The showcase revolved around the incredible creativity of the composers who created the San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1961. The composers pioneered the exploration of nontraditional sound recording by using everyday objects and testing the limits of magnetic tape systems. The principals, Bill Maginnis, Tony Martin, Ramon Sender, Morton Subotnick, and RPI arts professor Pauline Oliveros, all contributed to Wow & Flutter to commemorate their collaboration.

One of the more stunning performances was Oliveros’ expanded instrument system, which effectively turned her one accordion into an orchestra of bagpipes, each playing a different song. Oliveros, decked out in a shiny silver outfit, took her seat in the center of the auditorium for the last performance on Saturday night and let 40 delay processors remodulate the sounds from the internal microphones in her accordion. The result was output in eight-channel sound surrounding the audience: an experience understood only by hearing it.

Oliveros originally developed the system to use delayed tape machines while she worked at the Music Center. Indeed, almost all of the innovations presented are based on work done at the Music Center in the 1960s or 70s.

Another very intriguing piece was a work of Sender’s titled “Tropical Fish Opera,” which featured a drummer, a clarinet player, Oliveros on accordion, and Sender with a microphone, all seated around a fish tank. The drummer and clarinet player played their instruments as though the fish were notes on the scale drawn on their side of the tank. Oliveros played her accordion based on instructions written on her side, and Sender chanted the words written on his side.

“Tropical Fish Opera” had little purpose beyond the sheer amusement of it, which makes it a great conversation starter (“Say, did you hear about those musicians that play off a tank of fish?”). The performance also spawned no end of bad puns, as the musicians participating could be heard trading such comments as “There’s something fishy going on,” “We should play scales,” and “Carpe diem.”

Wow & Flutter also had some impressive visual performances, courtesy of light artist Martin. In “Silent Light,” Martin drew patterns of light on his computer and projected them onto a screen while Margot Farrington reflected the light of a flashlight and created some surprisingly complicated effects on the same screen, including what strongly resembled a sky full of clouds.

Martin’s most impressive feat was a talent he added to several performances, (including “Mandolin,” “Bye Bye Butterfly,” and “Kore.”) Martin would drip various dyes and chemicals into a dish sitting on an overhead projector. The resulting eddies, swirls, and bubblings of color, in addition to being quite entrancing to watch, added depth to the boinks, whistles, squeaks, and tones of the musical compositions and added new levels of interpretation to an otherwise purely auditory phenomenon.

In short, Wow & Flutter was an exposition of sound being utilized in ways most people would not imagine possible, coupled with some very interesting arrangements of light and color.