ELECTRONIC MUSIC RINGS BELL POPULARITY OF FUTURISTIC SOUNDS MOVES TO CLASSROOM.

Byline: CONNIE LLANOS 

Staff Writer

VALENCIA -- Bernardo Feldman remembers a time only a select few appreciated the electronic music genre, and as young composer Feldman knew, he was going against tradition.

"It was radically different from what people knew as music -- pop, jazz and orchestra," Feldman said. "It was all about being anti-establishment."

Now the futuristic beats and sounds coined electronika have gradually made their way up the pop music charts. And this popularity has led the musical movement to the college classroom, with Santa Clarita's College of the Canyons leading the way.

Feldman, professor of the college's first-ever electronic music for stage course, teaches his students about sequencing, sampling and synthesis technology -- techniques increasing in popularity because entire albums can be composed and performed from a laptop computer.

The college has been offering music technology courses, but dedicating an entire class to the development of electronic music for the stage is an innovative move, he said.

"If we are not the first colleges in California to offer this class, we are one of a few," Feldman said in an interview this week.

"I am teaching these kids how to get up in front of a crowd and perform their sounds. They will have to find a way to make their movements on a keyboard interesting."

The class is a dream come true for Pejman Roozbek. As a child, Roozbek was captivated by the fast-paced thumps of digital noise. Then three years ago Roozbek enrolled into piano lessons and he realized two things.

"I knew I wanted to make music for the rest of my life and I wanted to combine the traditional with electronic," he said.

In a performance Friday, Roozbek will play a piano solo into a special microphone that will instantaneously filter and synthesize the sound, distorting the traditional instrument's melody.

"It will be a combination of synthetic and organic sound," he said.

While electronic music is no longer such an obscure genre, there's still some stigma, one student said.

Akenaton Flores, 20, said he's had to explain that his love for electronic music does not translate to a love of drugs.

"A lot of people still associate electronic music with rave culture, with drugs like Ecstasy. But actually electronic music is about peace, love, unity and respect," Flores said.

"It's about twisting sounds to create great music."

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If you go

An electronic music concert will be staged at 7 p.m. Friday in the College of the Canyons Black Box Theatre, 26455 N. Rockwell Canyon Road, Valencia. For information, visit www.canyons.edu

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Photo:

Jet D rehearses his performance for "Evening of Electronica" that will be performed by students at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

David Crane/Staff Photographer

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If you go (see text)