Mark Trayle

Biography

Mark Trayle works in a variety of media including live electronic music, installations, improvisation and compositions for wireless chamber ensembles. He uses re-engineered consumer products and cultural artifacts as interfaces for electronic music performances and networked media installations. In recent pieces for chamber ensembles he places performers in an interactive network where composers, performers and technology cooperate to form the music.

Trayle has performed and exhibited at experimental music and new media venues and festivals including New Langton Arts (1985 and 1989), LACE ( 1989), Experimental Intermedia Foundation and The Kitchen (NY, 1988 and 1989), Het Apollohuis (Netherlands, 1993), the Centro d’Arte (Padova, 1995), Metrònom (Barcelona, 2000) and Mex (Dortmund, 2001). He was a featured performer at New Music America ‘89, New Music Across America ‘92, Ars Electronica ‘94, WRO Media Festival ‘95 (Wroclaw), SoundArt ‘95 (Hanover), ISEA ‘95, DEAF ‘95, the Sonambiente Festival (Berlin, 1996), Le Festival de la Vallée des Terres Blanches at the CICV Pierre Schaeffer (Hérimoncourt, France, 1997), Resistance Fluctuations (LA, 1998 and 2000), the net_condition festival (ZKM Karlsruhe, 1999), Pro Musica Nova (Bremen, 2000) and Format5 (Berlin, 2001).

He has received grants from Arts International American Composers Forum and the National Endowment for the Arts, and a commission from Radio Bremen (Germany). He has been an artist-in-residence at Mills College, STEIM (Amsterdam), and The Lab (San Francisco). Trayle has collaborated with Wadada Leo Smith, Vinny Golia, Nels Cline, Jeff Gauthier, KammerEnsemble Neue Musik Berlin, David Behrman, as a member of The Hub, and with Alvin Curran and the Rova Saxophone Quartet.

Trayle’s music has been the subject of articles in Strumenti Musicali and Virtual (Italy), Keyboard (USA) and Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century (Grove/Atlantic), and he has written articles for Leonardo Music Journal (US/UK) and MusikTexte (Germany). He has recorded for the Artifact, Atavistic, CRI, Inial, Los Angeles River, Elektra/Nonesuch and Tzadik labels.