Organizers have announced that Moogfest 2016 will be held in Durham, NC on May 19-22, 2016.
“Moogfest is a platform for conversation and experimentation with innovative programming that perfectly mirrors Durham’s momentum as a capital of technology, culture and entertainment,” says Emmy Parker, Brand Director at Moog Music.
Moogfest has been a festival of electronic music since 2004, known for presenting performances by early pioneers in electronic music, alongside pop and avant garde experimentalists of today. Previous Moogfest performers include Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Chic, Massive Attack, Holly Herndon, Flying Lotus, Terry Riley, M83, The Flaming Lips, Suicide, Pet Shop Boys, Grimes, TV On The Radio, MIA, St. Vincent,Tangerine Dream, Keith Emerson, Moderat and Squarepusher.
In celebration of today’s announcement, Moogfest has released Translational Drifts: Moogfest Vol. 1, embedded above, the first EP in a planned series of free digital recordings that feature Moogfest artists – past, present and future.
Volume 1 showcases five contemporary acts reinterpreting seminal electronic music influencers that have shaped past Moogfest lineups. This premiere installment includes YACHT, ADULT., Julianna Barwick, Moses Sumney and Dan Deacon translating tracks by Devo, Pet Shop Boys, Suicide, Laurie Anderson and Brian Eno. Their renditions pay tribute to a rich history of electronic music, with new sounds that continue to push further into the future.
Over the last several years, the festival has evolved to include a ‘mind-expanding’ conference for creative and technology professionals. In 2014, Moogfest worked with designers and technologists at Google, researchers from the MIT Media Lab, editors from Make Magazine and organizers from the Eyeo Festival (among others) to present panels, workshops and demos at the forefront of art and technology. Presentations by music pioneers Giorgio Moroder, Nile Rodgers, Janelle Monae, and Keith Emerson were accompanied by conversations with inventors and electronic instrument designers Roger Linn and Tom Oberheim, plus Futurama creator David X Cohen.
Moogfest also commissioned “Moogfest: Conductar”, a virtual reality app, nominated for two Webby Awards. Moogfest is already developing new programming and plans to bring similar exciting partnerships to Durham in 2016.
The festival’s priority remains a focus on intimate venues for performance and conversation, encouraging the same ambience established in Asheville. Moogfest will bring to many of Durham’s downtown event venues and public spaces a mix of ticketed and free community programming.
Moogfest is a tribute to Dr. Robert Moog and the profound influence his inventions have had on how we hear the world. Over the last sixty years, Bob Moog and Moog Music have pioneered the analog synthesizer and other technology tools for artists. According to organizer, this exchange between engineer and musician is ‘celebrated with a unique festival format, where the creative process is understood as a collaboration among many people, across time and space, in commerce and culture.’
Details for Moogfest 2016 are still to be announced, via the Moogfest site, but ‘Early Bird tickets are available now for US $99.
No more Asheville eh? That totally sucks. Why even bother.
Road Trip!
I liked Asheville, but I love Moogfest even more, so I hope this is a good move for the future of the event.
Early bird already sold out. Amazingly quick to sell out compared to the last one.
Personally, I think Asheville is a better fit and certainly a place I prefer to visit.
Bittersweet – glad to see Moogfest continuing, especially since the last one did not garner the turnout they expected. Asheville was the perfect venue for it but as these festivals go, there are more accessible places to host. I think Durham has to be the truly second best location, culturally, but is able to offer superior accessibility in almost every single way. I live in Raleigh and would have preferred the trip to Asheville but I can see Durham being more appealing in many ways to someone coming from out of town. If the presale success is any indication, I think this year will be a positive game changer for the Moog Foundation.
Depends on where that out-of-town is. Coming from the Atlanta area, Asheville is much more appealing simply because it is a shorter drive.
I don’t know anything about Durham, but the atmosphere of Asheville fits the festival perfectly. Plus, one of the draws, I think, is the opportunity to tour Moog. How can you do that when the office is a 3 hour drive away?
I agree with you about the Moog factory in general being a draw and will surely be missed this time around. That being said, it is a smaller, but not insignificant part of the Moogfest experience in my opinion. There were so many interesting shows and exhibits that had nothing to do with the actual Moog factory in 2014.
Downtown Durham has done a nice job of preserving many of the original buildings and facilities that the city was built around. In this way, I think it mirrors Asheville well and also is home to a vibrant artistic culture with good food. Like Asheville, it can be a little rough around the edges – its certainly not suburbia.
Hey, if we are open to other cities, how about Seattle next year? :]