On April 6 & 7 I found myself in Belfast, to play my 'composition' with Whistle Pig Saloon at the Sonorities conference. In real life an improvisation duo of myself with John Ferguson on guitar. It's still weird to only be able to submit 'compositions' and to have to provide 'players'. But it seems that that's the way. As usual with these kinds of academic conferences, and again to my disappointment, most of the works presented were tape pieces. Guys (and the occasional girl) pressing play and tweaking some knobs. Don't get me wrong, there were some really great pieces there, but in this time and age I would think there would be more live electronics works, with real people on stage. There were exceptions though: Xinh-Xo Nguyen performed a great composition by his own hand - a very controlled and perfectly performed piece.