ph.D., UNC associate professor of music; Rodney Waschka II, D.M.A., professor of arts studies, N.C. State University; and freelance composers Andrew Babcock of Buffalo, N.Y., and Hee Yun Kim of Seoul, South Korea.

Performers will be Stephen Anderson, piano and Max/MSP; Lynn Glassock, professor, percussion; Richard Luby, D.M.A., professor, violin; Brooks de Wetter-Smith, D.M.A., James Gordon Hanes Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, flute; and Brent Wissick, Zachary Taylor Smith Distinguished Term Professor of Music, cello.

Also on the program will be “Maurice Remembered,” new from freelance composer Frances White of Princeton, N.J. Based on Maurice Ravel’s “Gaspard de la nuit” with a text drawn from E.M. Forster’s novel, “Maurice,” the work will be performed by Thomas Otten, D.M.A., UNC associate professor of piano. The piece is written for piano, voice and electric sound. Otten will both play and sing the composition.

Technology in music and visual art will be the topic of a panel discussion at noon Feb. 17 in the Kenan Music Building on South Columbia Street. For more Festival on the Hill details, visit http://music.unc.edu/calendars/thecalendar.

Note: Anderson can be reached at (919) 962-1039 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

News Services contact: LJ Toler, (919) 962-8589