Welcome to SignalFlow 2005, the latest edition of the Mills College Music Department's New Music and Intermedia Festival. Now established as an annual event, this four day series features the work of students currently completing their masters degrees here at Mills. These composers, performers, programmers, conceptual artists and collaborators bring together a wide range of cultural backgrounds and musical and multimedia interests to create a festival on the cutting edge of contemporary music practices.

In the past SignalFlow has featured compositions for ensembles large and small, electronic works, interactive concerts via the internet, installations of all descriptions, dance and theater pieces, video screenings, meditations, songs, and much else besides. The one thing these events have had in common is a thirst for sonic adventure and a willingness to take risks. As the first Signal Flow program put it: "Mills has no one defining method or style. This is not a finishing school; composers who come here, come to re-define themselves, to try things out that they probably wouldn't attempt anywhere else. Over the years there have been extraordinary successes and spectacular failures, many of both, and equally memorable. The performances that play safe rather than braving the beyond tend to fade from memory."

So, once again, this years concerts and events are sure to spark debate and pique interest, to challenge, entertain, puzzle, infuriate, excite, and move us. This is part of a creative tradition which is already well-known and welldocumented, a tradition which includes Darius Milhaud, John Cage and the late Lou Harrison, Pauline Oliveros and Terry Riley, Robert Ashley and Anthony Braxton, and countless others. The challenge for every generation of Mills students is to be true to their own vision in spite of, as well as because of, this impressive weight of the past. That new vision is what SignalFlow is all about. Thanks for coming, and enjoy the show(s)!

We would like to thank the following for their donations to Signal Flow: Cycling '74, Barney Haynes, Helen Meyer