The Big Ears Festival returns—for the first time since 2019—to Knoxville, Tennessee, March 24–27, 2022, with music from Caroline Shaw, Sō Percussion, Kronos Quartet, Jeff Parker, Tristan Perich, and Attacca Quartet, among many others.

Tristan Perich's Drift Multiply, for 50 violins and 50-channel 1-bit electronics, is featured on WNYC's New Sounds. "It is an album-length excursion, goes into lots of different territories," says host John Schaefer. "Some moments sound to me like Terry RIley's early keyboard improvisations. Other parts have the rhythmic patterning of Steve Reich's music. There are other moments where the notes seem to give way more to noise. And even one part where those noises kind of sound a little like the famous rhythmic kecak, or monkey chant, from the island of Bali." You can hear the episode here.

Composer Tristan Perich, whose Drift Multiply, for 50 violins and 50-channel 1-bit electronics, was released on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records earlier this month, discussed the piece and recording—which both Uncut and the New Yorker call "mesmerizing" and the Wire calls "unapologetically beautiful"—with conductor Douglas Perkins in a live, online Q&A moderated by Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti. You can watch the conversation again here.

Tristan Perich’s Drift Multiply, for 50 violins and 50-channel 1-bit electronics, is out now on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records. The piece, Perich’s largest work to date, is conducted by Douglas Perkins. Scored as one hundred individual lines of music, the piece blends violins and speakers into a cascading tapestry of tone, harmony, and noise. The violins perform from sheet music, while the speakers are each connected to custom-built circuit boards programmed to output 1-bit audio, the most basic digital waveforms made of just ones and zeroes. "Unapologetically beautiful," says The Wire. "Mesmerising," says Uncut.

Composer Tristan Perich has released a video featuring a selection from his piece Drift Multiply, for 50 violins and 50-channel 1-bit electronics. The video was assembled from footage of three October 2019 performances of the piece conducted by Douglas Perkins in the Netherlands: Onderzeebootloods in Rotterdam (with dance by Lucinda Childs), Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, and De Doelen in Rotterdam, where the forthcoming album of the piece was recorded. You can watch it here.

Tristan Perich’s Drift Multiply, for 50 violins and 50-channel 1-bit electronics, will be released November 13, 2020, on New Amsterdam and Nonesuch Records, and is available to preorder now. The piece, Perich’s largest work to date, is conducted by Douglas Perkins. Scored as one hundred individual lines of music, the piece blends violins and speakers into a cascading tapestry of tone, harmony, and noise. The violins perform from sheet music, while the speakers are each connected to custom-built circuit boards programmed to output 1-bit audio, the most basic digital waveforms made of just ones and zeroes.