David Chechelashvili
Alan Brown
Dr. David Chechelashvili is a researcher and ambient music artist working primarily with modular synthesisers. He is also a music production senior lecturer and research coordinator at SAE Institute in Auckland, New Zealand. David's research interests include psychoanalysis and music, electroacoustic composition and computer-assisted music composition. More broadly, his work explores the extent to which aesthetic artefacts can be understood as symptoms of the culture that produced them, with a particular focus on the role of the unconscious in music-making, especially in technologically mediated improvisation.
Alan Brown is a musician with a long history in the New Zealand jazz scene as a pianist and Hammond organist. He was the bandleader of the successful jazz-funk ensemble, Blue Train, in the 1990s and the organ-based Alan Brown Trio in the 2000s. He has also performed and collaborated with New Zealand artists Caitlin Smith and Nathan Haines. More recently Alan has explored ambient approaches to composition. He released two albums of solo piano improvisations, in 2015 and 2018, and three albums with electro-acoustic duo, Alargo. His most recent albums have been released through Rattle Records. Alan has a Master of Music degree from Victoria University, and presented at an Australasian Music and Psychology Conference in 2015 on Spatial Responsiveness. Alan has been involved in music education for many years, having taught at MAINZ (Music and Audio Institute of NZ), Massey and Auckland University’s jazz departments. He also runs a part-time business repairing vintage keyboards and synths.