The ensemble begins from a place of improvisation and exploration, but through iteration, repetition and rehearsal, arrives at compositional specificity. Echoing Thompson:

“At what point does the Soundpainter’s creative direction lapse to be overtaken by the creative impetus of the ensemble or the individual?

Never. Each Soundpainter chooses how active, how simple and/or how complicated the phrasing will be according to what is taking place in the moment. If the Soundpainter decides to sign less, for a few minutes or so, they are doing so because they would like that point in the composition to be more open to the players. The Soundpainter would be signing less for a couple of key reasons. 1 – they desire the performers to develop a certain section of the piece at their own rate. 2 – they are leaving the section open to chance where the Soundpainter will search for material to further the composition…The Soundpainter is the composer at all times. They decide and govern every aspect of the piece just as the traditional composer does. It is a very interesting question you pose because I have had this discussion with traditional composers who argue Soundpainting is not composing but a form of guided improvisation. The main reason for their belief is the ability to edit – though, as I have stated above, a Soundpainting composition is edited in real time.”

There are two versions of the ensemble, which performs year-round:

-The YorkU-centred Electro-Acoustic Orchestra, which emerges from an integrated undergraduate/graduate course Van Nort teaches annually, and which often involves members of the professional ensemble and guest performers, once the group is up and running.

–thee Doug Van Nort Electro-Acoustic Orchestra, the professional and established group, which has now had a fixed membership over a longer time scale. This version emerged from the pandemic, integrating select long-term members coming out of the class-based version of the ensemble, with members of the international community of electro/acoustic improvisers (and notably, collaborators from the international Deep Listening community), via telematic connections.

These are both often colloquially referred to as “EAO”, and sometimes the latter group as “DVN-EAO”, to differentiate.

In practice, the course-based version allows people to establish their own self-idiomatic setup and sonic composition at the level of the instrument/system, while learning the basics of the language. This also allows a pathway for students and any other performers who wish to take part to potentially joint the DVN-EAO.  The professional ensemble has converged to a much higher degree of refinement and specificity, with Van Nort able to compose more involved sonic structures that can be called upon and nonlinearly combined in performance, as well as much more “two-way mind reading” that happens in the moment.

Current members of DVN-EAO: Chris Anderson-Lundy, Tom Bickley, Viv Corringham, Björn Ericksson, Rory Hoy, Kathy Kennedy, Omar Shabbar, Danny Sheahan

Past members, EAO more broadly (which needs updating!): Eric Bhatnagar, Lo Bill, Wei Chen, Kelin Deng, Winston Frederick, Colin James Gibson, Shian Grace, Aida Khorsandi, Omar Shabbar, Ahsan Shabbir, Antonia Sinn, Chris Anderson-Lundy, Aaron Corbett, Darlene Dunn, Alex Gage, Fern Gu, Glen Hall, Rory Hoy, Melanie Jagmohan, Ian Jarvis, Maximus Lam, Ian Macchiusi, Kieran Maraj, Mackenzie Perrault, Paul Petrocelli, Danny Shehan, Lauren Wilson, Brian Abbott, Robert Appleton, David Bandi, Michael Brown, Joshua Buckley, Matheus Caldas, Chris Cerpnjak, Sabatino Muccilli, Paolo Paglucan, Liz Petzold, Carlos deLeon, Peter Elleman, Marcello Fiorini, Alex Laurie, Xi Lu, Sam Mason, Mark Mcgugan, Caleb Martin, Matt Miller, Michael Palumbo, Shidsa Pourbakhsh, William Osmon, Ted Phillips, Diane Roblin, Taraneh Sanati, Fae Sirois, Sean Stover, Dan Tapper, Gayle Young, Adam Walters, Jacob Whitehead, Arthur Zhou.