Sat. May 3

Birdsongs of the Mesozoic is one of the longest-lasting and most progressive bands to come out of the Boston rock scene. Though to describe it as "rock" tells just part of the story. There's jazz, there's skronk, there' all kinds of elements in the stew. On Saturday May 3, they're doing a Multi-media Concert Performance at Cambridge Science Festival. Birdsongs' performance will be augmented by simultaneous large-screen real time projected visuals by image manipulator Andrew Sorkin and musician and software designer Ned Resnikoff. 

  Resnikoff will be employing his own custom real-time music animation software Vizzy Lights.  Vizzy is a musicvisualization process that uses multi-resolution wavelet-based spectral analysis to produce a responsive, detailed view of sound.  Spectral data is embellished using OpenGL graphics, and controlled by a custom software application that allows the user to travel visually through sonic space. Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, once known as one of Mission of Burma's Roger Miller's side projects back in 1980, has made a whole lot of music since Miller departed. It is a quartet that saxophonist Ken Field describes as an "electrified modern music ensemble formed in 1980. Field, Michael Bierylo (guitar/laptop), Erik Lindgren (piano), and Rick Scott (synthesizer) will be joined on this gig by electronic sound artist Encanti. This gig is at the MIT Stata Center Auditorium and is part of the Cambridge Science Festival. It starts at 8:30. And it's free.

Stata Center Auditorium, Room 32-123, 32 Vassar St., Cambridge 617-253-6914 www.cambridgesciencefestival.org