TIES 2014 — Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium

Programme notes and biographies

Toronto, 13–17 August 2014

TIES 2014 is a co-presentation of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC) and New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) in collaboration with the Canadian Music Centre (CMC). TIES is held in parallel with the 16th edition of Sound Travels, NAISA’s annual Festival of Sound Art. The Keynote Speaker for TIES 2014 is Pauline Oliveros.

Activities take place at the Canadian Music Centre (Thursday and Friday morning sessions) and at the Artscape Wychwood Barns (all concerts and afternoon sessions, all activities on Saturday and Sunday). Inside the Artscape Wychwood Barns, there are two venues: Theatre Direct’s Wychwood Theatre (Studio 176) and the NAISA Space (Studio 252).

Registration — includes entry to all concerts [ register now ]
Webcast — Listen in to all events on a live stream.

Questions about the schedule or any other aspect of the symposium can be directed by email to Emilie LeBel, Chair of the symposium committee. For any registration or Sound Travels questions, contact Nadene Thériault-Copeland.

Call for Submissions
Schedule Summary | Directions | Organisation
Detailed Symposium Schedule
Abstracts + Bios | Programme Notes + Bios
TIES 2014 event / info summary (PDF)

Day 1 — Wednesday 13 August 2014

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18:00–20:00 • Opening Reception and Installation

Venue: NAISA Space

Fernando Godoy Monsalve — Atacama: 22º 54\” 24\” S, 68º 12\” 25\” W

Programme notes and biographies for the Friday and Saturday evening Sound Travels concerts and for Monsalve’s installation can be found on the NAISA website and in the Sound Travels programme booklet.

20:00–22:00 • Symposium Concert #1

Venue: Wychwood Theatre
Host: jef chippewa

Elainie Lillios — The Rush of the Brook Stills the Mind (2013), for percussion and live electroacoustics
Thomas Dempster — contact clusters (2007)
Stephen Lilly — Divided Attention (2012), for trombone, fixed and unfixed media
jef chippewa — footscapes: one, march (2013)
Shawn Pinchbeck — Container (2014)
Joseph Hyde — Vanishing Point (2010), videomusic

Scott Deal, percussion
Michael Boyd, trombone

Elainie Lillios — The Rush of the Brook Stills the Mind (2013)
for percussion and live electroacoustics
Scott Deal, percussion

The Rush of the Brook Stills the Mind for multi-percussion and live, interactive electroacoustics takes its inspiration from a poem with the same title by Wally Swist. The percussionist’s virtuosic foray through Swist’s evocative work pairs acoustic and electroacoustic forces into a single entity. The Rush of the Brook Stills the Mind was commissioned by percussionist Scott Deal and is dedicated to him.

—Wally Swist from Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love (Southern Illinois University Press, 2012). Reproduced with permission of the author. All rights reserved.

Elainie Lillios’ music reflects her fascination with listening, sound, space, time, immersion, and anecdote. She studied Deep Listening with Pauline Oliveros and composition with Larry Austin, Jonty Harrison, Jon Christopher Nelson, Joseph Klein and Robert Fleisher. Awards include a 2013–14 Fulbright grant (Greece), First Prize in the Electroacoustic Piano International Competition, Special Mention in Prix Destellos, Prize Winner in Medea Electronique Competition, and First Prize in the Concours Internationale de Bourges. Recognition from Concurso Internacional de Música Electroacústica de São Paulo, Concorso Internazionale Russolo, Pierre Schaeffer Competition, ICMA and La Muse en Circuit. Elainie’s acousmatic music is available on the CD Entre Espaces (empreintes DIGITALes), as well as through Centaur, MSR Classics, Irritable Hedgehog, StudioPANaroma, La Muse en Circuit, New Adventures in Sound Art, SEAMUS and Leonardo Music Journal.
http://www.elillios.com

An artist who “displays phenomenal virtuosity” (Sequenza 21), Scott Deal has premiered solo, chamber and mixed media works, and can be heard on the Albany, Centaur, Cold Blue and SCI labels. His recording of John Luther Adams’ Four Thousand Holes for piano, percussion, and electronics was listed in The New Yorker’s 2011 Top Ten Classical Recordings. Deal is the founder of the Telematic Collective, an Internet performance group. In 2011, he and composer Matthew Burtner won the coveted Internet2 IDEA Award for their co-creation of Auksalaq, a telematic opera that was described as “an important realization of meaningful opera for today’s world.” Deal is Professor of Music and Director of the Donald Louis Tavel Arts and Technology Research Center at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). He also is faculty for the Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice at the New England Conservatory.
http://scottdeal.net

Thomas Dempster — contact clusters (2007)

contact clusters takes the sound of a pizzicato on the G string of the violin, wanders inside the sound and is transformed on the other side. The source material of the work derives primarily from the four plucked strings of the violin. Consequently owing to the usage of strings, my interest in mathematical knot theory gave way to the structure, four-channel spatialization, and the course of events throughout the work. While the work can be construed as an odd sort of Rondo, the majority of the transformations come from the Reidemeister moves, which are placed in three distinct categories: twist and untwist in either direction; move one strand completely over another; and, move a strand completely over or under a crossing.

Thomas Dempster is a composer living near Columbia, South Carolina. His music has been performed widely, including festivals at the University of Kentucky, Indiana State University, UNC-Greensboro and the University of Nebraska at Kearney, festivals and conferences of GEMDays (UK), #9 Art (Brazil), Di_Stanze (Italy), Electric LaTex, University of Texas-EARS Series, Electronic Music Midwest, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, NYCEMF, Studio 300, ICMC, SEAMUS, Society of Composers Inc., the College Music Society, the National Flute Association, the North American Saxophone Alliance, and many more. Dempster is a recipient of honours and citations from BMI, ASCAP, Sigma Alpha Iota, Ithaca College, Black House Collective, Vox Novus and the Columbia (SC) Museum of Art. He has received commissions from the Greenbrook Ensemble, the Blue Mountain Ensemble, the Governor’s School of North Carolina, the Ohio State University New Music Ensemble, South Carolina State University and others.
http://www.thomasdempster.com

Stephen Lilly — Divided Attention (2012)
for trombone, fixed and unfixed media
Michael Boyd, trombone

My initial conception of Divided Attention was a semi-humorous work for trombone performing a structured improvisation based on a hybrid verbal / graphic score accompanied by live electronics. My initial attempts all resulted in fragmentary gestures, lacking unification. Additionally, the more I developed the work, the more the comedy veered toward absurd while the abstract sounds moved into the background, rigidly defined and isolated. After awhile, I grew reluctant. It got so bad that I began intentionally distracting myself to avoid composing. In the end, I decided against struggle and wholeheartedly abandoned focus to write autobiographically, inserting myself and all my distractions into the piece both literally and metaphorically.

Stephen Lilly is a DC-based composer, performer, audio engineer, and sound artist. Theatricality, language, and abstraction are themes that continually resurface in his creative work, the majority of which is scored for chamber ensembles, incorporating signal processing and computer generated sounds. Stephen has written works for the DMC (Devil May Care) Duo, saxophonist Steven Leffue and soprano Stacey Mastrian, and has worked closely with a collective of composer-performers he helped found, the Bay Players Experimental Music Collective. His writings on contemporary experimental music have been published in Organised Sound, Performance Research, Perspectives of New Music, and Computer Music Journal. Recordings he has engineered have been released on Navona and Albany Records.
http://stephenlilly.net

Michael Boyd is a composer, scholar and experimental improviser who is currently Assistant Professor of Music at Chatham University. His music embraces experimental practices such as installation, multimedia and performance art. Boyd’s analytic essays on Roger Reynolds’ music have been published in Notes and Tempo. Boyd also serves as Wilkins Township Commissioner and is working to improve bicycle infrastructure at work and in his community. In 2012 he was named Bike Pittsburgh’s Advocate of the Year and in 2013 was one of the Pittsburgh Magazine / Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project’s “40 Under 40” honourees.
http://www.societyofcomposers.org/members/MichaelBoyd

jef chippewa — footscapes: one, march (2013)

clearly referencing “classic” musique concrète and soundscape practices with a critical ear, footscapes is an on-going series of electroacoustic miniatures that explores and articulates various sounds, contexts, situations and environments involving — surprise, surprise! — footsteps.

one — a whimsical and slightly surreal trajectory, forcefully forging intersections of completely unrelated spaces in berlin and weimar (germany): reverberant urban courtyards and cobblestone streets float through the stairwell of the berlin cathedral and an underground parking garage visited with high heels.

march — prélude: vestiges of a mexican revolutionary march (banda de guerra) • марш: occupying russian troops leave post-wall berlin in 1994… through the berlin cathedral… in a horse-drawn carriage • postlude: wisps of nostalgic memories swept away under late autumn leaves…

footspaces: one and march were composed in the studios of CMMAS (centro mexicano para la música y artes sonoras) and revised / mastered in gilles gobeil’s personal studio in 2013.

jef chippewa is a composer, specialist in the notation of new music, arts administrator, project manager and a fantastic cook. In recent works, he has explored the potential of the miniature as a way of problematizing musical form, notably with 17 miniatures (flute, extended piano, drumset, several dozen sound-producing objects) and in his footscapes (electroacoustic) and postcards (toy piano, sound objects) series. His compositions have been performed in Ai-Maako, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, FUTURA, Inventionen, ISCM, MANTIS and Visiones Sonores. Ensembles such as LUX:NM, Trio Nexus and ensemble recherche have commissioned and/or performed his compositions. In 1999, jef chippewa founded shirling & neueweise, a company specialised in New Music notation. Since 2010 he has been developing a module-based seminar, “New Music Notation: Score Design, Function and Role,” that he has given in various forms in North America and Europe. jef chippewa is Administrative co-Director of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community and Coordinating Editor for the CEC’s quarterly electronic journal, eContact!
http://newmusicnotation.com/chippewa

Shawn Pinchbeck — Container (2014)
live cinema

Container is a Live Cinema performance that will consist of live improvised electroacoustic music and video. Both media will be produced live from self-recorded raw audio and video materials from my library of sources accumulated over several years for this type of performance environment. The sounds used will be a mix of live manipulated field recordings and pre-processed sounds in combination with found and circuit bent noise-making objects. The music itself will explore a wide range of sonic experiences from ambient soundscapes to noise; taking the listener on a sonic journey with many destinations, creating a deep listening environment.

Shawn Pinchbeck is an Edmonton, Alberta-based electroacoustic music composer, new media artist, performer, installation artist, teacher, curator and sound engineer. Pinchbeck’s performances and installations have been presented widely at numerous festivals across Canada and Europe. He collaborates extensively, creating intermedia works with artists of all backgrounds most recently focussing on music and multimedia for contemporary dance and live cinema performances. Shawn has seven CD releases. His music has appeared in numerous films, most notably in the Genie award-winning documentary The Corporation (2004). Recent awards include: the Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund Award (2013) and the Telus Courage to Innovate Award (2013). He holds a PhD in Music Composition from the University of Birmingham where he studied with Dr. Jonty Harrison. He currently teaches as a sessional lecturer at the Alberta College of Art and Design (Calgary), the Baltic Film and Media School (Estonia) and in the Art Research Lab at the University of Liepaja (Latvia).
http://www.spinchbeck.com

Joseph Hyde — Vanishing Point (2010), videomusic

“To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.”
—Paul Valery

Vanishing Point explores noise: visual and sonic, natural and artificial. I’m interested in the way the human mind tirelessly attempts to read order into chaos, and in the threshold where the coherent becomes incoherent. This particular boundary seems to be somehow universal — as signal approaches noise, all things somehow become the same, regardless of source. With this in mind I’ve used a deliberately wide range of visual materials, with nothing in common beyond their “noisiness”. My aim is to extend the Schaefferian ideal of reduced listening to the visual domain. The sound, in contrast, was entirely produced using deliberately limited resources, designed to yield a distinctive and consistent sonic language (and to use this coherent sound world as a way to make the disparate visual material “fuse” perceptually). The only sound source is an antique valve radio with no aerial — this produces noise of a particularly dirty and warm variety, with occasional, almost inaudible, fragments of music and speech deeply embedded in the static. This single source is passed through a bespoke massively parallel array of filters to provide spectral colour.

Joseph Hyde’s background is as a musician and composer, working in various areas but in the late 90s — and a period working with BEAST in Birmingham — settling on electroacoustic music, with or without live instruments. Whilst music and sound remain at the core of his practice, collaboration has since become a key concern, particularly in the field of dance. Here he works both as a composer and with video, interactive systems and telepresence. His solo work has broadened in scope to incorporate these elements, and he has made several audiovisual “visual music” works, and has written about the field. Hyde also works as a lecturer / academic, as Professor of Music at Bath Spa University (UK), where he teaches in the BA Creative Music Technology, runs the MMus in Creative Sound and Media Technology and supervises a number of PhD students. Since 2009 he has run a symposium on Visual Music at the university, Seeing Sound.
http://josephhyde.co.uk

Day 2 — Thursday 14 August

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09:30–14:30 • Installation

Venue: Canadian Music Centre

Teresa Connors and Andrew Denton — Lines and Tears (2014)

Teresa Connors and Andrew Denton — Lines and Tears (2014)

“We do not just journey on lines but are rather traversed by them and are composed of bundles of multiple lines that are in part imposed on us from the outside and in part the result of our own making.”
—Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus

Lines is one of a series of on-going projects by Teresa Connors and Andrew Denton that assemble a range of moving images and sonic experiments which record and then respond to the macro and micro representation of space and subject — with a particular interest in landscape(s) and ecological subjects. Constructed in Max, this installation attempts to explore a network of interrelated constructs that affect each other simultaneously and continually. Macro views of the interaction and integration of the converging image are countered by other more micro or grounded aural and visual scapes. The subjects fold into each other to interrogate and reinterpret these (rather day-to-day) objects and spaces — and in doing so accentuate their presence. The work could be considered a fluid and flexible stepping into and stepping back out of these macro- and micro-spaces as a method of visual and aural inquiry — an inquiry that annunciates these lines in our landscapes and in our interior considerations.

Teresa Connors is active in many aspects of music as an acoustic / electroacoustic composer, opera singer, film scorer and multimedia installation artist. She collaborates with a multitude of artists from diverse backgrounds and sensibilities. Originally from the musically rich island of Newfoundland, Canada, Teresa holds a Master of Music degree in composition (first class honours) from Waikato University in New Zealand and studied both composition and opera singing at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia as well as at The Banff Centre for the Arts. Her creative works have received awards and support from the Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council and Bravo Fact, and have been presented at international conferences, film festivals and galleries. Her current PhD research at Waikato includes developing new methodologies and techniques for multimedia collaborations.
http://www.divatproductions.com

Andrew Denton is a film and video artist who works with digital, analogue and interactive media. He holds a Master’s from the University of Auckland, a BFA from Simon Fraser University and is currently undertaking a PhD at Monash University, investigating ecological issues through affective moving image. Denton has presented his research at numerous international symposia and conferences, including TES 2013, Balance-Unbalance 2013, ISEA 2012 and SIGGRAPH Asia 2009. Other research interests include performance-capture technology and dance, project-based learning, and landscape video and film art. Andrew Denton is Head of Department in Postgraduate Studies at Monash University.
http://arden.aut.ac.nz/portfolio/andrew.denton

14:30–16:00 • Symposium Concert #2

Venue: Wychwood Theatre
Host: Emilie LeBel

Christopher Anderson — Transom 2 (2012)
Thomas Rex Beverly — Telepresent Storm: Rita (2013)
Shawn Pinchbeck — Tallinn City Symphony (2012)
Oren Boneh — Klaustrophobie (2013), for accordion and fixed media
Mitchell Herrmann — Qualia (2014)
David Litke — Tabula Rasa (2014)
Richard Garrett — Only Now (2013)

Alexander Sevastian, accordion

Christopher Anderson — Under the Transom (2012)

Under the Transom is an electroacoustic mixed-media composition for trombone and live electronics. Transom, in terms of a door’s structure, refers to the interstitial beam that separates a door from a small window above it. A space that functions within the frame of a door, yet physical objects cannot pass through, only light. Its purpose is to support the windows above it and cover the threshold of a doorway. When under a transom a person has not fully transitioned into or out of a space. Under the Transom plays with this theme of in-betweenness through the use of an automated real-time interactive system. This system is responsible for introducing granular and harmonically processed layers indeterminately. While improvising, it is up to the performer to adapt to any new harmonic area transitioned indeterminately throughout the piece.

Christopher Anderson is a recent Master of Fine Arts graduate, sessional instructor and research assistant in the School of Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver). He is a composer and performer with a background in both traditional and electroacoustic music. His interests include exploring new approaches to interactive music performance and the use of generative systems within his compositions. His compositions for solo trombone and electronics explore an interaction between the trombone’s sound and real-time computer systems that use embedded indeterminacy. Much of his recent research work has involved exploring generative music within the Metacreation, Agent and Multi-Agent Systems lab (MAMAS) at SFU.

Thomas Rex Beverly — Telepresent Storm: Rita (2013)

In this piece, historical weather data is routed through software built by the composer to create a real-time graphical score. A bank of samples is controlled with two iPads and the graphical score is interpreted in real time by freely assigning sound, harmony, rhythm, melody and growth to the available weather parameters. As a result, the data in Telepresent Storm: Rita connects the audience’s visual and auditory experience with the actual data and energy of Hurricane Rita. Paradoxically, Rita was a massive show of destruction and grandeur and the composer hopes this piece transports the listener to this time and place in September 2005.

Thomas Rex Beverly is a graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas where he received a Bachelor’s degree in music composition. At Trinity, he studied with Timothy Kramer, David Heuser, Jack W. Stamps and Brian Nelson. In Fall 2008, Beverly studied composition in Prague with Czech composer Michal Rataj. He has had pieces performed at the 2013 Electroacoustic Barn Dance Festival, the 2014 Biennial Symposium for Arts and Technology at Connecticut College, 2014 National Student Electronic Music Event at Georgia Southern University, the 2014 SCI Iowa New Music Symposium, the 2014 Sweet Thunder Electroacoustic Festival and the 2014 New York City Electroacoustic Festival. He is currently attending graduate school at Bowling Green State University in their Master of Music Composition degree programme, where he is studying with Elainie Lillios and Christopher Dietz. He is also a Music Technology Teaching Assistant at Bowling Green.
http://www.thomasrexbeverly.com

Shawn Pinchbeck — Tallinn City Symphony (2012)

Every city can be compared to a symphony orchestra that is performing music without a score. Yet, the seemingly independent urban chaos reveals an enchanting composition when you have to ability to see and hear. Tallinn City Symphony is the impressions of Astrida Konstante (Latvia) and Shawn Pinchbeck (Canada), two long-time foreign residents of the Estonian capital city of Tallinn. In this HD screening, Shawn Pinchbeck performs a live sound diffusion of the electroacoustic music score from the film.

Director: Astrida Konstante
Composer: Shawn Pinchbeck
Producer: Riho Västrik

Shawn Pinchbeck is an Edmonton, Alberta-based electroacoustic music composer, new media artist, performer, installation artist, teacher, curator and sound engineer. Pinchbeck’s performances and installations have been presented widely at numerous festivals across Canada and Europe. He collaborates extensively, creating intermedia works with artists of all backgrounds most recently focussing on music and multimedia for contemporary dance and live cinema performances. Shawn has seven CD releases. His music has appeared in numerous films, most notably in the Genie award-winning documentary The Corporation (2004). Recent awards include: the Edmonton Artists’ Trust Fund Award (2013) and the Telus Courage to Innovate Award (2013). He holds a PhD in Music Composition from the University of Birmingham where he studied with Dr. Jonty Harrison. He currently teaches as a sessional lecturer at the Alberta College of Art and Design (Calgary), the Baltic Film and Media School (Estonia) and in the Art Research Lab at the University of Liepaja (Latvia).
http://www.spinchbeck.com

Oren Boneh — Klaustrophobie (2013)
for accordion and fixed media
Alexander Sevastian, accordion

Klaustrophobie is a piece for accordion and fixed electronics written for accordionist Alexander Sevastian. The form of the piece evolves through gradual transformation between varying and characteristic textures. The piece is limited to just these textures and their iterations upon which the piece is structured. In this way, the piece becomes comparable to a mobile in regards to the form returning to similar material and rotating quite freely and gradually. The electronic part is composed entirely of processed accordion sounds and this, combined with the performer, provides an exploration of the taxonomy of extended accordion techniques. In combination, the live and electronic parts phase in and out of homogeneity and incongruity. This depends largely on the amount of processing performed on the samples but another significant part of the form is the delineation of blend and lack thereof between the two media.

Oren Boneh is a composer currently based in Montréal. Recent and upcoming engagements include pieces for Ensemble Meitar, Ensemble Transmission, the Schulich Wind Symphony and performances at the 2013 Electroacoustic Barn Dance, the 2013 Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music (Belfast), Kansas City Electronic Music Alliance, the International Summer Academy of Music (Germany), the Royal Danish Academy of Music (Copenhagen), California Summer Music, the 2013 Society of Composers Inc. (SCI) National Conference, the Colorado Composer’s Concert and various others. He has also held artist residencies at the Millay Colony, Visby International Centre for Composers (Gotland, Sweden) and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts (Nebraska City). Boneh is currently a graduate student at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University studying under Brian Cherney. He has also studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music with Hans Abrahamsen and Niels Rosing-Schow.
http://www.orenboneh.com

Classical accordionist Alexander Sevastian is a winner of the prestigious Coupe Mondiale International Accordion Competition in 2007 in Washington DC. He is also a winner of other competitions such as The Oslofjord (Norway 1998), Cup of the North (Russia 2000) and Antony Galla-Rini (USA 2001). A native of Minsk, Belarus, Sevastian joined a Russian TV folk instrument orchestra and with great support from the conductor Nikolai Nekrasov he became a featured soloist. After his triumphal victory at the Coupe Mondiale in 2007 Alexander’s solo career began to thrive. He has had several solo tours of Atlantic Canada, Québec and the Prairies. He was invited to perform recitals at several prestigious festivals in Vancouver, Victoria, Mont-Tremblant, Montmagny, Las Vegas, Stresa (Italy), Kraguevac (Serbia), Castelo Branco (Portugal) and Samara (Russia). Alexander was featured soloist with several leading North America symphony orchestras, including The Toronto Symphony with a very successful debut in 2008.
http://www.alexandersevastian.com

Mitchell Herrmann — Qualia (2014)

If Mary were to spend her entire life in a windowless room, studying everything there is to know about the colour red but never actually seeing it, what knowledge would be left that she could gain only by actually seeing the colour? The answer is the knowledge of “qualia” — the uniquely accessible phenomena of our subjective experiences of the world. This piece is inspired by philosopher Thomas Nagel’s call for new methods to describe the subjective character of experiences in a form comprehensible to beings incapable of having those experiences. Though the piece is not a literal attempt to fulfil the requirements of Nagel’s proposal, it is inspired by those (as of yet) indescribable experiences of human sensation, specifically those caused by liquid and its transformations by cold and heat.

Mitchell Herrmann is a student currently attending Oberlin College and Conservatory, majoring in Music Technology and Cinema Studies. His work has explored the intersections between experimental film and electroacoustic music, with a focus on combining influences from digital animation and acousmatic sound. His work has been accepted into festivals around the world, including the Seoul International Computer Music Festival, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Vox Novus Circuit Bridges Concert Series, Electronic Music Midwest and The National Student Electronic Music Event.

David Litke — Tabula Rasa (2014)

Tabula Rasa is about fading and fragmented memories, and finding new beginnings. The form of the piece is generated in real time using a Wacom tablet-controlled gestural instrument.

David Litke holds degrees in composition from the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia, having completed doctoral studies at the latter under the supervision of Dr. Keith Hamel. Since completing graduate studies in 2008, he has taught courses in electroacoustic music and music theory at UBC and the University of Windsor. His music has been performed by many of Canada’s finest musicians, including the National Broadcast Orchestra, l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal and the Turning Point Ensemble. His work has been recognized nationally and internationally, in composition competitions (NBO, SOCAN and CUMS competitions) as well as in emerging composers’ programs (ECM’s Génération 2006, NAC Young Composers 2008, Bozzini Quartet’s Composer’s Kitchen 2010, acanthes@ircam New Technologies 2012, Composit 2013). He has also been active in electroacoustic music research, and has presented at ICMC 2007, SMC 2007 and TES 2013 conferences on gestural control, score-following and spectral music.
http://davidlitke.net

Richard Garrett — Only Now (2013)

If Hollywood movies are to be believed, memories are like echoes: each one a perfect, if diminished, copy of an original experience. Yet, science tells us that each time we remember an event, we rewrite it. So perhaps, in each moment that passes, we create false memories of even our most recent experiences. If all such memory is false, is there such a thing as “now”? Many religious traditions would say that there is. That “Now” is an experience that exists outside of time and conscious thought; a place attainable by contemplation where everything is still and everything is connected. Whether this is cosmic unity or womb memory is a matter of personal choice. Only Now takes the listener from one strike of a bell, through echoes, distortions and a still point to another or, perhaps the same, strike.

Richard Garrett is a composer who specialises in the use of fuzzy logic for algorithmic composition, audio processing and manipulation. His generative music has been exhibited at the Ars Electronica festival (Linz, Austria) and his installation Weathersongs, which generates electronic music in real time from the weather, has been presented in both Wales and Italy. He uses Max and SuperCollider programming languages extensively in his composition and has written a suite of software modules called nwdlbots (pronounced “noodle-bots”) for generative composition within Ableton Live. Richard studied algorithmic computer music with David Cope and Peter Elsea in Santa Cruz (California) and completed a Master’s degree in Composition and Sonic Art at Bangor University (Wales) in 2013. He is currently an ARHC PhD scholar at Bangor, conducting practice-based research into the application of fuzzy logic to composition.
http://www.sundaydance.co.uk

19:00–20:00 • Installation

Venue: NAISA Space

Fernando Godoy Monsalve — Atacama: 22º 54\” 24\” S, 68º 12\” 25\” W

Programme notes and biographies for the Friday and Saturday evening Sound Travels concerts and for Monsalve’s installation can be found on the NAISA website and in the Sound Travels programme booklet.

20:00–22:00 • Symposium Concert #3

Venue: Wychwood Theatre
Host: Eldad Tsabary

Jeremy Baguyos — Lifeline IV (2013), for contrabass and electroacoustics
Fernando Alexis Franco Murillo — Qualia (2013)
Robert McClure — Untangle my Tongue (2011), with Anne Shaw (text)
Jeffrey Roberts — Twelve Landscape Views: III (2014), for guqin, saxophone and electronics
Christopher Biggs — Externalities (2011), for cello and digital audio and video
John Thompson — Stream Stone Surface (2013)

Jeremy Baguyos, contrabass
Zachary Boyt, cello
Jeffrey Roberts, guqin
Chelsea Shanoff, saxophone

Jeremy Baguyos — Lifeline IV (2013)
for contrabass and electroacoustics
Jeremy Baguyos, contrabass

Lifeline IV is an electronic work that invites the audience to meditative interaction and directed attention all at once. It activates the room through tertian structure manipulation and immersive sound effects, and it relies on slow and subtle continuous layered variations on basic melodic and harmonic gestures. It is a work that is written with the intent that every nuance is a gesture that is supposed to be noticed, felt, and interpreted. Written in 2010 during the North American holiday season while on a visit to Overland Park, Kansas (always a nostalgic visit), I was moved by images of a high school acquaintance that was battling ALS. Quite simply, this piece was written under duress with my imagination getting the best of me.

Jeremy Baguyos is Associate Professor of double bass and Music Technology at the University of Nebraska Omaha (USA). His current projects include algorithmic composition and performing within interactive computer music environments. He was born in Quezon City (Philippines) and grew up in Overland Park, Kansas (USA). He holds degrees from Indiana University (Bloomington) and the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University.

Fernando Alexis Franco Murillo — Qualia (2013)

Qualia is about the personal relationship we build with the sounds during a concert or performance. Every single person present in the concert hall will have a different experience for the same sonic event.

Fernando Alexis Franco Murillo is currently completing a Master’s Degree in Electroacoustic Composition at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal under the supervision of Louis Dufort.

Robert McClure — Untangle my Tongue (2011)
Anne Shaw (text)

untangle my tongue is a piece for fixed media in collaboration with poet Anne Shaw. We sent each other bits of work for the other to use as material for their part of the work. Some of the sounds in the piece are cicadas, cars and trains, text being read by Anne Shaw and whispered by Hilary Purrington, and various instrumental sounds. The title is taken from Anne’s poem inspired by my sounds, Small Bang Theory. It directly references that there is text which is altered, distorted and overlapped. However, a deeper statement is being made about the current pace of our lives. I myself am a culprit of this technology and social media-driven lifestyle. Yet, when I went on walks to record sounds for this piece, I was forced to slow down and simply listen. I hope in listening, you will have a similar experience.

Robert McClure’s music attempts to discover beauty in unconventional places using non-traditional means. Visual art, poetry, the natural world and memory are elements that influence McClure’s works. His work has been featured at festivals and conferences including Electronic Music Midwest, the Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music, the New York City Electronic Music Festival, the Mid-American Center for Contemporary Music (MACCM) New Music Festival and the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS). McClure’s music is published by Bachovich Music Publications, Innovative Percussion, Media Press, Inc., Resolute Music Publications and Tapspace Publications. He has earned degrees from Bowling Green State University, University of Arizona and Rice University, during which his primary mentors have been Daniel Asia, Shih-Hui Chen, Arthur Gottschalk, Richard Lavenda and Kurt Stallmann. He holds the position of Assistant Professor of Composition at the School of Music at Soochow University in Suzhou (China).
http://www.robertwmcclure.com

Jeffrey Roberts — Twelve Landscape Views: III (2014)
for guqin, saxophone and electronics
Jeffrey Roberts, guqin; Chelsea Shanoff, saxophone

This work is from collection of duets for Chinese guqin and Western instruments. Each duet reflects on Song Dynasty painter Xia Gui’s painting Twelve Landscape Views [山水十二景圖]. Xia’s paintings reflect a refinement in Daoist æsthetics, expressing great space through voids to leave an impression of vast, eternal patterns in nature. The painting was executed spontaneously using intuition to guide brush strokes, which influenced my improvising on guqin to create the work. The electronics in this work involves software that collages sampled guqin, saxophone and found object sound. Left-hand motion tracked by an accelerometer blends sounds during performance. This resonance is a point of sonic and æsthetic connection between China — “It is not the sound of each guqin note, the feeling comes from the resonance in the gaps between the pine trees” (Li Xiangting) — and the West — “at a sufficient distance over the woods, the bell sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp being swept” (Thoreau).

As composer and improviser, Jeff Roberts integrates elements of music styles and cultural traditions that sonically and æsthetically resonate. His background in improvisation and experimentation combine with studies in China to shape his compositional language. His music has been commissioned and performed in the US, Europe and China. Roberts’ music has received recognition with awards and residencies (VCCA, ACA, Brush Creek, STEIM). He was a Fulbright Scholar to China, studying guqin and Chinese æsthetics. He improvises on guqin, guitar, found objects and electronics and has worked with Jin He Kim, Jane Ira Bloom, Elliot Sharp, Richard Teitelbaum and Wu Na. He researches intercultural composition and has presented papers at multiple conferences. He directs The Walden Percussion Project, a found object ensemble. Jeff Roberts holds a PhD in Composition from Brandeis University, was a visiting professor of composition at Williams College and currently teaches at the University of Alberta.
http://www.jeff-roberts.org

Chelsea Shanoff is a diverse Toronto-based saxophonist, with a strong interest in contemporary music. Chelsea is an applied saxophone instructor at the University of Toronto; she is also the saxophone teacher at Havergal Collegiate Institute, Cardinal Carter School for the Arts, and Interprovincial Music Camp. Chelsea is the newest Post-Classical Curator at the Music Gallery. Shanoff holds a Masters of Music degree from Arizona State University, where she studied saxophone performance with Dr. Timothy McAllister. She received her Honours Bachelors of Music degree in saxophone performance from the University of Toronto in 2009, studying under Dr. Wallace Halladay. In 2012, Chelsea completed a yoga teacher-training programme at Ahimsa Yoga Centre and has since led “yoga for musicians” classes.
http://chelseashanoff.com

Christopher Biggs — Externalities (2011)
for cello and digital audio and video
Zachary Boyt, cello

Externalities reflects on economic externalities — costs of economic and consumer actions that are not reflected in the pricing of consumer goods. The piece focuses primarily on negative environmental externalities. The cellist represents a consumer who is trying to figure out how he or she wants to relate to this system. In the first section, the cellist experiments with different actions and experiences the results, which are represented in the digital audio and video, before taking a broader look at the global economy and the climate in the second section. In the final section, the performer imagines alternatives to the present system.

Christopher Biggs is a composer and multimedia artist residing in Kalamazoo (USA), where he is assistant professor of digital composition at Western Michigan University. Biggs’ recent projects focus on integrating live instrumental performance with interactive audiovisual media. Biggs’ music has been presented across the United States and Europe, as well as in Latin America and Asia. His music is regularly performed on conferences and festivals, including the SEAMUS Conference, Visiones Sonoras, Electronic Music Midwest, and Society for Composers Inc. He has received grants and awards from SEAMUS/ASCAP, Music Teacher’s National Association, MACRO Research Organization, Issa Music and Dance Faculty Award, Kalamazoo Art’s Council and the Piper Enrichment Fund. His music is available on Ravello Records, Electro Acustico Records, SEAMUS CD Series, Thinking outLOUD Records, Irritable Hedgehog and Peanut Shell Productions.
http://www.christopherbiggsmusic.com

Zachary Boyt began studying cello through the public schools of his hometown, Traverse City (MI, USA). After graduating from Interlochen Arts Academy, he completed his BMus in cello performance at Western Michigan University. As an advocate of new music, he has co-founded the Western Michigan University new music ensemble Birds on a Wire and, more recently, Ensemble Kalamazoo. Currently, Zachary is completing a Master of Arts academic research degree on the evolution of gesture-sensing bow technology and its application towards performance. He has presented his research at the Society for Composers, Inc. 2014 National Conference and 2014 Region V Conference.
http://www.zacharyboyt.com

John Thompson — Stream Stone Surface (2013)

stream stone surface examines the stasis of flowing objects, the internal movements of objects in stasis, and the nature of these objects at their surface. A stone is dropped into a stream… the stream flows over the stone… the surfaces are changed.

John Thompson teaches, composes and conducts research in the area of computer music and music technology. He directs the Music Technology programme at Georgia Southern University, where he is Associate Professor of Music. He has a continuing interest in interdisciplinary studies and seeks to highlight and follow new paths in music. John is an advocate for music that explores otherness, contemplation and alternate paths toward beauty. John received his PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara where he studied music composition and media arts with JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Curtis Roads, William Kraft, Stephen Travis Pope and Marcos Novak. As a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar, he investigated interactive systems in the California Nanosystems Institute’s Allosphere, a large space for immersive and interactive data exploration. His compositions, installations and research have been presented at numerous conferences and festivals. He has curated and directed the biannual Channel Noise concert series since 2009. In September 2014, he will launch the new annual Root Signal Festival in collaboration with Michael James Olson.
http://www.timebent.com

Day 3 — Friday 15 August

Click here to return to the symposium schedule.

09:30–14:30 • Installation

Venue: Canadian Music Centre

Teresa Connors and Andrew Denton — Lines and Tears (2014)

[ For information on this installation refer to notes for August 14 ]

19:00–20:00 • Installation

Venue: NAISA Space

Fernando Godoy Monsalve — Atacama: 22º 54\” 24\” S, 68º 12\” 25\” W

Programme notes and biographies for the Friday and Saturday evening Sound Travels concerts and for Monsalve’s installation can be found on the NAISA website and in the Sound Travels programme booklet.

20:00–22:00 • Sound Travels Concert #1

Venue: Wychwood Theatre

Works by Emilie LeBel, WL Altman and Karlheinz Essel performed by JunctQin keyboard collective, as well as a newly commissioned work by Jean-François Laporte for his new sound sculpture The Pipe.

Programme notes and biographies for the Friday and Saturday evening Sound Travels concerts and for Monsalve’s installation can be found on the NAISA website and in the Sound Travels programme booklet.

Day 4 — Saturday 16 August

Click here to return to the symposium schedule.

10:00–15:00 • Installation

Venue: NAISA Space

Fernando Godoy Monsalve — Atacama: 22º 54\” 24\” S, 68º 12\” 25\” W

Programme notes and biographies for the Friday and Saturday evening Sound Travels concerts and for Monsalve’s installation can be found on the NAISA website and in the Sound Travels programme booklet.

14:30–15:30 • Symposium Concert #4

Venue: Wychwood Theatre
Host: Steven Naylor

Robert Normandeau — Anadliad (2010)
Sebastien Lavoie — Basketball Glitch (2013)
Kyle Vanderburg — Blueprints of Eternity (2012)
Daniel Courville — Harmonices Mundi (2014)
Michael Pounds — Hajiki [Pluck] (2010)
Alexandra Spence and Katrina Stamatopoulos — Wind Up Bird (2013), videomusic

Robert Normandeau — Anadliad (2010)
In memoriam Ann Lloyd-Jones

The word “anadliad” means “breath” in Welsh, but it also carries another meaning, that of inspiration. I take its literal meaning first, that of the two movements of the breath — inhalation / exhalation, and then its more figurative, metaphorical one, that of spiritual inspiration, of the artist, and so on. The breath comes from the two instruments used in the piece. Starting with the bagpipe: these recordings were made in 1998 for Clair de terre (1999) of a Scottish bagpipe in B-flat (performed by Éric Mercier). And then there is the pibgorn, a Welsh wind instrument, recorded during a residency in Bangor in 2008 (performed by Stephen Rees). Lastly we come to the breath of the gods, those that sweep the Welsh coast with their winds and intense storms. I wanted to anchor this piece in the fertile land that is Wales, which gave birth to this work.

Ann Lloyd-Jones, who was in charge of the Parry Williams Visiting Composer Fellowship that supported the commissioning of this work by Bangor University, unfortunately died a few weeks before the premiere.

Robert Normandeau holds an MMus and DMus in composition from Université de Montréal, where he studied with Marcelle Deschênes and Francis Dhomont. His work figures on seven solo discs: Lieux inouïs, Tangram, Figures, Clair de terre, Palimpsestes, Puzzles (all on empreintes DIGITALes) and Sonars (Rephlex). He has been awarded three Opus Prizes from the Conseil québécois de la musique. Among his international recognitions are the Golden Nica at the Prix Electronica 1996 (Linz, Austria), First Prize at the Concours international de musiques sacrées 2002 (Fribourg, Switzerland), the production prize at the Giga-Hertz Preis 2010 (Karlsruhe, Germany) and First Prize in mixed music at Musica Nova 14 (Praha, Czech Republic). He was awarded the Masque 2001 for Malina and the Masque 2005 for La cloche de verre, given by the Académie québécoise du théâtre. He is Professor in Electroacoustics Composition at Université de Montréal since 1999.
http://www.electrocd.com/en/bio/normandeau_ro

Sébastien Lavoie — Basketball Glitch (2013)

Basketball is one of the most played sports on the planet today. Its practice consists in throwing, dribbling and passing the ball, which produces lots of recognizable sounds. These sonorities are very rich and fertile in order to generate a “cinema for the ear”. The original sound recordings, done on the basketball court, have been manipulated and denaturalized through excessive digital transformations, thus creating some glitches on the original sounds.

Sébastien Lavoie is working on sound spatialization with his professor Robert Normandeau at Université de Montréal. He has benefited from an exchange programme in order to study at De Montfort University (England) with John Young. Lavoie regards himself as belonging to a new generation of students in music who use the Laptop as musical instrument. This compositional tool allows him to develop his musical skills as much on stage as in the studio. What totally gets him in electroacoustic music is the possibility, with technologies, to generate a multitude of hybrid musical forms. He’s a 2014 winner at the CEC’s annual JTTP project, a competition for Canadian-based young and emerging sound artists.
http://soundcloud.com/sebastienlavoie1

Kyle Vanderburg — Blueprints of Eternity (2012)

Blueprints of Eternity is a ten-minute, fixed media work that uses the simple yet reliable kitchen timer as its sole sound source. As the work progresses, time is deconstructed, leading to the discovery of a reality occurring at the micro-temporal level. After exploring this sound world, the listener hears the rebooting of time itself, before being snapped back to the present.

Kyle Vanderburg composes eclectically polystylistic music fuelled by rhythmic drive and melodic infatuation. His acoustic works have found performances by ensembles such as Brave New Works, Access Contemporary Music and Luna Nova, and his electronic works have appeared at national and international conferences including ICMC, EMUfest, SCI, CICTeM and NSEME. Kyle holds degrees from Drury University (BA), where he studied composition with Carlyle Sharpe, and the University of Oklahoma (MMus, DMA), where he studied with composers Marvin Lamb, Konstantinos Karathanasis, Roland Barrett and Marc Jensen. He has also participated in composition masterclasses with David Maslanka, Chris Brubeck, Eric V. Hachikian, Joël-François Durand, Benjamin Broening and Daniel Roumain.
http://kylevanderburg.com

Daniel Courville — Harmonices Mundi (2014)

Harmonices Mundi is part of a series of experiments on algorithmic composition where the random number generator is the main compositional tool. In this piece, random number generators control everything that can be heard: the timbre of the sounds obtained by additive synthesis, the notes duration and sequences, and their spatialization in Ambisonics B-Format. All in all, more than a hundred random number generators are used. Within user-chosen settings, the result will be different at every listening while having a very common signature, as if we were asking a group of musicians to improvise, but always on the same instruments and with a limited number of keys. Visual programming software SonicBirth was used to design the composition building blocks (sequencers, synthesizers and spatializers) and patching software Plogue Bidule is used for the computer’s live performance by combining the building blocks through interconnections of streaming audio signal and control data. The Ambisonic mix is decoded with the Harpex-B software decoder. Harmonices Mundi borrows its title from Johannes Kepler’s book, published in 1619, on the solar system, planetary motions and mathematical relationships found in nature and music.

Daniel Courville was born in Montréal in 1963. He studied cinema and communication prior to starting his career in 1990 as a lecturer in sound production and computer technology at the École des médias of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Also a sound engineer and producer of classical music recordings, he has been interested in Ambisonics since 1988. His current focus is on developing modular software (plug-ins) enabling the integration of Ambisonic techniques in digital audio workstation software. He also acts as a surround sound consultant to multimedia artists and various organizations. As a musician, he has played bassoon and electric bass, but mostly he has been singing in choirs, ensembles and churches in Montréal since the age of nine. Courville holds an MA in Communication Studies from UQAM.
http://www.ambisonicstudio.com

Michael Pounds — Hajiki [Pluck] (2010)

Hajiki [Pluck] was composed using only recordings of a Japanese shamisen. It is an exploration of the various possibilities of the instrument and the sounds it can make (and many that it cannot). The piece is loosely structured around the idea of a plucked string, with its excitation and resolution as a metaphor for life experience. Thanks to Kyoko Kidd for playing her shamisen in the recording studio.

Michael Pounds began his career as a mechanical engineer but returned to the academic world to study music composition with a focus on computer music and music technology. He studied at Bowling Green State University, Ball State University, the University of Birmingham in England and the University of Illinois. He specializes in computer music composition and collaborative intermedia projects. His awards include the ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission Award, a Residence Prize at the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition, a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship for studies in England, and residencies at the MacDowell Colony and I-Park. His music has been performed throughout the United States and abroad. He was a co-host of the 2005 national conference of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the US. He is co-hosting the 2014 National Conference of the Society of Composers, Inc. Michael teaches composition, acoustics, music perception, recording and computer music at Ball State University.
http://mspounds.wordpress.com

Alexandra Spence and Katrina Stamatopoulos — Wind Up Bird (2013)
videomusic

The subjects in this film are characters of their own worlds, their own realities. Observing from afar, you are a hidden witness.

Wind Up Bird is a film based upon field recordings and found footage that have been sourced from eBay. Uncertain of its age, content and history, the correlating films have developed into a far away journey, interwoven with fragments of melody and memory, appearing so close as if it to be dreamt or imagined.

Imagining and knowing can share the same meaning.

Wind Up Bird is part of an audiovisual collaboration between Sydney artist Katrina Stamatopoulos and Toronto-based sound artist Alexandra Spence. It is an on-going project that explores the inextricable link between sound and image.

Alexandra Spence is an electroacoustic sound artist and improvising clarinettist from Sydney currently based in Toronto. She works within the fields of improvised music, electroacoustic composition and multimedia installation. Alex has performed extensively in concerts and festivals across Sydney, Australia and in Toronto, including the 416 Festival, Toronto and Underbelly Arts Festival, Sydney. She has exhibited work in Sydney galleries Gaffa and Archive Space amongst others, and was a recipient of Articulate Project Space’s Cross-Arts mentorship and recently had work selected for NAISA’s Deep Wireless 10 online album. When in Sydney she performs with the Splinter Orchestra and the NOWnow Organisation. In 2012 Alex was awarded the Julian & June Russell Prize for Best Performance in Bachelor of Music, UNSW. In 2014 she was offered the Australian ArtStart grant for emerging artists. Alex is an MFA candidate at Simon Fraser University and is currently in the process of relocating to Vancouver.
http://afivepence.wordpress.com

Based in Sydney, Katrina Stamatopoulos works across film, video, photography and sound. Her photographic work interferes with the notion of personal space. She engages with subjects who are often unaware of being observed or photographed, and searches for correlations of behaviour between people, sounds, animals and used possessions. In 2013, Katrina participated in various international exhibitions, including MiniArtVideoFest, Budapest, and BorderBody, Mixing Cities and Identities, Poland. She has also held a solo show “Specimens of a Collective Condition” in both Sydney and Melbourne, and is a previous resident of the BigCi (Bilpin Ground for Creative Initiatives) in Wollemi National Park, Australia. In 2014, Katrina curated her first group exhibition in Sydney titled “Props in a Game of Make-Believe,” and is soon to embark on a residency at the Haihatus Art Centre in Joutsa, Finland.
http://katrinastamatopoulos.net

19:00–20:00 • Installation

Venue: NAISA Space

Fernando Godoy Monsalve — Atacama: 22º 54\” 24\” S, 68º 12\” 25\” W

Programme notes and biographies for the Friday and Saturday evening Sound Travels concerts and for Monsalve’s installation can be found on the NAISA website and in the Sound Travels programme booklet.

20:00–22:00 • Sound Travels Concert #2

Venue: Wychwood Theatre

Solo performance by Pauline Oliveros.

Programme notes and biographies for the Friday and Saturday evening Sound Travels concerts and for Monsalve’s installation can be found on the NAISA website and in the Sound Travels programme booklet.