Performances
MUSIC & DANCE PERFORMANCES, INSTALLATIONS, DEMOS
Friday, March 23, Prentis Hall, 3rd floor, Computer Music Center, 7pm FREE
632 West 125th Street New York, NY 10027
works by J. Baboni-Schilingi, J. Bass-Krueger, L. Berio, H. M. Chen,
D. Massey, A. Pandey, A. Reis, M. Sterbenz with L. Flanigan & M. Lynch (dance),
J. Oliver, T. Pender, Isaac T., A. Takaoka with K. Tanaka (lasers & video), H. Tutschku, etc.
Program notes in alphabetical order by composer’s name
Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi Decode-II (2007) (duration: 6’)
for percussion and live computer
This piece is based on a very special performance practice for the percussionist: to play "suggestions" based on musical figures as fast as possible. The notion of "fairness" is therefore not attached to the accuracy of notes played, but rather to the effectiveness of the gestures produced.
The score is divided into ten sections that follow one another without interruption, making up around 7 minutes of music. Each section provides specific figures, which the interpreter must follow heuristically. This term, heuristic, means "to follow a given rule as closely as possible, but with a margin of tolerance". Here the given rule is to follow the proposed figures as closely as possible.
This composition is also intended as a response to numerous contemporary pieces for percussion which employ an enormous amount of instruments. In fact, often (one might even say almost always) percussion compositions use a variety of instruments made of wood, metal, keys, etc. Sometimes the percussion setup proves to be so heavy that at times, it takes longer to setup than it takes to play the piece itself. For this reason, I decided to use only 5 wood blocks, 5 temple blocks, and a slit-drum, so that the setup is very light to carry and mount (I was inspired by Bone Alphabet, and Ferneyhough, who has been one of my masters).
Decode-II is also a "provocative" composition because it uses only percussion instruments that have very limited expressivity. It uses wooden instruments that have minimal variations in timbre, so that all the work lies not in the expressive possibilities of timbral change, but in the writing of musical figures and in the performer’s virtuosity.
This composition is also intended as a tribute to the performers. Very often when playing contemporary music, there is a real discrepancy between the virtuosity displayed during the concert, and the many hours of study that happen behind the scenes. However, Decode-II draws on the expertise that is already present in the percussionist, and requires them to work in an exceptionally comfortable manner: to be oneself as quickly as possible. The composition is spectacular in that the interpreter’s speed of execution comes close to that of a sporting achievement. The challenge is to maintain the speed while trying to precisely capture the gesture.
The computer produces sound that is very synthetic and electronic (almost hysterical and tedious), which has nothing to do with the wood timbre of the percussion. This creates a discrepancy between the electronics and the percussion, however the two share one property in common: their speed. There is also a very small part of real time treatment: that is to say the sound of the percussion comes through a microphone that records audio into the computer. This captures the sound and immediately renders it. This chain (recording, processing, and play-back) happens so fast that we do not perceive the temporal distance; we therefore call it "real time". In Decode-II, the computer amplifies the percussionist’s actions using multiple sequences both immediately before played by the performer. This technique is known as a "delay line with dissipative feedback ".
Jacopo Baboni Schilingi was born in Milan on April 4, 1971.
He studied composition with I. Fedele and conducting under V. Parisi at the Civica Scuola di Musica of Milan. In 1994 he received his diploma in composition in Bologna and a diploma in contemporary music in Milan. In 1992 he was selected for the "Cursus de Composition et d'Informatique Musicale" held at IRCAM in Paris, and in 1996, he undertook a Masters with K. Huber and B. Ferneyhough. He obtained his PhD with distinction (summa cum laude) in "Music and Research" at Paris8 University under the guidance of G. Vinay.
His music has been performed in Europe, South America, Canada, China, and the United States. He has received several commissions from institutions such as IRCAM, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, CICV of Belfort, Orchestre d’Île de France, Centro Tempo Reale, GRM, various commissions from the French state, MARCO in Mexico, Radio France, Saarländischer Rundfunk, "Settembre Musica" Festival, etc. His compositions are performed in the most important international festivals by ensembles such as Ensemble InterContemporain, CourtCircuit, Klangforum Ensemble, Collegium Ensemble, Arditti String Quartet, and Les Pléiades. He also collaborates regularly with musicians such as C. Delangle, N. Isherwood, A. Quentin, C. Schmitt, and P. Contet.
Since 1996 he realized several interactive installations, such as for: A.I.M.T.R. with the architect P.L. Copat (IRCAM, Paris 1996); Daphné with E. Quinz (Anomos, Bolzano 1999); Instruments à gonds with the sculptor Arman and the writer T. Reut (ISEA, Paris 2000); Metapolis, Crossborder, Terra Incognita with the multimedia artist M. Chevalier (MARCO, Monterrey 2002); and Lenteur with esc-group (Intrusion, Ars Numerica 2004). Together with J.P. Balpe, he has realized several performances: Trois mythologies et un poète aveugle (IRCAM, 1997); Syntax Error! (CICV, 2000); and …nographie (Biennale de Poesie, 2003). In 2007 he won the special Prix Italia with a composition based on Yannick Liron’s poems. Since 2001 Baboni Schilingi has created various soundtracks for films directed by A. Fleischer, O. Mille, and H. Colomer.
Julian Bass-Krueger Strangers (2012) (duration: 10’)
for performer and electronics
“Strangers” uses field recordings to create an uneasy sonic space. Some of the recordings are from the streets of New York. There are snippets of overheard dialogue and the textures of supermarket muzak mixed with humming refrigerators. “Strangers” also uses wind to create natural distortion. Another set of recordings comes from the website Chatroulette. We pass briefly between the worlds of strangers. Some are laughing, some silent, others masturbating.
The sounds do little to cue us into what’s happening. They are cluttered, layered, and damaged. The jarring effect both isolates us and immerses us. It plays on the strange ways that we both encounter other people and deal with loneliness.
Julian Bass-Krueger was born in the small town of Clinton New York in 1993. He started playing classical piano at age six. He sang in his elementary school choir and played violin in his elementary school orchestra. He performed in charity piano recitals at his local church.
Now he makes degenerate music.
Luciano Berio Sequenza VII (1969) (duration: 7’)
for oboe and electronics
Sequenza VII is inhabited by a sort of permanent conflict - for me a very expressive and somewhat dramatic one - between the extreme velocity of the instrumental articulations and the slowness of the musical processes that sustain the work's progress, such as: a certain fixedness of registers, the prolonged absence of certain notes, and the increasingly insistent presence of certain intervals (the perfect fifth, for example, which is without memory of the cor anglais in Tristan).
With Sequenza VII (as with the Sequenzas for flute, trombone, clarinet, trumpet, and bassoon) I continue my search for a virtual polyphony. In this Sequenza, the solo part is placed in perspective, it is as it were "analyzed" by the constant presence of a "tonic", a B natural, that may be played pianissimo by any other instrument off stage. Sequenza VII was written in 1969 for Heinz Holliger.
Luciano Berio’s was born in a small town, Oneglia, where his grandfather and his father played the organ in a local church and also composed. Berio was convinced of the need for young composers to come to terms with the achievements of their predecessors by studying their scores and writing music in various styles. He owed a great deal to his teacher Ghedini under whose influence he learned to love and respect the music of Monteverdi; also to his friend Bruno Maderna (“I learned for instance from the way he conducted Mozart or my works and his own. He had a thorough knowledge of early counterpoint, Dufay and the others, and studied electronic music much earlier than I did.”).
Berio and Maderna founded together the Studio di Fonologia Musicale (1955) where Mutazioni, Perspectives and Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) as well as Différences were composed. They also established a journal, Incontri musicali (1956-1960) a title which they also gave to a concert series, with Boulez, Scherchen, and Maderna among the conductors. (“We had many enemies. I remember on one occasion, when Boulez was conducting, it came to such a scuffle that the police had to intervene”).
Luciano Berio became a towering figure in international musical life. Similarly to a handful of other composers all born in the 1920’s (including Boulez and Nono), whatever he produced became a milestone in the history of music – whether works for solo instruments and solo voice (the Sequenza-series), pieces for chamber ensemble (including the Chemins based on some of the Sequenze), orchestra (Sinfonia – with eight voices added to the ensemble - is to this day a representative composition of the 1960’s), chorus and orchestra (Coro being an emblematic treatment of folk music within the framework of a contemporary composition), voice and orchestra (such as Epiphanies), solo voice, chorus, and orchestra (Berio’s farewell to composition: Stanze for baritone, male chorus, and orchestra) and all his music theatre pieces (Passaggio, La vera storia, Un re in ascolto, Laborintus II…).
Luciano Berio was conscious of his responsibilities as a member of society. He said he could not understand composers who deluded themselves to be a mouthpiece of the universe or mankind. As he put it: “In my view it is enough if we endeavor to become responsible children of society”. From Universal Edition.
Huey-Meei Chen Magic Touch (2012) (duration: 3’30)
demonstration
“Magic Touch” is a work in progress, which showcases me inside a virtual space controlling images through hand gestures via a Kinect device. Images will be projected and speakers will surround the space. I use high-resolution scans of paintings that can be manipulated. My hands and other joints control the direction of the ripples, the degree of reverb/wetness, and the rotation of the image/painting.
The image, (using Max/Jitter OpenGL), over time opens up, floating in space, as if I immerse myself inside the painting - slowly the image ripples, warps, swirls, and responds to my whim.
The music will be at times meditative, other times chaotic or rhythmic, traveling through space through multiple speakers to create and enhance the experience of the visual effects. For this presentation however, I will be doing a stereo mix. Samples of sounds from everyday life, a passing train, waves crashing on the shore, lightning striking, city sirens, and other environmental noises are sequenced together as background sounds.
Huey-Meei Chen is a music theorist and electronic-music composer. Her works explore the effect of spatial and temporal arrangement/effect on the listening experience. The sonic sources in her compositions are taken from daily life, street noise or nature, as well as computer-generated material. Also a video artist, Ms. Chen’s video works draw on concepts of sonic spatialization as well. Her visual material consists of three-dimensional, animated digital renderings of two-dimensional images that transform over time. Her interests have expanded to include interactive multimedia works, such as a multimedia project that links sound and video through a Kinect motion controller device, and another project that involves building a microcontroller to link LED-matrix lights with sound using Arduinos (an open-source microcontroller).
Johannes Kretz The Devil Dances in the Empty Pocket (2012) (duration: 15’)
Performance for live electronics
There is a saying that the devil dances in the empty pocket. Is the condition of having empty pockets supporting the dance of the evil? Or does it open chances in the sense, that empty pockets can turn into a creative space of untamed creativity? Who are the devils, who are the angels?
Johannes Kretz uses a setup with various controllers (DJ controller, iPad) to juggle with sounds from various sources to approach the impossible, the imaginary point of intersection between fast mental movements in the head of the musician and their risky unstable manifestations in the acoustic space. It is a cat-and-mouse game of unpredictable nature, sometimes devilish, sometimes angelic, a dance of fast thoughts and sounds in space.
The performance connects sociopolitical and transcendental aspects of human existence. Unstable sound articulations aim to transform into more sustainable textures, searching for balance. Is this an illusion?
Johannes Kretz, born 1968 in Vienna, studies (composition, pedagogy) at the music academy Vienna with F.BURT and M.JARRELL and mathematics at the University Vienna • 1992/93: studies at IRCAM, Paris with Marco Stroppa and Brian Ferneyhough • co-founder of the NewTonEnsemble, of the international composers group PRISMA, of www.ikultur.com and aNOther festival Vienna • 1996-2001: teacher for music theory and composition at the conservatory of Vienna • 1997-2001: teacher for for computer music at the academy in Vienna, since 2001 also music theory, since 2004 also composition, since 2009: habilitation in composition, associate professor • Since 2008: Head of the ZiMT ("center for innovative music technology") of the music university Vienna • numerous performances in Austria, Germany, France, Poland, Czechia, Turkey, Lithuania, Argentinia, Mexico, Canada, USA, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China • regular broadcasts in Austrian and German radio
• commissions of works from Konzerthaus Wien, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble On Line, Ensemble Reconsil, Vienna Flautists, quartett22, Internationale Lemgoer Orgeltage, Haller Bachtage, Triton Trombone Quartett, Wiener Kammerchor • numerous grants and prizes • Websites: www.johanneskretz.com and www.mdw.ac.at/zimt/
Doran Massey Favorite Will (2012) (duration: 6’)
for performers, electronics, and video
Is a person an intelligence served by a will, or a will served by an intelligence? This piece is an exercise of the idea that a person is a will served by an intelligence. The performers are asked to play their favorite type or piece of music on their favorite instrument. The specific choice of instrument or music isn’t important to the piece, only that it be important to the performer.
The audience is also asked to choose their favorite piece of music out of the music they may have on a personal music device. They can play this through any kind of speaker, from earphones to portable speakers. They are asked to keep the volume level in the range of what would normally be considered a typical speaking voice or less.
The resulting sounds and visuals will be amplified and played-back as they are, processed, played back, and analyzed by software to control and generate audio and video files which will then be played-back. We will then be able to see and hear manifestations of the interactions of the performers’ and audiences’ wills and intelligences in action.
Doran Massey, born in 1964 in Orange County, California, USA, received an MFA in Studio Art from New York University where he studied principally with Peter Campus. Currently, he teaches at Kean University while also working and studying education, art, and technology at Teachers College at Columbia University. He is a media artist with a background as an engineer and researcher in interactive television, software, and media technology. Not surprisingly, he works with electronics, computers, and other materials to create sound art, musical compositions, installations, video, and interactive pieces that explore the perception and cognition of complex interactions. The interactive systems may communicate the complexity and variability of living organisms, whether organic or inorganic. Immersive environments invite exploration and reward a person’s effort to interact with discovery. Sensations invite us to consider the reality at which they hint. This is not passive discovery. Each system reacts to us as we react to it, frustrating any desire on our part to control it by predicting specific responses, but rewarding the wish for open discovery. It is not a slave to be dominated. It declares its right to exist in freedom and its defiant refusal to submit to force while admitting the necessity to choose responses to the influences of other systems, including people. People are systems, multi-cellular, multi-dimensional, and multi-existential systems. Doran’s works have been performed, broadcast, and exhibited in North America, Europe, Japan, South America, and on the internet. Some selected works include:
2010 Travel the Grain Spectrum, electro-acoustic music
2006 The Big Digging Sounds, sound art
2005 StochHousing, interactive installation
Amber States of Grain, electro-acoustic music,
2004 Bath Tub Drip, video
2004-1998 Puget Sound, video and installation
1996 Hard Disk World, multi-media interactive
Jaime Oliver Silent Drum
demonstration
The Silent Drum is a drum with an elastic surface, which adapts to the shape of the hand that presses it. This surface is analyzed by a video camera and the data resulting from that analysis is used to control sound events. On Feb-28 2009, the Silent Drum won the 1st prize in the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition at the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology (GTCMT). A composition written for the Silent Drum, “Silent Construction 1”, received the first prize in FILE PRIX LUX and was finalist in the Bourges Electronic Arts Competition and has been performed in several important conferences and festivals such as the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) in Montreal, SIGGRAPH in New Orleans and the Pure Data Convention in Sao Paulo, amongst others.
Jaime Oliver (Lima, 1979) is currently a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in composition at Columbia University in New York. He obtained a PhD in Computer Music from the University of California, San Diego (2011) where he studied with Miller Puckette.
Oliver’s music and research explores the concept of musical instrument in electronic and computer music, designing instruments that listen, understand, remember and respond. His open source Silent Drum and MANO controllers use computer vision techniques to continuously track and classify hand gestures.
His work has been featured in many international festivals and conferences, collaborating with several composers, improvisers and artists in a field of action that spans sound performance and installation, composing and performing music, and programming open source software.
Some recognitions include scholarships and grants from the Mellon Foundation, the Fulbright Commission, the University of California, Meet the Composer and the Ministry of Culture of Spain, and composition and research residencies awarded by ZKM and IRCAM. He obtained the 1st prize in FILE PRIX LUX 2010, a GIGA-HERTZPREIS 2010 special prize from ZKM and the 1st prize in the 2009 Guthman Competition from the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology. http://www.jaimeoliver.pe
Ananta Padrey The Bubble (2012)
Installation
Through my years of musical experimentation, I have found that my experience of music is often mediated by an instrument. A musical instrument is a physical medium for interacting with an intangible art. Each one provides a unique lens for acoustic and tactile musical sensation. For example, I find the pressure-sensitive keys of a piano allow for easier emotional expression than do the binary keys of a closed-hole flute. In building The Bubble, I isolated this idea of a physical structure as musical interface. I wished to create a tangible medium of experiencing music—one that facilitated a connection more intimate than listening alone, but that even non-musicians could enjoy. The Bubble is a physical structure that connects spectators to music through touch.
Ananta Padrey is a sophomore at Barnard College, studying Computer Science and Psychology. She was born on May 27, 1992 and, since then, has fiddled with any instrument she could get her hands on, including: the piano, bassoon, flute, guitar, harmonica, and harmonium. Her non-musical interests include physical interfaces, augmented reality, and the interaction between people and technology.
Adam Reis project of an installation with laser (2012)
demonstration
Adam will be demonstrating the evolution of a concept he first came across in one of his earliest engineering lectures. Although he has yet to overcome a few key obstacles in its design, Adam hopes to develop and perfect an instillation or portable product that introduces an artificial feeling of synesthesia by letting a user see their manipulation of sound or hear their manipulation of light through the use of a music-driven system of lasers.
Adam Reis is a first-year electrical engineering student at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. After choosing to part ways with his full-time hard rock band in San Diego in search of an environment where he could incorporate both of his passions – music and engineering – he moved to New York to attend Columbia and, through an incredibly lucky series of events, found his way to Columbia’s Computer Music Center. As one of the youngest students at the CMC, Adam hopes to get a head start in applying his growing knowledge of electrical and computer engineering toward a career in music.
Maeve Sterbenz Untitled (2012) (duration: 10’)
for two dancers and live-electronics
danced by Laura Flanigan and Michelle Lynch
This piece is a collaboration with two dancers Laura Flanigan and Michelle Lynch, and it is an interactive work for dance and music. Using camera data that is interpreted in Max/MSP, the dancers are able to control when and how recorded sound is played, complicating the traditional relationship of control between dance and music. While the samples used are all improvised, the control provided by the medium of recorded sound destabilizes whatever sense of extemporaneity the original samples may have had. Still, the dancers ultimately have control over what is heard, providing an interactive element. The piece explores the relationships between improvisation and composition, sound and the body, “canned” versus live performance, and the sonic and the visual.
Maeve Sterbenz is a PhD student in music theory at Columbia University, where she also did her undergraduate studies in music and physics. In both her music theory research and composition projects Maeve is greatly interested in recorded sound, the interaction of technology with music making and listening, music and politics, and sound and the body. Currently Maeve’s music theory research is focused on analysis of Harsh Noise music, and she will soon present her Master’s paper “Possibilities for the Analysis of Noise Music from a Listening Perspective” at that Yale Graduate Music Symposium and at the Analytical Approaches to World Music Conference. Recently Maeve’s compositions have dealt with recorded material, the role of interactivity, and dance. In her work both as a theorist and as a composer Maeve hopes to explore the subjective diverse nature of listening experiences.
Isaac T. Dance Music (2012) (duration: 6’)
for dancer, Diskclavier and electronics
demonstartion
A composition for Disklavier and dance, realized through OSC and Max/MSP. The dancer has a great deal of control over several aspects of the piece. Information of her movements is collected from the dancer through a device called the Kinect, and this information is interpreted by the computer and turned into music systematically through the piano. This allows the dancer to act as performance artist and composer simultaneously.
Hans Tutschku Shore (2007) (duration: 11’)
for oboe and live-electronics
studio : Klang Projekte Weimar / commissioned by Ecole Nationale de Musique du Pays de Montbéliard (France)
first performance July 7, 2007, during the festival "Nuit bleue" Besançon (France) by Christian Schmitt
Shore is a dialogue between the solo oboe and subtle electroacoustic treatments. Each of the three sections of the piece explores different relationships between the instrument and the electronics.
Hans Tutschku was born in 1966 in Weimar. He has been a member of the "Ensemble for intuitive music Weimar" since 1982. He studied electronic music composition at the college of music Dresden and since 1989 has had the opportunity to participate in several of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s concert cycles to learn the art of sound direction. He completed further studies in 1991/92 studying Sonology and electroacoustic composition at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague (Holland). In 1994 Tutschku followed a one-year study stay at IRCAM in Paris. He taught electroacoustic composition in Weimar in 1995/96 as a guest professor. In 1996 he participated in composition workshops with Klaus Huber and Brian Ferneyhough. During the period between 1997-2001 Tutschku taught electroacoustic composition at IRCAM in Paris, and from 2001 to 2004 taught at the Conservatory of Montbéliard. In May 2003 he completed a doctorate (PhD) with Professor Dr. Jonty Harrison at the University of Birmingham. During the spring term 2003 he was the "Edgar Varèse Gast Professor" at the TU Berlin.
Since September 2004 Hans Tutschku has been working as a composition professor and as the director of the electroacoustic studios at Harvard University (Cambridge, USA). He is the winner of many international composition competitions, including among others: Bourges, CIMESP Sao Paulo, Hanns Eisler Prize, Prix Ars Electronica, Prix Noroit and Prix Musica Nova. In 2005 he received the Culture Prize of the city of Weimar.
William Goutfreind & Julien Vincenot
performance
In 2007, Julien Vincenot, Jérémy Labelle and Thomas Vittek founded the Unmapped collective.
Now composed by around ten composers and instrumentalists from all over the world, its purpose is to produce a large scale of projects (improvisation, performances, interactive installations, music for video, dance and theater,...) and to promote the music of each of its members.
At the occasion of the Ghost in the Instrument festival, two members of Unmapped, William Goutfreind and Julien Vincenot, present a performance involving the bassoon and live computer. The aim of this short show is to give an idea of a regular improvisation produced by the whole collective.
William Goutfreind, born in 1988, William Goutfreind lives in France. At the age of eight, he began to study the bassoon (German system) at l’Ecole Nationale de Musique in Montbéliard (France). His passion for music led him to write music early on, then, from 2001, to study composition at the same school, with Jacopo Baboni Schilingi, Hans Tutschku, Giacomo Platini, Frédéric Voisin, and Lorenzo Bianchi. He graduated with a degree in Musicology from the University of Besançon (France) in 2008, and then obtained in 2011 his Master’s degree in Musique, Recherche et Création from the University Paris 8, under the direction of Anne Sèdes. From that time on, he has been focusing on research and composition.
As a member of the Unmapped collective (dedicated to electroacoustic and instrumental improvised music), the Ensemble of Interactive Music, and the Barcelona Laptop Orchestra, he's actively evolving into musical creation in multiple directions, and also on its pedagogy. His works show an increasing interest in the relation between music and computers, and consequently in the domain of computer-assisted composition.
Julien Vincenot was born in 1985, and lives in Paris. He is a composer and a musician-researcher. After various instrumental studies since 1995 (latin harp, piano, jazz, improvisation), he started in 2005 to study musicology, XXth century music, and electroacoustic composition at Université Paris 8 with H. Vaggione, A. Sèdes, G. Carvalho and J.-M. Lopez Lopez. He holds a Master’s degree in Théorie, Recherche, et Création de la musique. Since 2008, he has been studying instrumental composition and computer-assisted composition at the Conservatory of Montbéliard, with J. Baboni Schilingi, F. Voisin, G. Platini, and L. Bianchi.
His musical production includes instrumental music for ensembles and soloists (with or without live computer), electroacoustic music, film music, live computer improvisation, etc. In 2007, he co-founded the Unmapped collective. Now composed of around ten composers and instrumentalists from all over the world, its purpose is to produce a large variety of projects (improvisation, performances, interactive installations, music for video, dance and theater, etc) and to promote the music of each of its members.
His research now explores the field of morphological analysis applied to non-musical materials (video, gestures...), musical morphogenesis, and constraint-programming within computer-aided composition. Since 2010, he is also a member of the international research group PRISMA.
In 2011, he attended the impuls academy in Graz, Austria. There, he took part in master-classes with B. Furrer, G. F. Haas, R. Saunders, and E. Furrer. On this occasion, some of his music was selected and performed by student soloists and the Ensemble Interface (dir. S. Voyles). He also attended the International Electronic Music Week at the Shanghai Conservatory as a guest composer. His piece Ascidiacea II, for alto flute and live computer, was performed there.