Jeff Morris

Leonardo Music Journal Volume 18 (2008): Why Live? Performance in the Age of Digital Reproduction

“Structure in the Dimension of Liveness and Mediation”

by Jeffrey M. Morris

ABSTRACT: While technological developments can replace some aspects of live performance, they have also opened a new dimension of musical structure: that of liveness and mediation, which requires live performance in order to be meaningful. Liveness itself can be used and manipulated as a distinct musical element. The author describes these concepts at work in his compositions that explore mediatization as a device of intermedial imitative counterpoint and formal structure.