While the union of classical music and more popular sensibilities often produces works of massive scale and operatic aspirations, Suzanne Ciani has across decades and innumerable platforms mined the genius latent in the incidental, the occasional, and the ephemeral. Born in Italy, Ciani studied music formally in the U.S. In the 1970s, she composed music for commercials for Merrill Lynch, General Electric, AT&T, and Coca Cola. She also reproduced sound effects on the synthesizer for companies, most famously the sound of a Coke bottle being opened. Other such credits include logo sounds for Energizer and ABC. She was the first woman to score a major Hollywood film (Lily Tomlin’s The Incredible Shrinking Woman). She also scored Lloyd Williams’ 1975 film Rainbow’s Children, and the daytime soap opera One Life to Live. Beginning in 1982, she began recording new age albums that blended electronic and acoustic instrumentation.

INHALT, German for “content”, are the duo of European Natives Philip Winiger and Matia Simovich. Formed in San Francisco in 2009, the pair immediately recognized their mutual philosophy of sonic fidelity and creative integrity, rather than nostalgia. Their first three releases—a split 12” for London’s seminal World Unknown Records and the “Vehicle” and “Occupations” EPs for San Francisco’s cult powerhouse Dark Entries Records— firmly established INHALT’s sound. What emerged was a well defined pop sensibility informed by European Minimalism and a sincere, yet playfully cynical sense of humor. As much Kraftwerk as John Carpenter but with a pronounced drive of Moroder disco and obscure Italo 12”s, INHALT’s sound has found home in both studious personal listening and the crowded dance floor.

Former bassist in The Soft Moon and longtime San Francisco DJ, Justin Anastasi is the creative head and producer behind the club night VX and co-founder of the SF based Surface Tension DJ collective.

Since 2004, Moogfest has brought together artists, futurist thinkers, inventors, entrepreneurs, designers, engineers, scientists, and musicians. By day, Moogfest is a platform for conversation and experimentation. This mind-expanding conference attracts creative and technology enthusiasts for three days of participatory programming in Durham, North Carolina. By night, Moogfest presents cutting-edge music in venues throughout the city. Performing artists include early pioneers in electronic music, alongside pop and avant garde experimentalists of today. 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. 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.