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APEX Percussion
APEX Percussion is a project-based percussion quartet founded in 2022. The ensemble blends contemporary percussion performance with cinematic storytelling to create work that explores place, environment, and human connection. Led creatively by composer and audio researcher Konstantine Vlasis, APEX draws from chamber percussion, experimental instrument building, and field recording. Their musical style blends minimalist textures and complex rhythmic structures with conceptual topics or themes. Beyond performance, APEX produces professional films and documentaries that contextualize their music and process. Their work has been featured around the world, including Zeugma Landscape 2025, CREA Cantieri del Contemporaneo Venice, V&A Museum in London, and as a 2025 Lumen Prize finalist. Affiliations include New York University, Háskóli Íslands, Listaháskóli Íslands, Fulbright, National Science Foundation, National Geographic, and the DCI ensembles Phantom Regiment and Bluecoats.

Glacial Sonifications: Percussive Arts as Climate Communication

Electronic/Technology
Clinic / PerformanceShared

This session explores the integration of music composition, video production, and glaciological research across three percussion chamber works. As a clinic/performance, it details the technologies of the featured works, which blend data sonification, landscape mapping, baseline audio analysis, and field recording techniques. Clinic discussion will be interspersed by the live-performance world premiere of each composition, which all take the form of performed music, tape track playback, and synchronized performance video. The premiere of these works not only speaks to the mission of our ensemble—a group dedicated to audio-visual curation, innovative technologies, and percussion praxis—but also showcases three years of research centered on glacial change in Iceland that has been supported by the Leifur Eiríksson Foundation, Fulbright, and the National Science Foundation.

As a whole, our session shows how the integration of audio-based technologies within the percussive arts can be a method for glaciological research, as well as a tool for climate communication. At a time, when environmental changes continue to accelerate worldwide, we hope this clinic/performance demonstrates how music can offer new perspectives on glacial transformation, foster art-science collaborations using shared technologies, and amplify the often unheard musics of a rapidly changing planet for posterity.

Featured Works:
Ablation (2022)
2124 (2024)
Moraines (2026)