Re-Wired: Reworking 20th Century Live Electronics for Today

Music has a long tradition of using electronic technology in performance – from early electronic instruments such as the Theremin, through to today’s plethora of digital devices. With rapid technological change, there is always the risk that important works using live electronics can be become un-performable over time, due to the lack of working equipment available, lack of the associated expertise necessary to operate the equipment, or damaged/obsolete storage media containing the performance data. This article reports on some of our experience of reworking pieces for newer technology and preliminary work on a research project examining the problem in general.