John CS Keston is an award winning transdisciplinary artist reimagining how music, video art, and computer science intersect. His work both questions and embraces his backgrounds in music technology, software development, and improvisation leading him toward unconventional compositions that convey a spirit of discovery and exploration through the use of graphic scores, chance and generative techniques, analog and digital synthesis, experimental sound design, signal processing, and acoustic piano. Performers are empowered to use their phonomnesis, or sonic imaginations, while contributing to his collaborative work. Originally from the United Kingdom, John currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he is a professor of Digital Media Arts at the University of St Thomas. He founded the sound design resource, AudioCookbook.org, where you will find articles and documentation about his projects and research.
John has spoken, performed, or exhibited original work at New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2022), the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2022), the International Digital Media Arts Conference (iDMAa 2022), International Sound in Science Technology and the Arts (ISSTA 2017-2019), Northern Spark (2011-2017), the Weisman Art Museum, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Walker Art Center, the Minnesota Institute of Art, the Eyeo Festival, INST-INT, Echofluxx (Prague), and Moogfest. He produced and performed in the piece Instant Cinema: Teleportation Platform X, a featured project at Northern Spark 2013. He composed and performed the music for In Habit: Life in Patterns (2012) and Words to Dead Lips (2011) in collaboration with the dance company Aniccha Arts. In 2017 he was commissioned by the Walker Art Center to compose music for former Merce Cunningham dancers during the Common Time performance series. His music appears in The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (2012) and he composed the music for the short Familiar Pavement (2015). He has appeared on more than a dozen albums including two solo albums on UnearthedMusic.com.
Sadly this release is happening during a difficult time for much of the world. The video above was taken near my home in France about 90 minutes away from the wild fires devastating vast swathes of the country. It depicts the ominous beauty a sunset tinged by thick smoke in the atmosphere with les tournesols (the sunflowers) in the foreground. If you’d like to aid families displaced by the fires please visit Croix-Rouge Français (the French Red Cross).
Consonant DissonanceElektramusic Berlin, 2026. Album art photo by John C.S. Keston.
I am releasing a solo, acoustic piano album titled Consonant Dissonance on Elektramusic Berlin on July 27, 2026. Among the original compositions are several electroacoustic pieces that process the piano through a modular synthesizer. For each of those the piano signals are handled in different ways. These include granular synthesis, looping, pitch shifting, reverse, analog filtering, delay, and reverberation, all modulated via a function generator, low frequency oscillators, and a sampling touch controller which I operated while playing the pieces.
The modular synth I used for the album. Ironically this was photographed at the venue Berlin in Minneapolis.
The album was recorded at The University of St Thomas, Schoenecker Center, Audio Studio on a Kawai RX-3 grand piano. Gratitude goes out to my former student Alejandro Vega for engineering assistance, and Adam Krinsky for mixing and mastering consultation. Well before I recorded the album I performed the pieces live at a few venues including Berlin, the excellent music venue in Minneapolis that borrows the German city’s name. The irony isn’t lost on me that a label based in Berlin are the ones releasing it over a year later.
The videos above and below were made with a digital piano as a proof of concept for running piano through a modular system to process the signals. I had manipulated piano through processing at concerts in the past (see this article about an electroacoustic piano concert from 2016), but this was the first time doing it with a bespoke modular synth, where the modules and patching were specifically designed for that purpose.
This full length stereo version of Gradient Noise is a little closer to what I presented at ICMC in Hamburg last month although without the spatialized elements. More information about this project is available here Gradient Noise.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be performing the world premiere of my piece Gradient Noise at the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) in Hamburg, Germany on May 11 at 9:30pm. The following video except represent the work in progress. The final piece will be 10 minutes long and contain up to four layers of instruments with independent, corresponding, video objects.
Since 2019 I have been composing animated graphic scores for ensembles and soloists. Examples include Parking Ramp Project, SYNTAX, and Rhodonea. These generative works are projected for both the performers to read and audience to experience. I write software to generate and animate the geometric forms, and establish rules on how the forms are read, whilst allowing improvisation and the emotional response of the performer to play an integral part in each piece.
Gradient Noise, written using the Processing.org language, translates values generated by the Perlin noise algorithm into independent layers of seamless loops repeating at variable intervals. These loops are visualised as geometric forms, abstract visualizations, and evolving structures. The data generated is aleatoric, but the values can be tuned to range between slowly moving gradients or rapid, angular forms. When the sound and visuals are synchronized I respond not only to the animation but also to the changes in the timbre of my instruments.
Through Gradient Noise I am rethinking the relationships between musicians and machines. By translating the properties of n-dimensional Perlin noise into a musical language, the piece presents a unified ecosystem with coordinated timbres and geometric forms. Thus generating a living environment that requires active participation and improvisation. Ultimately, the work presents a contemporary model for computer music where the performer does not simply follow a score, but negotiates a path through a responsive, multi-sensory experience.
These recordings feature me performing a collection of my compositions as a soloist for the Envelop Deep Listening series at Mirror Lab in Minneapolis on July 10, 2025. The pieces were performed on a Rhodes Mark I Stage electric piano running through a custom modular skiff used to sample, resample, loop, and process the incoming signals. The banging heard in the track Quarantine were fireworks going off outside the venue.
Recorded by Tom Michaels. Photo lifted from @UnderCurrentMPLS
