H. James Harkins is a composer of electronic music for live performance, based in Guangzhou, China in the Modern Music Department of the Xinghai Conservatory of Music.
2023-10-11:Process Prototype at ICMC 2023 International Computer Music Conference
The International Computer Music Conference is the largest worldwide conference in the field… and this year, it’s in Shenzhen (only 90 km away), October 15-20.
I’m presenting a new live-coding work, “Turning in the Breeze,” on Wednesday afternoon, October 18. It’s a gentle, atmospheric work featuring just-intonation piano (with unstable tuning). It ended up being something of a Ryuichi Sakamoto tribute, nodding to his ability to blend simple piano materials with experimental electronics.
2023-03-24:Hoodoo Techno opening with live-coding jam
What: Hoodoo True Techno
Where: The Window x Celia-GZ, China Plaza 10th floor
When: Friday 3/24, 10pm - late
I have (embarrassingly) neglected to post events for the last couple of years. With Covid controls receiving in the rearview mirror, I hope to perform more often.
This Friday’s event is a semi-regular techno party by the Hoodoo DJ collective based in Guangzhou. Always excellent music! They are committed to live performance as well as DJ sets. This time out, they’ve invited me to join Senonix for the opening live jam: me live-coding on SuperCollider, him providing beats on a Digitakt drum machine.
It’s improvised, but some of it could be like this:
Where: Rozz-Tox brewpub, Wuyangcun, Guangzhou, China
When: 808 day (8/08), 9-10 pm
Quietcode is live-coding improvisation of meditative, ambient music. I plan this to be the first in a series of concerts, with later events including collaboration with local producers.
In my semester-break rush of tidying things up, I’m pushing out a point release of my live coding framework. This is the version used in my recent performances.
Quarks.install("ddwLivecodeInstruments");
(Actually “ddwChucklib-livecode” is the name of the framework itself, but if you install ddwLivecodeInstruments, it will install the framework as a dependency — one step instead of two.)
The last tag release was October 2016. It’s a lot more stable and usable now. Also, I spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks updating and expanding the documentation.
November 17, an improvised live-coding set at Hoodoo’s monthly Guangzhou techno all-nighter. I started in ambient style, and ended up in the straight-ahead techno territory in this excerpt:
December 16 (upcoming), an appearance at the Guangzhou International Outdoor Performance Festival.
Some years ago, my father Patrick wrote lyrics for a cabaret-style
song about the interminable train delays in Terre Haute, Indiana, and
invited (dared?) me to set them to music. So I did.
It took a few years, but here is a simple reading for voice and piano,
by Patrick’s colleague at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, Tracy
Richardson.
Just released: An early version of a new SuperCollider Quark,
ddwLivecodeInstruments, a set of ready-to-play instruments for my
Chucklib-livecode system. Along with this, I’ve added a Tutorial
section to the Chucklib-livecode
manual,
which uses the new instruments to get users started quickly.
I’m looking for testers to read the tutorial, try the examples,
and play with them. Details below the jump.