eFlash! 2000-10

President's remarks (October 2000)

A message from the board:

I'm very pleased to have been elected president and look forward to exchanging ideas with members about our future plans. We have the exciting new CD Cache in our offices, and a copy will be going out soon to all members who have paid their dues for this year -- the grace period expires at the end of October! I am very lucky to have a great group of board members, and introductions follow:

Rosemary Mountain (President) -- Involved in composition and analysis, with a special interest in perception/cognition issues and inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary explorations. Teaching electroacoustics, composition and theory courses in the Music Dept / Fine Arts Faculty of Concordia University.

Yves Gigon (VP) is an electroacoustic music composer, producer and graphic/web designer. He is finishing a BFA in Fine Arts at Concordia University, in electroacoustics and digital image/sound. He has composed for theatre, dance, film, TV and performance, and created recently interactive mixed-media works.

Dave Lindsay (Secretary)

Andra McCartney (Treasurer): I teach Sound in Media for the Communication Studies Dept at Concordia University. I am involved in multimedia soundscape composition, and just began a three-year research project on the changing soundscape of the Lachine Canal.

Members at large

Kevin Austin is a founding member of the CEC, and has been member-at-large for the past two years. He has taught ea at Concordia University since 1970. His particular areas of interest in ea include composition, analysis, multi-speaker presentation, psychoacoustics and communications.

Steven Naylor composes and performs electroacoustic and acoustic music for concert performance, theatre, TV and film. He has taught EA music (part time) at Dalhousie University since 1994.

Laurie Radford is a composer working with various combinations of instruments, voice and electroacoustic media. His recent work involves compositions for orchestra, solo instruments with electroacoustic music, acousmatic works, and pieces which involve computer-controlled signal processing and event control in interaction with performers. Laurie Radford currently teach electroacoustic music, music technology, and composition at the Department of Music, University of Alberta and is director of the UofA Electroacoustic Music Studio.

Jean Routhier is a sound crafter producing urban folk audio pestilence. He has been involved in media art projects with subject matter ranging from insomnia to team sports. Presently located in Vancouver (in Canada) and involved (as technical director) with the media center Western Front.

AGM 2000

The CEC had its annual general meeting at Ian Chuprun’s home in Montreal this past August. Minutes from this meeting will be posted to the website under eFlash!

PRESENCE II

This two CD compilation of electroacoustic works is currently being disseminated. The CD launch will be at Concordia University October 11-13, 2000.

Cache

This CD with pieces from the CEC’s young and emerging sound artist project will be mailed to all fully paid up CEC members sometime in November.

Rosemary Mountain (President)

Greetings to all. I am excited to be chosen for the position of president of the CEC having followed its development since its early days. Just the other day, stimulated by a posting by John Young on <cecdiscuss>, I was reflecting that the community of CEC is of great interest to me precisely because of its intersection of "Canadian" with "electroacoustics" -- my sense of being Canadian has been heightened by spending several years in Europe, after being developed by shorter and longer, but always rewarding, stays in various provinces (Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and BC -- including a wonderful winter in the north (Fort Nelson)). Like most Canadians, I'm not sure what it means, but I feel comfortable to be one!

As far as my relationship with electroacoustics, I can say that its existence and (changing) characteristics permeate my thinking about music and art. This will doubtless colour all my activities on the Board of Directors of the CEC: I would like to see electroacoustic music permeate other musicians', artists' and educators' thinking about art and music as well. In my opinion, the fields of ea/cm/sa have suffered from being considered -- still -- a single field, and from being marginalized. It seems that the fields are reaching a stage of maturity where ea/cm/sa should be integrated as fairly common art forms / mediums, with diverse manifestations and aesthetics -- aesthetics which are linkable in many cases to artforms outside these areas. I am happy when I see a textbook of composition (like that of Larry Austin's) refer to ea/cm without blushing -- I am unhappy when I see statements made in books or classes by music theorists, historians and composers that reveal a lack of recognition or appreciation of all that has been uncovered and explored by practitioners in ea.

I have been working on a large project to help refine and publicize tools for analyzing musical works that may not have written scores, that may not have discrete pitches, that may deal with timbre, texture, gesture, time in ways that differ substantially from the 19th century. Included in this work is also a recommendation to evolve more sophisticated means to discuss polymodal / intermedia works which address the interaction of the various elements.

Therefore, I would like to see the CEC represent, among its members, not only composers of ea/cm but also sonic artists, collaborators who have or might in the future work with ea/cm composers, school teachers, private teachers and university professors who are addressing any subject into which ea/cm/sa works could have a place, researchers into sound, auditory perception & cognition, sound engineers, etc. In order to accomplish this, I will be working at building up a larger membership base -- a task that becomes easier with the ability to offer members a copy of one of our CDs as a token of our appreciation of their support. As the most effective way to recruit new support is by word of mouth, we would appreciate your help in speaking to your friends and colleagues.

Most importantly, I would like to be able to represent, and fight for, the needs and wants of our current membership. This means that I need to hear from you about your own work, discoveries, difficulties, and dreams.

Then it will be time to prepare for hibernation…. into the studio.

© CEC 2000