The Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk) is a large-scale, computer-mediated ensemble that explores cutting-edge technology in combination with conventional musical contexts—while radically transforming both. Founded in 2008 by director Ge Wang and students, faculty, and staff at Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), this unique ensemble comprises more than 20 laptops, human performers, controllers, and custom multi-channel speaker arrays designed to provide each computer meta-instrument with its own acoustic identity and presence. The orchestra fuses a powerful sea of sound with the immediacy of human music-making, capturing the irreplaceable energy of a live ensemble performance as well as its sonic intimacy. At the same time, the orchestra makes use of the computer’s capabilities to experiment with sounds, instruments, and new forms of musical expression.

Offstage, the laptop orchestra serves as a one-of-a-kind laboratory and learning environment that explore music, computer science, interaction design, composition, and live performance in a deeply interdisciplinary ways (it's also a cross-listed course in Music and Computer Science). SLOrk uses the ChucK programming language as its primary software platform for sound synthesis, instrument design, performance, and education.