POP BEAT : (BLUE) GENE TYRANNY TO PRESENT MULTIMEDIA SHOW

One rock ‘n’ roll tradition that rarely crops up during (Blue) Gene Tyranny’s concerts is the shouting of requests from members of the audience.

Perhaps that’s because the avant-garde composer-musician, who will appear at the Newport Harbor Art Museum tonight, performs an adventurous combination of rock, jazz and classical styles on piano and synthesizer that draws a more sophisticated crowd than the average head-banging heavy metal band.

On the other hand, perhaps it’s because by the time a fan would finish reciting a song title like “Country Boy Country Dog/The Hidden Codes in the Sounds of Your Daily Life” or “Song of the Street of the Singing Chicken,” the concert would be over.

When Tyranny’s concert tonight ends, however, audiences will have sampled only one side of the New York-based musician’s multifaceted talent. Among his numerous collaborative efforts are music for Robert Ashley’s “Perfect Lives (Private Parts)” that aired recently on British television, music for dance troupes such as Timothy Buckley & the Troublemakers, Jill Kroesen and Pat Oleszko and original sound tracks for films and videos by David White, Kenn Beckmann, David Robinson, Oleszko and Ashley.

His multimedia show at the art museum, one of only a handful of solo performances he is making on the West Coast, will be devoted to his sound track music, which he will play live while the films are shown.

Shortly after arriving Wednesday night in Orange County after a flight from New York, Tyranny, a soft-spoken and articulate man, talked about his 25-year career.

Both an avid disciple and active creator of “experimental” music as pioneered in the 1940s and ‘50s by John Cage, Tyranny is a staunch supporter of the role of the computer in modern music.

“I’ve heard cello music as dreadfully boring as any computer music,” Tyranny, 40, said. “It all depends on the intentions of the composer. To me, music that evokes change is the most interesting.”

Like any other instrument, Tyranny said, computers and synthesizers have their limitations, but they also offer composers new vistas for exploration.

“Electronics helps you dream. It helps you hear things you’ve never heard before,” he said. “That’s the best use of instruments--not only to reproduce your intents, but to help you find things new to work on.”

Tyranny smiled at the anti-synthesizer diatribes voiced by some rock musicians. “There are some bands that say ‘We don’t have any synthesizers, we know how to play our instruments.’ Well . . . ,” he said, throwing up his hands and offering a shrug. “Some of the rock ‘n’ roll magazines complain about synthesizers, but they are usually talking about the store-bought variety, which are really just sophisticated organs that offer musicians a very limited palette. There are actually four or five generations of synthesizers, and they are all immensely different.”

Tyranny moved to New York in 1982, after living in San Francisco for 13 years, because there are more outlets for new music in the East. He praised the Newport Harbor Art Museum’s continuing Contemporary Culture series for providing a forum for a wide variety of music.

“In the ‘30s and ‘40s, Los Angeles was known as a center for new music, with composers like Arnold Schoenberg,” he said. “There are still a lot of wonderful musicians all over California, but they need more venues and support. The music deserves a bigger audience.”

Tyranny has found his own loyal following through his four albums for the Lovely Music Records label. He has a new recording to be released shortly, is writing an opera for an Italian company and said he is “booked up through November” with various solo performances and more collaborative efforts.

One of the many “closet projects” he hopes to find time to work on in the near future is an experiment in what he calls “archeo-acoustics,” with which he plans to create a musical portrait of a space at an archeological dig. “It’s a pseudo-science,” he said with a chuckle.

JAZZ IS A-LIVE: On a more positive note, Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa will be the site of a live recording and video taping session for Fantasy Records featuring the Shorty Rogers-Bud Shank Quintet and the Bob Cooper Quintet with June Christy. Tickets for both May 19 sessions are $20; proceeds will benefit the Coast Jazz Society, the private jazz organization that underwrites the annual OCC Jazz Festival. For ticket information, call Dr. Charles Rutherford at 432-5819..

LIVE ACTION: Tickets are expected to go on sale May 12 for an Aug. 4 Pacific Amphitheatre concert by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. The “Reggae Sunsplash USA” concert scheduled for May 12 at the Pacific Amphitheatre has been canceled because of “scheduling difficulties,” according to an amphitheater spokeswoman. Refunds are available at point of purchase . . . . Veteran blues artist John Lee Hooker will play the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach on Wednesday. . . . The Kendalls will be at the Crazy Horse Steak House on May 19 . . . . The Vandals will return to Spatz in Huntington Harbour May 10.