Michael Gendreau

Michael Gendreau has composed and performed alone and in several group configurations since 1979. While in the group Crawling With Tarts (1983-1998), he developed work with consideration of elementalism, attention to temporal and environmental persistence, and eventually, applications of parataxis. These final studies included the use of small motors and turntable mechanisms, mostly performing with one-off transcription discs cast by others in the middle of the last century, or cut in Gendreau’s studio using a decrepit lathe. More recently, in composition and performance, Gendreau has sought to extend these later studies, adding physical parameters of performance spaces (as a point of reference, based on studies in physics completed in 1989 and current work as an acoustician—primarily working on low-vibration design in buildings and noise impact to optical research apparatus in the infrasonic to audible frequency range) as a language within the paratactic structures that form his compositions.