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All year long, audiences are drawn to the College of Music’s classical performances. Violins playing Bach, pianos playing Beethoven, sopranos singing arias from some of the world’s most beloved operas.

But the musical expertise of CU-Boulder’s finest musicians doesn’t stop there. Our faculty and students are also masters of jazz and new music. They’ve even been known to use their laptops as instruments.

The Boulder Laptop Orchestra, known as BLOrk, is a student ensemble combining acoustic and electronic music. Composition and performance students create and play music side-by-side with engineering and computer science majors. You’ll hear keyboards, guitar, flute, trombone—and, of course, the digital sounds radiating from a stage full of laptops.

“It’s an outlet for making music that falls outside the traditional performance practices,” says John Gunther, director of the Thompson Jazz Studies Program and BLOrk co-director along with composition instructor John Drumheller. “It gives us a chance to explore cutting-edge technologies that are constantly emerging, and perform a really wide range of music.”

That music ranges from Miles Davis to John Cage to jazz composer Sun Ra. This semester, BLOrk is focusing on the music of Frank Zappa for its upcoming concert.

“We wanted to play Zappa because he has such an interesting and fascinating scope of music,” Gunther explains. “He encompasses classical, jazz, rock and electronic music—perfect for this ensemble.”

And perfect for the venue, Gunther adds. The November 18 concert will be held at Fiske Planetarium. "We chose an artist whose music would complement the space. Fiske is such an incredible place to hear—and see—music.

“We’ll be using their  , which is a music visualizer. We’re excited to rock out a bit in a new venue,” Gunther says., Fiske Planetarium is known for its , focusing on the music of Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and the like. Gunther says holding BLOrk’s concert there is the perfect marriage of science and performance for an ensemble that’s used to crossing disciplinary lines.

“Some of the best collaboration we do is with people outside of music,” he says. “For example, BLOrk partnered with an astrophysicist to create a song based on the vibrations of the sun. We also worked with a computer science PhD student to develop an interface that would read the gestures of your hands to produce music.

“It’s a really cool way of getting an informal science education, while deepening your appreciation for music.” 

BLOrk’s Fiske Planetarium concert is Wednesday, Nov. 18, 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, but seating in the planetarium theater is limited.