The weekly Performing Arts Technology Seminar regularly hosts visiting artists, musicians, and researchers, often in conjunction with concerts, workshops, and masterclasses. Guests enrich the educational environment for PAT students, providing complementary perspectives and insights gained from real-world experiences.

Initiated in 2015, the PAT Department’s annual student-organized Resonance event features the work of women and nonbinary artists in electronic music with a concert, seminar, and masterclass led be a special invited guest. Resonance guests to date are:

Andrea Parkins– composer, improviser, and sound artist

Pamela Z– pioneering live electronic composer, performer and media artist

Olivia Block– media artist and composer

Other recent guests of the Department of Performing Arts Technology have included:

Carl Craig– pioneering Detroit Techno producer and DJ

Matthew Dear– producer, DJ, co-founder of Ghostly International

Hannah Higgins– art historian, Fluxus scholar, Professor at the School of Art and Art History
University of Illinois, Chicago

Alejandro Acierto– sound and visual artist, performer, clarinetist

Kid Koala– world-renowned scratch DJ, music producer, composer, and graphic novelist

Shigeto– Detroit-based electronic musician and drummer

Helen Feng– pioneer of Chinese Indie Rock, “Queen of Beijing Rock”, vocalist of Nova Heart

Chris Chafe – composer, improvisor, director of the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics and Professor of Music, Stanford University

 Jeffrey Treviño– composer, Assistant Professor of Music and Technology, Cal State Monterey Bay

Carolyn Chen– Los Angeles-based composer, Guqin performer

Joo Won Park– composer, computer music performer, Assistant Professor of Music Technology, Wayne State University

Paul Riser– legendary Motown arranger, trombonist, member of the “Funk Brothers”

 Bryan Pardo– Associate Professor Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Music Theory & Cognition, Northwestern University; Director of the Interactive Audio Lab

Rick Taube– Professor of Composition-Theory, University of Illinois