Currawong Project's mission is to develop a new musical practice: Dynamic music. This is pursued through composition and research at the confluence of three resources: Performer virtuosity, new modes of presentation, advanced digital sound technologies including real-time performance analysis to transform instrumental sound.

Among our most ambitious goals is to "un-silo" classical music -- within the practice, and our culture at large.

Music compositions that employ advanced digital resources are generally programmed at sequestered events that even audiences for classical music hardly know about. Performers presenting virtuosity at the highest levels -- classical music "stars" we might say -- are at best only occasionally dedicated to contemporary music. Data analysis, now ubiquitous throughout our day-to-day lives and cultures, is rarely leveraged as a compositional tool.

By integrating all three seemingly disparate resources into our musical practice, Currawong seeks to develop music that is at once highly innovative, viscerally exciting, and more proximate to how we in modern societies live.

We are making a counterintuitive bet. For generations now, people concerned about declining audiences for classical music have tended to advocate increasing accessibility by seeking to make the classical music experience less demanding on audiences. We see that as a mistake. Art is, and should always be, demanding of the limits of people's sensory perception. Virtuosity is breathtaking. And when combined with that mix of emotion and communication that music is uniquely capable of delivering, the combustive effect is unequaled. The way to engage new audiences and be relevant to the cultural conversation at large is to up the ante.

Currawong Music Inc. dba Currawong Project is a New York State 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

Currawong Project seeks the financial support of grant-making entities and individuals.

Kevin Larke, President and Secretary, is a music researcher and instrument builder based in New York City, specializing in real-time music systems, acoustic instrument tracking, and robotic musical instruments. His experience includes development of analysis-re-synthesis algorithms and audio effects systems at Ensoniq/EMU, acoustic compiler design at Soundball Inc., development of acoustic feature extraction and musical affect measurement software for Sourcetone Inc., as well as research on new acoustic ranging and gesture recognition techniques.

Matthias Kriesberg, Vice President and Treasurer, is a composer who during the last 20 years has also practiced music journalism for The New York Times and ongoing computer music research. In 2002 he began a long-term residency at UC San Diego's Center for Research in Computing and the Arts, now part of the Qualcomm Institute. Since 2009 he has collaborated with audio engineer Kevin Larke on the development of new digital tools to expand the space where classical composition, virtuosic performance and digital signal processing intersect.

Aaron Jay Kernis, a composer whose music is featured in concert performances throughout the world, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. He has taught composition at the Yale School of Music since 2003, and runs the Composer Lab at the Nashville Symphony and string workshop at the Next Festival. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Classical Music Hall of Fame. A book about his life in music was recently published by the University of Illinois Press.

Catherine Herbst, an architect licensed in California since 1995, is co-principal of San Diego architecture firm Rinehart Herbst, and Associate Professor and Undergraduate Chair of the School of Architecture at Woodbury University, San Diego. Since its formation in 2000, her firm's practice has established a template for optimal ways of integrating built space with environmental imperatives, conditions and challenges. The firm has developed acoustic innovations and solutions for public spaces, singled out for its World Trade Center Memorial design in the book 9/11 Memorial Visions.

Miller Puckette, is known as the creator of the Max and Pure Data real-time computer music software environments. As an MIT undergraduate he won the Putnam mathematics competition in 1979, and finished his PhD at Harvard in 1986. He was a researcher at the MIT Media lab from its inception until 1986, then at the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) in Paris, and is now professor of music at the University of California, San Diego. He has been a visiting professor at Columbia University and the Technical University of Berlin, and has received two honorary degrees and the SEAMUS award.