Katarina Miljković (Serbia/USA) has written for symphony orchestra, string orchestra and various other groupings, including works for amplified solo instruments and electronics, saxophone quartet, electric guitar and percussion. Ms. Miljković has been exploring the relationship of music, science and nature. This initially led her to the Benoit Mandelbrot’s essay The Fractal Geometry of Nature. The study resulted in her cycle, Forest, for two prepared pianos and percussion, released by Sachimay Records.

Currently, Ms. Miljković is working on mapping elementary rules from A New Kind of Science, by Stephen Wolfram, to sound. She presented her exploration in this new field at the international conferences NKS 2004, 2006, 2007, NKS Summer School 2004, 2009, Wolfram Technology Conference 2005, soundAxis 2006, Toronto, International Conference on “Mathematics and Computation in Music,” MCM 2007 and  ECMST ~ MASA, 2010, Berlin, Cambridge Science Festival, 2009, 2010, Boston.

Nothing, You say
Written as a tribute to John Cage. The title refers to two of his remarkable works, Lecture on Nothing and mesostic, What you say. Music is generated by algorithm, Rule 109, one of  the Stephen Wolfram’s Elementary Rules, characterized by simple repetitive patterns with silences between them. Tone collection is derived from rational numbers in the microtonal 22-step division of an octave. The result is a slow motion with the dense beating of overtones and non-directional music flow.

“Slowly, as the  talk goes on,
we are getting nowhere and that is the pleasure”
John Cage, Lecture on Nothing

Gliding
Music is generated by an algorithm that I found while looking for interesting patterns with regular rhythmic activity interrupted by occasional streams of irregularities. The regular rhythmic texture resembles Cage’s early pieces for prepared piano.  The streams of irregular motion appear in the composition as glissandi, rushing through the texture in an unpredictable, always slightly different way.