Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium 2016

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Day 1 — Wednesday 10 August 2016

09:00–17:00 • Installation

Venue: Canadian Music Centre

John Oswald — The Birth and Death Frequencies

Programme notes and biographies for the Saturday evening Sound Travels concert and for the installations can be found on the NAISA website and in the Sound Travels programme booklet.
http://naisa.ca/festivals/sound-travels

16:30–17:00 • Installation: Introduction

Venue: Canadian Music Centre

Johann Diedrick — Good Vibrations

The Good Vibrations Acoustic Cartography tour is an interactive listening tour made to shift the way we relate to our environment through sound. The tour uses a mobile listening device that allows participants to tap into some of the least audible sounds of a city. With the use of three different types of microphone — a contact microphone, a hydrophone and a probe microphone — the participant can tune in to subtle acoustic vibrations in the environment and explore the city’s cracks and surfaces. A field guide for urban listening directs users to acoustic “points of interest”. The mobile listening kits are custom-designed, featuring hand-made audio amplifier circuits and microphones. A mobile application will allow users to record their sounds with the kit and upload them to share with others. These sounds are saved and displayed on a map for an interactive listening experience.

Johann Diedrick makes installations, performances, software, objects and workshops that allow people to play with sound. He is a recent recipient of the Asian Cultural Council 2016 Fellows grant. His work has been exhibited internationally in numerous group exhibitions, conferences and festivals, including Yale University’s Soundscapes symposium, the New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) conference (Daejeon and Seoul, Korea), the Invisible Places, Sounding Cities conference (Viseu, Portugal) and the Dumbo Arts Festival (Brooklyn). He studied at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, focusing on sound art. He was a researcher at the InterLab at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM) in Yamaguchi, Japan. Afterwards he worked as an interactive software developer at Qosmo in Tokyo. He is currently a software developer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
http://johanndiedrick.com

19:00–19:30 • Installation

Venue: Geary Lane

Campbell Foster — Creation Spirit Machine

CREATION SPIRIT MACHINE is a self-generating Cymatics device and interactive exhibit / instrument using Electroacoustic and Computational Feedback Synthesis. Creation Spirit Machine is an analogue of the Spirit resonating in every man and woman, an eternal fragment of omnipresent Creation. A true interactive chaotic system instrument producing fractal soundscapes and fractal plate patterns.

Campbell Foster is a Canadian Sonological Researcher, composer, performer, interactive systems designer, educator, entrepreneur and the inventor of the Electroacoustic Sheet Metal Feedback Phone. His Sonological Research directive is to discover and research the methods, æsthetics and results of Electroacoustic and Computational Feedback Synthesis, to interactively deliver and impart the sonological research concepts, methods, techniques and discoveries of feedback synthesis through a Research Blog RS4, sound and media works, field instrument installations, exhibits, lectures and performances for the scientific and æsthetic communities.
http://campbellfoster.ca

19:30–22:00 • Symposium Concert #1

Venue: Geary Lane

Jerod Sommerfeldt — Strong Back, Soft Front (2016/7:28)
Matt Wellins — Sequiturs (2016/20:00)
John Thompson — Electrotactile Maps (2015/5:45), audiovisual
Barbara Finck-Beccafico — Mnoussacheate (2015/9:54)
Jean-Paul Perrotte and Gideon Caplovitz — Composition for EEG and Computer (2016/8:00–10:00), for live streaming of EEG data and Max/MSP

–intermission–

Mei-Fang Lin — Entre le son et la lumière (2015/7:47)
Nathaniel Haering — Resplendent Shards (2015/7:55), for vibraphone and electronics
Ursula Meyer-König — allears (2014/8:00)
Brian Connolly — Maeple (2015/6:20)
Elizabeth Hoffman — Trading Cities — Summer 2016 (2016/6:30)
Mirko Ettore D’Agostino — A Walk Through Karaköy (2014/7:58)
Kiran Bhumber, Norah Lorway and Nancy Lee — Hollow Vertices (2015/10:00), audio-visual environment: live coding and clarinet

Matt Wellins, electronic instruments
Jean-Paul Perrotte, laptop
Evan Leffert, vibraphone
Kiran Bhumber, code and clarinet; Norah Lorway, code; Nancy Lee, visuals

Jerod Sommerfeldt — Strong Back, Soft Front (2016/7:28)

A sonic meditation on the teaching “Strong Back, Soft Front” as given by Frank Ostaseski of the Metta Institute. It is gratefully dedicated to both him and Roshi Joan Halifax of the Upaya Zen Center for their continued guidance and profoundly positive influence on so many lives.

Jerod Sommerfeldt’s music focuses on the creation of algorithmic and stochastic processes, utilizing the results for both fixed and real-time composition and improvisation. His sound world explores digital audio artifacts and the destruction of technology, resulting in work that seeks to question the dichotomy between the intended and unintentional. An active performer as both soloist and collaborator in interactive digital music and live video, he currently serves as Assistant Professor of Electronic Music Composition and Theory at the State University of New York at Potsdam Crane School of Music, and as director of the SUNY-Potsdam Electronic Music Studios (PoEMS).
http://jerodsommerfeldt.com

Matt Wellins — Sequiturs (2016/20:00)

Matt Wellins, electronic instruments

Sequiturs is an improvised performance governed by a mobocracy of homemade electronic equipment, specially designed for unstable behaviour. Much of the equipment does not produce sound on its own and is only activated through the persistent cajoling of deliberated feedback networks. There are no designated “oscillators,” as such. With any luck, this will also mark the appearance of a sound distribution system modelled loosely after Pierre Schaeffer’s “relief desk.”

Matt Wellins builds analogue electronic instruments. This work is influenced by the materially contumacious practices of David Tudor and Michael Johnsen and emphasizes the particularities of electronic components, the snafus of live performance, and general ambivalence toward commercial equipment. Concurrently, Wellins fosters interests in the experimental loft theater of 1970s New York, early American shape-note singing and magnetic recording for reasons not altogether unrelated from the above. Wellins has presented his work — most notably in collaboration with 16 mm filmmaker Sarah Halpern — at venues such as Anthology Film Archives and EMPAC. Along with Johnsen, he maintains the Electronic Music Resource at Ubu.com.
http://soundcloud.com/mattwellins

John Thompson — Electrotactile Maps (2015/5:45)

Audiovisual

Electrotactile devices allow the brain to map tactile voltage pulses, applied through the tongue or other skin surface, to the brain. This information is then parsed as sensory information, allowing one to gain a sense where one is lost, or perhaps create new senses where there were none. Electrotactile Maps looks to this specific kind of sensory substitution as inspiration. It imagines an electrical field, encoded for an array of surface electrodes. The audiovisual aggregate is introduced as such a grid, which gradually becomes interpreted as coherent objects.

John Thompson teaches, composes and conducts research in the areas of computer music and music technology. He currently directs the Music Technology program 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.
http://www.timebent.com

Barbara Finck-Beccafico — Mnoussacheate (2015/9:54)

A chimera is pursuing you, the memory of your stolen life. During your sleep, your mind is tortured by incoherent images. And in the morning, it is the ones of your fellows who seem to have lost their humanity.

I try to imagine a day in your skin… I feel full and empty at the same time.

You, that is sharing your story with me, terrifying and fascinating. Without resentment and without anger.

Mnoussacheate.

This composition is travelling from Angkor Wat to The Killing Fields — an homage to the survivors of the Cambodian genocide.

Barbara Finck-Beccafico is an audio-visual artist from Montréal. One has been able to hear and see her work with the artistic project about: for the past 4 years, as well as the New York collective The Ephemeral Explorers. Student at University of Montréal since 2014, she’s been working under the tutelage of renowned artists such as Martin Bédard, Georges Forget and Nicolas Bernier. She is now developing a series of multi-sensory installations, giving birth to committed and immersive art pieces. Two of them have been seen at Nuit blanche de Montréal and at Ultrasons, and will be programmed at Nuit blanche de Paris this fall. Barbara was on the board of the Quebec Society for Music Research for four years. She owns the music label Poulet neige, and has been VJing for many artists in the Montréal indie music scene.
http://barbarafinckbeccafico.com

Jean-Paul Perrotte and Gideon Caplovitz — Composition for EEG and Computer (2016/8:00–10:00)

for live streaming of EEG data and Max/MSP
Jean-Paul Perrotte, laptop
Elizabeth Phillips, programmer

Composition for EEG and Computer explores new ways of presenting different forms of data in new and interesting musical and visual contexts. Combinations of sound waves from brainwave activity and heartbeats are used as is, while simultaneously interpreted as streams of data. These streams of data are then sent into a Max/MSP patch and converted to produce sound. The data is also used to manipulate video of brain MRIs. During performance, all this technology is artfully sculpted to create a stunning aural and visual experience. This piece is presented in quadraphonic sound.

Jean-Paul Perrotte is a composer whose work includes compositions for electronics, acoustic instruments, video, dancers and improvisations using Max/MSP and Jitter. Perrotte received his PhD in Composition from the University of Iowa. He is currently Lecturer of Composition and Theory at the University of Nevada, Reno.
http://www.unr.edu/cla/music/pages/bios/perrotte_jeanpaul.htm

Gideon Caplovitz is a cognitive neuroscientist who researches the principles and neural mechanisms that underlie how we visually experience the world. He received his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from Dartmouth College. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Cognitive and Brain Science Graduate Program at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Mei-Fang Lin — Entre le son et la lumière (2015/7:47)

Entre le son et la lumière is an exploration of the connections between sound and light. Different types of sounds in terms of their degree of brightness are used, ranging from pitched to non-pitched to noise-based sounds. They are meant to evoke different sensations of darkness or brightness, which is often controlled through the exclusion or inclusion of upper partial harmonics of each sound as well as general dynamic shaping. The evolution of the harmonic content of each individual sound also directly leads to the subtle changes of timbre in the life span of each sound. The piece in general progresses from darkness to extreme brightness toward the end of the piece, taking the audience through a journey in the mystical land of sound and light.

Mei-Fang Lin is currently an Associate Professor of Composition at the Texas Technical University. Lin received her PhD in composition from the University of California at Berkeley and her master’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she also taught as Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition from 2007–09. From 2002–05, she lived in France and studied composition with composer Philippe Leroux and participated in the one-year computer music course “Cursus de Composition” at IRCAM in Paris on a Frank Huntington Beebe Fellowship and Berkeley’s George Ladd Paris Prize. Lin’s music has won awards from the Musica Domani International Competition, American Composers Forum, Seoul International Competition for Composers, Fifth House Ensemble Composer Competition, Bourges Competition, Look & Listen Festival, Pierre Schaeffer Competition, SCI/ASCAP Student Commission Competition, Luigi Russolo Competition, Prix SCRIME, NACUSA and the Music Taipei Composition Competition. Her music has received performances and broadcasts internationally in over 30 countries.
https://www.depts.ttu.edu/music/aboutus/faculty/mei-fang-lin.php

Nathaniel Haering — Resplendent Shards (2015/7:55)

for vibraphone and electronics
Evan Leffert, vibraphone

Fluttering clashes of intonation are often difficult to elicit with only one instrument; however, the vibraphone has its own rotating resonators to rectify this. When this mechanical technique is combined with subtle controlled shifts in the tuning of the electronics accompanying the vibraphone, this shimmering effect is even more amplified. The electronics and performer work together to intensify the shaping of phrases throughout the piece and interweave to create more fascinating undulating textures. This creates a pairing of electronic and acoustic instrument that creates not two separate entities but one more powerful malleable vibraphone with enhanced artistic capabilities.

Nathaniel Haering is an undergraduate composer as well as a multimedia arts technology student at Western Michigan University. His works have most recently been featured at SEAMUS 2016 Conference (Statesboro, Georgia), Electronic Music Midwest (Kansas City), Root Signals electronic music festival (Jacksonville, Florida) and SPLICE Institute (Kalamazoo, Michigan), and will be presented at N_SEME at the University of Oklahoma and NYCEMF in New York City.
http://nathanielhaering.com

Evan Leffert is a current student at Western Michigan University studying music composition. Raised in Novi, Michigan, Evan branched out as a performer extensively, working with the Eastern Michigan Honors Band, Spartan Youth Wind Symphony, Western All-Star Band, Michigan District IV Honors Band and Michigan All-State Honors Orchestra, as well as maintaining a heavy investment in his high school music programme, performing with a majority of the large ensembles and a number of the chamber ensembles. Evan went on to perform with the Cadets Drum and Bugle Corps as a member of the front ensemble for the 2014 and 2015 seasons, as well as the Legends Indoor WGI percussion ensemble for the 2015 season. As Evan continues his collegiate studies, he aspires to not only continue to perform, but to also, as a composer, explore, emulate and bridge the musical styles of contemporary percussion ensembles, modern jazz, minimalism and Romantic classical.

Ursula Meyer-König — allears (2014/8:00)

The inspiration for this work originally came from a series of intensive discussions with people who are deaf or have hearing impairments. We talked about the pros and cons of technical apparatuses such as hearing aids or cochlea implants, the different ethical and emotional responses people have to them, and the identity issues they raise. Wearing hearing aids also changes how sounds are perceived, sometimes causing interference, distortions, diminished spatial perception and noise overflow. I composed a piece that communicates my impression of the perception and the emotions of people with having difficulties when wearing a technical hearing aid. For the composition I used samples taken from objects that people with hearing difficulties use to experience the quality of sound, and combined these with synthetic noise and voice samples.

After a career as a paediatrician, Ursula Meyer-König undertook foundation and media art studies at the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Zürich and the Fachhochschule Aarau — Medienkunst in Switzerland, followed by a continuation course in electroacoustic composition at the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” in Weimar under Robin Minard. She studied electroacoustic composition under Germán Toro Pérez, ICST Institute of Computer Music and Sound Technology at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Switzerland. Her music has been heard in festivals and concerts in Germany, USA (EMM, NYCEMF), Crete (Electroacoustic Music Days), London, Toronto and Switzerland.
http://www.zhdk.ch/?person/detail&id=149117

Brian Connolly — Maeple (2015/6:20)

Maeple spotlights the creative potential of the non-linearities of the listening system relating to the basilar membrane of the inner ear and the connecting auditory nerve. Furthermore, Maeple is a new work from the composer’s groundbreaking research portfolio investigating the creative potential of the inner ear. This work employs a variety of psychoacoustic phenomena as a means of extending the role of the audience’s ears to becoming active participants in the work itself. In this relatively rare listening experience, otoacoustic emissions (detectable tones being emitted from inside the ear) as well as spectral masking and binaural beating result in the listener’s ears no longer being passive organs within the creative process. Each listener will physically feel their ears performing this piece — simply turning one’s head will often entirely change the colour of the sound in this octophonic work.

Brian Connolly is a composer, sound artist and final year PhD student at Maynooth University with research interests in the application of psychoacoustic phenomena concerning the non-linearities of the inner ear within composition. Brian has composed the music for Keith Barry’s The Dark Side tour as well as having written and presented the RTÉ Lyric FM documentary Why Music Can’t Stay Still. In the past 18 months the composer’s research into the ear as an instrument has been accepted for inclusion in programmes with Music Current, SMC and ISTCC (Ireland), Sonorities and NI Science Festival (Northern Ireland), INTER- (Scotland), SSC, INTIME and BEAST FEaST (England), ASA and FEASt Fest (USA), MUSLAB (Mexico) as well as the 2015 Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium (TIES).
http://www.soundcloud.com/brianconnolly-1

Elizabeth Hoffman — Trading Cities — Summer 2016 (2016/6:30)

Evocative metaphors from Calvino’s Invisible Cities (the sections named “Trading Cities”) suggested to me mappings onto techniques I use and listening processes that I encourage in this piece — through spatialization, and through composed connectivities that transform and stay the same all at once.

From Calvino:

[T]he city where memory is traded at every solstice and…equinox. If men and women began to live their ephemeral dreams… the carousel of fantasies would stop. [T]heir life is renewed from move to move, among cities whose exposure or declivity or streams or winds make each site somehow different from the others. [T]o establish the relationships… the inhabitants stretch strings from the corners of the houses…. When the strings become so numerous… the inhabitants leave: … only the strings and their supports remain. …It is more difficult to fix on the map the routes of the swallows… domin… only the strings …remain. … It is more difficult to fix on the map the routes of the swallows… domin.

Elizabeth Hoffman has received recognition from the Bourges (Residence Prize), Prix Ars Electronica (Mention) and Pierre Schaeffer (Selection) international competitions, and commissions from the ICMA (ICMC 2000, Berlin), DIFFUSION i Média and American Composers Forum (Sonic Circuits 2002). Recent awards include an NEA and a MacDowell Fellowship. She has had articles published in in Computer Music Journal and Organised Sound. Her electroacoustic works are for stereo and multi-channel sound, exploring both representation and abstraction, with a focus on micro-timbre. Most recently, use of live processing has also been a focus, in tandem with delimited improvisation by acoustic instrumentalists. Recordings of her works are available on Centaur, NEUMA, everglade and empreintes DIGITALes labels. Hoffman currently teaches at New York University, Faculty of Arts and Science where she co-directs an evolving program of electroacoustic study specialization within the composition programme.
http://wp.nyu.edu/elizabeth_hoffman

Mirko Ettore D’Agostino — A Walk Through Karaköy (2014/7:58)

In A Walk Through Karaköy my intent was to recreate an imaginary soundwalk from past to future in the city of Istanbul, specifically showing the enormous changes that the neighbourhood of Karaköy has undergone in the past few years. Occupied for centuries by artisans, craftsmen, merchants and their workshops, Karaköy has being quickly converted by the municipality into a posh, expensive and bohemian area oriented towards upper-class people and tourists, completely transforming the original atmosphere. Nowadays it is still possible to witness the coexistence of these two opposite realities, but in the near future more and more of the original inhabitants will be compelled to sell their properties and leave the area.

Mirko Ettore D’Agostino is a Neapolitan sound artist, music producer, drummer and mastering engineer. He is currently based in Istanbul where he is studying towards his PhD in Sonic Arts at Istanbul Technical University’s Centre for Advanced Studies in Music (MIAM). His works range from acousmatic music and multimedia to EDM; he is also an experienced producer of rock, indie and electronic music. He is a co-author of Volumes I and II of Laboratorio di Tecnologie Musicali, a series of books specifically designed for music technology courses in music schools, high schools and conservatories.

Kiran Bhumber, Norah Lorway and Nancy Lee — Hollow Vertices (2015/10:00)

Audio-visual environment: live coding and clarinet
Kiran Bhumber, code and clarinet; Norah Lorway, code; Nancy Lee, visuals

Hollow Vertices is an improvisatory audio-visual performance environment. The aural components are co-created in real time through SuperCollider: two sources are linked through a network allowing each performer to have control over the others’ code. This is combined with an amplified clarinettist using a programmed pedal board in Max/MSP to drive live effects. The visual projection is of a window displaying the live code that is framed by video content manipulated in real time through an internal video feedback process programmed in CoGe VJ. The video feedback is processed by custom-built effects that transform the content into new video feedback abstractions. Effects are programmed so that unpredictable visual outcomes or glitches appear; the visual glitches aid in the transitional process between visual æsthetics during the performance. Some visual effects are programmed to interact rhythmically with the composition, while others are manually controlled as the piece is improvised. The composition provides a context in which disciplines and mediums converge, by augmenting sensorial modalities through human-computer interaction. This is realized through employing different programming languages and combinations of instruments, and reacting to the collective output while maintaining awareness of individual contributions to the composition.

Clarinettist Kiran Bhumber is interested in the cross-section of art and technology. Her work focuses on creating gesture-reactive environments that are inhabited by performances and participatory installations. Kiran is also interested in building new interfaces and instruments for musical expression. She has conducted research on gesture-tracking systems and interactive performance in Canada and abroad. Her works have been showcased at the Vancouver Art Gallery, The International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Bar None and VIVO Media Arts. She is currently involved in a variety of musical projects and teaches music technology workshops at VIVO. Kiran holds a Bachelors of Music (2014) degree with majors in music education and clarinet performance from the University of British Columbia, and will pursue an MA in Media Arts at the University of Michigan in the fall of 2016.

Norah Lorway is a live coder, software developer, composer and computer music researcher who performs at Algoraves and other such events. She holds PhD in computer music from University of Birmingham, where she worked on music and software in SuperCollider and performed on the BEAST multi-channel system. She has had works performed throughout North America and Europe, at conferences and events such as NIME, ISEA, ICLC and EarZoom Festival, and is involved with various new media collaborations in the UK and Canada. Recently, she worked on a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of British Columbia working at the intersection of live coding and gesture control, building new Digital Musical Instruments (DMI). Norah is a Lecturer in Creative Music Technology at Falmouth University, UK.
http://norahlorway.com

Nancy Lee is a curator of interactions. The notion of staging is a constant in Nancy’s work and underpins her projects from early days as a more traditional filmmaker, through her conception and planning of live events, and into the realms of new media and installation, where her art practices continue to coalesce and evolve. Throughout her different endeavours, Nancy has consistently challenged binaries: between artist and observer, individual and environment, audience and performer, to name just a few. Her work enlivens space, making a provocative statement about how inescapably interconnected we are with our surroundings.
http://www.nancylee.ca

Day 2 — Thursday 11 August

09:00–17:00 • Installation

Venue: Canadian Music Centre

John Oswald — The Birth and Death Frequencies

(See Wednesday 10 August at 9:00 for information.)

10:30–13:30 • Mobile Installation

Venue: Canadian Music Centre

Johann Diedrick — Good Vibrations

(See Wednesday 10 August at 16:30 for information.)

19:00–19:30 • Installation

Venue: Geary Lane

Campbell Foster — Creation Spirit Machine

(See Thursday 10 August at 19:30 for information.)

19:30–22:00 • Symposium Concert #2

Venue: Geary Lane

Elliott Grabill — planet heart (2016/8:30), for clarinet and laptop
Dan Tapper — Heliosphere (2016/10:24)
Thomas Dempster — the bunyip (2014/8:30), for alto saxophone and fixed-media electronic sounds
Bret Bohman — Traces (2015/9:30), for bassoon and electronics
Xavier Madore — Ready about… Tacking (2015/11:01)
Jane/Kin — Morphine (2015/10:00), Vents sauvages (2015/10:00), for baritone saxophone and laptop

–intermission–

John Mayrose — Random Access (2016/9:00), for alto saxophone and electronics
Kyle Stewart — Bloom (2015/6:36)
Eddie Farr — Chatter (2015/7:03), for two saxophones and laptop
Kerry L. Hagan — Cubic Zirconia (2014/8:30)
Gordon Delap — Splintered Elements (2016/8:00), for simple-system flute and electronic sounds
Guillaume Loizillon — Chimerical Diary (2008–16/15:00)

Michele Jacot, clarinet
Paula Van Goes, alto saxophone
Susan Nelson, bassoon
Ida Toninato, baritone saxophone; Ana Dall’Ara-Majek, laptop
Drew Whiting, alto saxophone
Carolyn Bryan and Alex Sellers, alto saxophones; Eddie Farr, Laptop
Gordon Delap, flute

Elliott Grabill — planet heart (2016/8:30)

for clarinet and laptop
Michele Jacot, clarinet

planet heart is the third piece of a larger composition called Pluto, which celebrates NASA’s recent New Horizons mission. The movement’s title makes reference to the Tombaugh Regio, the area on Pluto that’s shaped like a heart. In the piece, a very simple chant sets into motion three loops that continue for the rest of the piece. A delay patch adds subtle pulse that creates a flying, psychedelic effect. The middle section builds up in intensity with the addition of a ring modulator and granulations that create gibberish sounds, controlled by the laptop performer.

Elliott Grabill is a composer of instrumental and electroacoustic music based out of Baltimore, Maryland. Much of his music aims to educate and inspire, incorporating science, addressing social issues and exploring spirituality. His piece Gravity, part of a cycle of compositions about Pluto for electroacoustic clarinet, won third prize in the Prix d’Eté at the Peabody Conservatory. Grabill’s music has been described as colourful, edgy, hauntingly beautiful, and journey-like. He has presented his music at the ICMC and SEAMUS, has written for film and dance, and is performed regularly in the mid-Atlantic region.
http://www.elliottgrabill.com

Michele Jacot (BMusPerf, University of Toronto; MMusPerf, Northwestern University) is a musician with an active schedule of performing, conducting, teaching and concert production. Equally at home as a clarinettist, saxophonist and flutist, Michele is often featured as a soloist or ensemble performer on all her instruments. She has played with symphony orchestras and opera companies across Ontario, as well as in theatre pit orchestras, including Mirvish Productions and the Shaw Festival. Michele is extremely honoured to be the Associate Conductor for Canadian musical icon, Howard Cable. She has recently appeared as guest conductor of the Sudbury Symphony and Symphony Nova Scotia. In addition, Michele is a dedicated teacher and is in demand from the elementary to the post-secondary level. She maintains a busy timetable teaching privately, presenting workshops, adjudicating, and designing and leading woodwind clinics for music educators. Michele directs Toronto’s Wychwood Clarinet Choir and is a Yamaha Canada Spotlight Artist.
http://www.michelejacot.com

Dan Tapper — Heliosphere (2016/10:24)

Heliosphere is a creative exploration of the solar system through sound, journeying from the surface of our sun, through the planets and finally breaking through the edge of the magnetic bubble that surrounds our solar system. The piece involves a variety of techniques to creatively reinterpret information gathered from space — from sonifications of planetary orbits, to controlling synthesizer LFOs and cut-offs using the electromagnetic emissions of a pulsar, creating impulse responses from the earth’s ionosphere and re-synthesizing Very Low Frequency (VLF) natural radio along with other sounds collected from space. By combining audio synthesis and composition with data sonification techniques, Heliosphere explores the creative elements that are present in the choices made in the representation of sound and visual data from space — much of which has been edited, sonified, visualized or approximated by researchers and organizations. Heliosphere is part of an on--going research project exploring space through sound, data, text, image and imagination in a form of bedroom cosmology.

Dan Tapper is a sonic adventurer with a passion for making the unheard audible. He has worked extensively with recording Very Low Frequency (VLF) natural radio as well as using this in an artistic context in installations, compositions and broadcast works displayed internationally. Alongside his work with VLF, Dan is an active field recordist, spending over a year travelling through North America to collect strange and unheard sounds through a variety of DIY microphones and sensors. Dan’s work also touches on interactivity between sound, visual and generative art, cataloguing his work on the blog Code Poetry — an exploration of simple rules to create complex and beautiful images, revealing the hidden poetry of machines. His work in the area has been featured in Wired and the Creators Project.
http://www.dantappersounddesign.com

Thomas Dempster — the bunyip (2014/8:30)

for alto saxophone and fixed-media electronic sounds
Paula Van Goes, alto saxophone

Across the first-nations people of Australia, the Bunyip stirred fears and imaginations for centuries before the first white colonizers arrived. The Bunyip, as the story goes, was a foul, large beast — variously some sort of great cat that also had qualities of dogs, rabbits, birds and kangaroos. It lurked and skulked in billabongs and had a rather impressive appetite. Hapless human wanderers would unwittingly sate that appetite, and, as the stories go, the Bunyip was a voracious eater. In this piece, the saxophone takes multiple roles: that of the hapless wanderer drifting too close; the Bunyip — unleashing shrill cries at the beginning of the work; elements of nature (wind and rustle of leaves); and, an unseen narrator. The drama unfolds as a young person strays too close, innocently wandering, and wakes up the hungry beast. A chase ensues, and then a quick dinner for one…

Thomas Dempster is a composer of chamber, electroacoustic, and multimedia works. His music has been performed widely throughout North America and Europe, including International Double Reed Society, the San Francisco New Music Festival, Electronic Music Midwest, Electroacoustic Barn Dance, NYCEMF, ICMC, SEAMUS, the National Flute Association, the North American Saxophone Alliance, and more. He has been commissioned by the Greenbrook Ensemble, the Blue Mountain Ensemble, the Governor’s School of North Carolina, the Lamar University Wind Ensemble, Ohio State University New Music Ensemble, the South Carolina Music Teachers Association, and others. Several of his works are commercially available from Potenza Music Publishing, MusicSpoke, Quiet Design Records, and Navona Records. He is an affiliate composer of Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) He holds degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the University of Texas, and is currently a professor at Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
http://www.thomasdempster.com

Paula Van Goes, described as “a virtuoso saxophonist that possesses excellent technical attributes and a deep understanding of the music [she] performs” (Ovación), is based in Nashville. Paula is a freelance musician who enjoys a career as a chamber musician, soloist and educator. She teaches at Middle Tennessee State University and maintains a private studio. Van Goes has toured and lectured throughout France, Italy, China, Scotland, Bolivia, Brazil, Ukraine and the United States. An active chamber musician, Van Goes is the saxophonist in multiple Nashville-based groups, most notably with chatterbird, an alternative classical music collective, dedicated to exploring uniquely orchestrated chamber music. Paula is a Selmer-Paris Artist and Clinician and performs exclusively on Selmer-Paris saxophones.
http://www.paulavangoes.com

Bret Bohman — Traces (2015/9:30)

for bassoon and electronics
Susan Nelson, bassoon

The conception for Traces started with the sound quality of the bassoon. For me, the timbre of the instrument has the ability to evoke an ancient sound world. I ruminated on this quality and began by asking the question: How did ancient humans react to their own echo? Before the advent of recording technology and the use of analogue and digital sound playback this was the only instance when sound was disconnected from its source; able to be heard by the maker but disconnected from the instance of vocalization. Humans could actually hear the sound of their own voices separated from their bodies. This idea helped give shape to this work as I imagined an ancient sound world with magical acoustic properties yielding unnatural echoes as the bassoon traverses through this sonic landscape.

Bret Bohman is an Ann Arbor-based composer of instrumental and electronic music who strives to compose concert music with the visceral energy of his musical experiences in rock, jazz and electronic genres. A native of Rochester, New York, he has composed music for orchestra, string quartet, choir, various mixed chamber ensembles and electroacoustic works as well as collaborative, interdisciplinary projects including dance. His music is characterized by a strong rhythmic vitality juxtaposed with ethereal, static textures that support long melodic lines with a lyrical bent. Bohman’s compositions have been heard throughout the United States at various venues and festivals, including the Aspen Music Festival, NACUSA National Conference, New York City Electroacoustic Festival, Fresh Inc Festival, SEAMUS National Conference, Electronic Music Midwest, Atlantic Music Festival, Society for New Music, TUTTI Festival and more. He recently completed his doctoral studies at the University of Michigan. His primary teachers have been Michael Daugherty, Evan Chambers, Bright Sheng, Paul Schoenfeld and Brian Bevelander.

Susan Nelson is the Assistant Professor of Bassoon at Bowling Green State University and enjoys an active career as a performer, teacher and clinician. She is an advocate for new music as well as chamber music for the bassoon, and is the director of the non-profit organization Bassoon Chamber Music Composition Competition (BCMCC). She has performed with the Classical Music Festival (Eisenstadt, Austria), Michigan Opera Theatre, Shreveport Symphony Orchestra, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra and Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, among others. She has also given solo performances at the International Double Reed Society Conferences in Redlands (CA), Oxford (OH), New York and Tokyo. She can be heard on Elements, a CD release by BCMCC through msR Classics, featuring winning works from the 2012 and 2014 BCMCC competitions. Nelson is a graduate of the University of Kansas, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Michigan. Her primary teachers include Jeffrey Lyman, Carl Rath and Alan Hawkins.
http://www.susannelsonmac.com

Xavier Madore — Ready about… Tacking (2015/11:01)

Into a hatched chronology, on the edge of dreams and plastic research, at the borders of surface and abyss — sometimes wavering shyly among the various plans, sometimes going from one to the other through violent impacts. Ready About… Tacking borrows from the world of sailing: its sound material, its surprising variety of energy shocks, its frantic race forward…

Xavier Madore’s interest in sound art was first piqued by Michel Tétreault and Pierre-Marc Beaudoin. He is currently studying at the Music Conservatory of Montréal in Electroacoustic Composition with Martin Bédard. Firstly a clarinettist, it is his inclination for song and poetry that is most relevant to his work. His pieces are particularly focused on finding a narrative structure, and advocate a speech of articulated gestures. His works have been recently awarded 3rd Prize (ex æquo) in the 2015 JIM Electroacoustic Composition, 1st Prize in the 2015 edition of Jeu de temps / Times Play (JTTP) and have been selected by the HPO invisible Orchestra art exhibition in Toronto and by the Exhibitronics #5 in Strasbourg.

Jane/Kin — Morphine (2015/10:00), Vents sauvages (2015/10:00)

for baritone saxophone and laptop
Ida Toninato, baritone saxophone; Ana Dall’Ara-Majek, laptop

Morphine is constructed from short instrumental sounds built up in a drone on top of which other vaguely narrative sounds are surfing. It develops very slowly, pervading the space as a long, hypnotic process. Vents sauvages is a tornado of wind screams recordings, the breathings of which twist and pile up slowly.

Founded in Montréal, Jane/Kin is the meeting ground of saxophonist Ida Toninato and electroacoustician Ana Dall’Ara-Majek. The duo plays on the verge of instrumental, electronics, drone zone, found sounds, etc. The musicians are long-time accomplices who share an ever-evolving language. Ida Toninato is a very active performing artist. Exploring in the domain of sound, ideas, and forms in artistic presentation, she loves the act of questioning and her work has been inspired by experiences of loss of control and the way that sounds roll off the tongue. Ana Dall’Ara-Majek is a composer and sound artist influenced by musique concrète, her training as a harpist and her experiences as a Foley artist. Fascinated by compositional strategies, she is investigating the interaction between instrumental, electroacoustic and computational thinking in composition.
http://www.idatoninato.com | http://soundcloud.com/anadallaramajek

John Mayrose — Random Access (2016/9:00)

for alto saxophone and electronics
Drew Whiting, alto saxophone

The title Random Access reflects the process used with random access memory (RAM) in computer hardware, whereby all incoming data can be stored, and small chunks of data can be retrieved regardless of the order in which it was stored. Similarly, in Random Access, all of the input from the live saxophonist is stored in the computer’s RAM. As the piece progresses, short samples of the performer are retrieved and reordered to create new contrapuntal lines. The piece begins with a simple duet between the live saxophone and the reordered material, but gradually evolves to a large orchestra of sampled saxophones. While the title may imply that the retrieval process is random, it is anything but random — the input from the saxophone is precisely scripted and all electronic sounds created live.

John Mayrose’s compositions have been performed throughout the world and at festivals including the CBDNA conference, SEAMUS, Electronic Music Midwest, Boston Early Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival and the Aspen Music Festival by, among others, Michael Mizrahi, Duo 46, Chatterbird, Fireworks Ensemble, Pulsoptional and several university wind and percussion ensembles. Mayrose has received prizes from the Percussive Arts Society and the ASCAP Morton Gould Award. His music is recorded on New Amsterdam, Fugu Fish and Classic Concert labels. An active performer on guitar and electric bass, he is a founding member of Pulsoptional, a new music ensemble and composers collective based in Durham, North Carolina. Recordings by Pulsoptional are on Innova and Fugu Fish labels. Mayrose holds degrees from Duke University (PhD in Music Composition) and the University of South Carolina (BM in Guitar Performance). John Mayrose is an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.
http://www.johnmayrose.com

Drew Whiting’s diverse musical interests have led him to perform with symphony orchestras, big bands, new music ensembles, salsa bands, improvisation collectives, chamber ensembles and solo recitals of traditional and contemporary saxophone works throughout the United States. An advocate for new music, he has worked with composers such as Betsy Jolas, Erik Lund and Pauline Oliveros, and has performed more than twenty world premieres of compositions by established and emerging composers. An accomplished chamber musician, Drew was awarded 1st Place at the 2012 MTNA National Chamber Music Competition as a member of the Cerulean Saxophone Quartet. Whiting is a Lecturer of Music at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and holds degrees from Michigan State University College of Music (BM and MM) and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (DMA). Drew’s teachers include Joseph Lulloff and Debra Richtmeyer. Drew is a Yamaha Performing Artist and performs exclusively on Yamaha saxophones.
http://www.uwosh.edu/music/faculty/whiting

Kyle Stewart — Bloom (2015/6:36)

Bloom is an electroacoustic piece created from experimentation with convolved sound materials, granular synthesis and micromontage composition. The title not only refers to the horizontal and vertical growth of these materials throughout the piece, but also to the way in which the sonic identities of these materials develop during their spectromorphological and spatial trajectories. This piece creates a surreal listening environment by considering the contrast between the real and the unreal — between recognisable instrumental sounds and ambiguous, processed sounds. This dichotomy is explored through the many compositional processes of the piece: cross-synthesis by convolution is used to create hybrid instrumental sounds, while micromontage and granular synthesis is used to place familiar sounds within unfamiliar contexts.

Kyle Stewart is a sound and audiovisual composer based in Glasgow. He is a graduate of the University of Glasgow, having completed an undergraduate Music degree in 2014 and a postgraduate Sonic Arts degree in 2015. He has worked for radio, theatre and film productions, and his work has been showcased at festivals, exhibitions and broadcasts across the world, including the Glasgow Electronic and Audiovisual Media festival, EUROMicroFest 2015 and the 2016 New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival.
http://cargocollective.com/kylemstewart/About-Kyle-Stewart

Eddie Farr — Chatter (2015/7:03)

for two saxophones and laptop
Carolyn Bryan and Alex Sellers, alto saxophones; Eddie Farr, Laptop

Chatter vb : to utter rapidly, idly or indistinctly.

Chatter, written for saxophones and laptop, uses timbral, rhythmic and drone ideas to immerse the listener in an interpretation of the word.

Eddie Farr, a composer and multi-instrumentalist performer of electroacoustic music from Atlanta, Georgia, is a graduate of Georgia Southern University, where he received a BA in Music and an MM in Music Technology. At Georgia Southern, he studied saxophone with Carolyn Bryan and composition with John Thompson and Martin Gendelman. His compositions incorporate elements of ambience, noise, minimalism, pop, jazz and nostalgia. Farr has presented works and performed at the National Student Electronic Music Event, Root Signals Electronic Music Festival, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States’ 2016 National Conference, the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival and the 2016 North American Saxophone Alliance (NASA) Biennial Conference. He has also performed at the NASA Region 6 Conference and the U.S. Navy International Saxophone Symposium.
http://www.eddiefarr.com

Carolyn J. Bryan is Professor of Music at Georgia Southern University. Bryan has performed and lectured at the World Saxophone Congress, the American University Saxophone Symposium, the North American Saxophone Alliance, Root Signals and the Festival of Women Composers International. Her research focuses on developmental literature for the saxophone and music by American women composers. She is a contributor to Women and Music in America Since 1900 and Yamaha’s Educator Series. Bryan has been involved in numerous orchestral, chamber and solo premiers, and has recorded with the Winds of Indiana on Eugene Rousseau’s CD Saxophone Vocalise and the Savannah Jazz Orchestra’s Satin Doll. She has been recognized with the GSU CLASS Award for Excellence and Awards of Distinction in Teaching and Service as well as membership in Phi Kappa Phi and Pi Kappa Lambda. Carolyn Bryan is a Yamaha Performing Artist and Légère Endorsing Artist.
http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/music/faculty/carolyn-j-bryan

Alex Sellers is a freelance musician in the Metro Detroit area and currently has a studio of 15 students ranging from 4th to 12th grades. He recently graduated with an MM in Saxophone Performance from Oakland University in Rochester MI, where he studied with Jeffrey Heisler. While at Oakland, Alex won the Oakland University Band Concerto Competition and performed Ryo Noda’s rarely performed GEN with the Oakland University Wind Symphony. Alex holds a second MM degree in Music Technology and a BM in Saxophone Performance from Georgia Southern University, where he studied with John Thompson and Carolyn Bryan respectively. A very vocal advocate for new music, Alex has commissioned and premiered more than 30 new works for saxophone, including works by Christopher Biggs, Benjamin Taylor and Anthony Donofrio. He has performed at the US Navy International Saxophone Symposium, North American Saxophone Alliance Regional and Biennial conferences and SEAMUS National Conference, as well as others.

Kerry L. Hagan — Cubic Zirconia (2014/8:30)

Cubic Zirconia is a work originally composed for the Cube at Virginia Tech. An algorithm developed with Miller Puckette in Pd synthesizes the sounds. The title arises from the venue (the Cube) and the prototype name of the algorithm (z12). This piece continues Kerry’s work with textural composition, an approach to computer music æsthetics that relies on large sound masses developing intricate inner details over time with little to no gestural content. The sound object as a unit of sound is still relevant, but the object itself is a meta-object that the audience inhabits and experiences from within. Because the piece grows over time, the sound object is solidifying over time. Similarly, the spatialization is designed to immerse the audience in the object. No gestural content in spatialization exists. Rather, the spatialization creates maximum motility without relying on trajectory-based mimetic movement.

Kerry Hagan is a composer and researcher working in both acoustic and computer media. She develops real-time methods for spatialization and stochastic algorithms for musical practice. Her work endeavours to achieve æsthetic and philosophical aims while taking inspiration from mathematical and natural processes. In this way, each work combines art with science and technology from various domains. As a researcher, Kerry’s interests include real-time algorithmic methods for music composition and sound synthesis, spatialization techniques for 3D sounds and electronic/electroacoustic musicology. In 2010, Kerry led a group of practitioners to form the Irish Sound, Science and Technology Association. Currently, Kerry is a Lecturer at the University of Limerick in the Digital Media and Arts Research Centre (formerly CCMCM). She is the Principal Investigator for the Spatialization and Auditory Display Environment (SpADE).
http://www.kerrylhagan.net

Gordon Delap — Splintered Elements (2016/8:00)

for simple-system flute and electronic sounds
Gordon Delap, flute

The flute commonly used in Irish Traditional Music is a conical bored simple-system flute, modeled on 19th-century orchestral instruments. Its design allows for different modes of expression to those encountered in the Boehm system flute. Splintered Elements explores the interplay between a wooden simple system flute and electroacoustic elements drawn from fragments from the instrument and from water materials.

Gordon Delap comes from Donegal, in Ireland. He is interested in electroacoustic composition, audiovisual composition and composition created through engagement with physical modelling technologies. He has undertaken residencies at Nadine Arts Centre in Brussels and at the Technische Universität in Berlin. He has received commissions from the British Council, Spacenet, the Naughton Gallery and BBC Radio 3, and won 1st Prize in the Projet Itinerant competition Point de Repère. Gordon Delap is currently a lecturer in music technology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. Recent work has been concerned with combining electronic sounds with spoken word and video, and research interests include investigation of compositional applications of non-linear plate models developed at the University of Edinburgh.
https://www.cmc.ie/composers/gordon-delap

Guillaume Loizillon — Chimerical Diary (2008–16/15:00)

Chimerical Diary speaks about daily wanderings and sound images they evoke. Sounds stolen with a pocket recorder meet those of electronic synthesis. The piece explores various synthesis models (particularly physical modelling), manipulation of field recordings and real-time processing. The piece also leaves space for improvisation. In addition to the laptop, I use up to 10 small autonomous audio systems made with “low budget” equipment distributed among the audience or throughout the concert area. These provide an alternative way to explore multi-channel systems while extending the range of performance possibilities. In the Max patch, interactive elements are represented visually to the audience using projected photos, movies and graphics in order to underscore the relation of performance gestures with auditory results. The piece is composed for a 4-channel system (not including the small autonomous sound systems).

Guillaume Loizillon is a composer and musician living and working in Paris who is attracted by many other media, new experiments and artistic developments: electronic music, sonic arts, improvisation, sound poetry, installations, net art… As a composer, his discography contains more than 14 releases. His music is mainly electroacoustic, however, he always remains interested in meeting with instrumentalists, particularly improvisers. He teaches at the department of music of the University Paris 8. He is in charge of a Master degree in audio arts. In addition to the teaching of sound design and synthesis, he is developing a seminar about the encounters of different artistic disciplines since the beginning of the 20th century. He is a co-founder of Trace Label, a music label dedicated to new music experiments. He also develops activities of interdisciplinary meetings, mainly the project Phono-Photo, which since the year 2007 has collected contributions of more than 100 artists.
http://tracelab.com/guillaume-loizillon

Day 3 — Friday 12 August

09:00–13:00 • Installation

Venue: Canadian Music Centre

John Oswald — The Birth and Death Frequencies

(See Wednesday 10 August at 9:00 for information.)

13:30–18:30 • Mobile Installation

Venue: Geary Lane

Johann Diedrick — Good Vibrations

(See Wednesday 10 August 2016 at 16:30 for information.)

15:30–17:00 • Symposium Concert #3

Venue: Geary Lane

Hannah M. Brown — Ecosystem (2016/20:00)
Anthony T. Marasco — WELD (2011/6:00), for iPad, computer and 4 circuit-bent radios
Travis West — Pulmonary (2016/4:28)
Abe King — Public Catharsis Study #1 (2014/8:26), video

Anthony T. Marasco, electronics and circuit-bending

Hannah M. Brown — Ecosystem (2016/20:00)

Ecosystem is an imitation of a natural soundscape using only sound from human voiceovers taken from 1950s infomercials and educational videos about nature. To highlight the absurdity and inconsistency of our relationship with our environment, the four source recordings show very different ideals. Two of them display human fascination with nature, our interest and desire to interact with it. The remaining recordings are indicative of our desire to control nature. One is an infomercial from DOW about their herbicides, including the currently controversial 2,4-D, which is allegedly carcinogenic. The other is also an infomercial, this time about moth-proofing agents containing dieldrin, which is now banned in many countries due to its profound toxic effects on marine life. This darkly humorous work shows the strangeness of our place in our world, especially at a time when global warming is a world issue and “green” has been made into a consumer buzzword.

Hannah M. Brown is a composer from Canmore, Alberta currently living in Kingston. Her work explores natural and man-made sounds and their relationships.

Anthony T. Marasco — WELD (2011/6:00)

for iPad, computer and 4 circuit-bent radios
Anthony T. Marasco, electronics and circuit-bending

Inspired by the construction-site themed Cantiere painting series by Walter Trecchi, Weld is a multi-movement, improvisatory piece for iPad, circuit-bent radios and pre-recorded audio that attempts to create sound collages out of the sonic environments found in Italian construction sites. The audio track is mixed as a 6-channel audio file, sending two channels through the house audio system and the remaining four channels through individual radios placed on stage. The iPad performer uses the Curtis granular synthesis app to manipulate raw samples of various sounds found throughout the backing audio track. These manipulations are achieved by running fingers over the waveform displayed on the iPad’s screen, while also changing effects and sampling parameters such as reverb, delay and grain size. Live activation and manipulation of circuit-bends for each radio will be also be improvised throughout the performance, causing modulation of the pre-recorded sound playing through the radios as well as allowing the radios to serve as sound-generating synthesizers themselves.

Anthony T. Marasco is a composer and sound artist who takes influence from the æsthetics of today’s digimodernist culture, exploring the relationships between the eccentric and the everyday, and the retro and the contemporary. He has received commissions from WIRED Magazine, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, Toy Piano Composers, Rhymes With Opera, Data Garden and the andPlay Duo. Marasco was the Grand Prize Winner of the UnCaged Toy Piano Festival’s 2013 call for scores, an artist-in-residence at Signal Culture and a grant winner for the American Composers Forum’s If You Could Hear These Walls project. His compositions have been featured the NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival, Mise-En Music Festival, the Montréal Contemporary Music Lab, the Electroacoustic Barn Dance and the soundSCAPE International Composition Festival. Marasco is currently pursuing a PhD in experimental music and digital media at Louisiana State University.
http://www.atmarasco.com

Travis West — Pulmonary (2016/4:28)

Pulmonary is an electroacoustic composition that explores a few of the many sounds of the voice. The piece is assembled from a collection of vocal recordings of the composer, with special attention given to the conventional sounds of childhood that become abandoned in adult life: buzzing the lips, flapping the cheeks, slurps, burps and growling. The piece begins with a deep breath, inviting the listener into an evolving soundscape that gradually envelops them as they descend into an imaginary vocal tract, eventually coming to the source of the voice itself.

Jazz pianist turned electroacoustic laptopist, Travis West is a multidisciplinary composer-performer and life-long learner. Fascinated by algorithms, instruments and the soundscapes of everyday life, Travis is interested in composing musical interactions and interacting with musical compositions. His research explores electronic music performance from low-level bits and bytes, and digital musical instrument design up to more abstract control over compositional algorithms. His compositions have been performed in festivals and conferences across North America such as the Young Songwriters Intensive in Calgary and N_SEME 2016 in Oklahoma. Travis is currently studying his BFA at Concordia University’s Department of Music with his major in Electroacoustic Studies, offering him the opportunity to work on many interesting projects including cyber-slippers, a haptic bodysuit-score and a music video game which teaches FM synthesis.
http://traviswest.ca

Abe King — Public Catharsis Study #1 (2014/8:26)

Video

The Public Catharsis Studies are vocal performances that take place in public environments. The performances are captured on camera and two hand-held recorders. The vocals are processed and composed, then synced with the video. Public Catharsis Study #1 took place from the Henry Art Gallery through the Odegaard Library at the University of Washington. The video was then installed with sound in the entryway of the Odegaard Library to reiterate the experience as both physical, cinematic, and heterotopic.

Abe King is a new media artist who works primarily with experimental music and video. His work explores the intersections between the real and the representation. He graduated with his BA at the University of Washington and studied DXARTS coursework under Juan Pampin and Shawn Brixey. He is soon to start his graduate studies at the University of California San Diego for his Masters of Fine Art, starting in Fall 2016.
http://www.abekingvideo.com

19:30–22:00 • Sound Travels Concert: Two Retrospectives — John Oswald and Paul Dolden

Venue: Geary Lane

In this concert, works by John Oswald and Paul Dolden — two highly individual and distinguished Canadian artists — will trace how they approach the concept of sonic density through their original use of multi-tracking recording techniques since the 1970s. John Oswald’s works explore his notion of swarming, among other techniques he has developed. The presentation of DAB will be the premiere of a version for video.

Paul Dolden — Below the Walls of Jericho (1988–89/14:35)
Paul Dolden — Who Has the Biggest Sound [excerpt] (2014)
Paul Dolden — L’ivresse de la vitesse (1992–93/15:49)
Paul Dolden — Entr’acte (2016/4:00), commissioned by NAISA
Paul Dolden — Air of the Rainbow Robe and Feathered Skirt (2016/12:34), commissioned by NAISA

John Oswald — Vertical Time (1973/9:58)
John Oswald — 12 Atmospheres (2014/10:00)
John Oswald — Skindling Shadés (1987/7:00)
John Oswald — Bell Speeds (1983, recreated 2016/6:00)
John Oswald — DAB (1989/7:12)

Programme notes and biographies for the Saturday evening Sound Travels concert and for the installations can be found on the NAISA website and in the Sound Travels programme booklet.
http://naisa.ca/festivals/sound-travels

Day 4 — Saturday 13 August

12:45–18:30 • Mobile Installation

Venue: Geary Lane

Johann Diedrick — Good Vibrations

(See Wednesday 10 August 2016 at 16:30 for information.)

15:30–17:00 • Symposium Concert #4

Venue: Geary Lane

Cody Kauhl — Excursus (2014/15:00), three art songs for soprano and flexible media
Garrett Hecker — Bought and Sold (2015/4:45)
Benjamin McCarthy — The Instagram Loops (2016/10–11:00), for sampled piano, synth, laptop and visuals
Georgios Varoutsos — Elongation (2015/4:14)
Hugh Lynch — Another September (2013/12:36)
Leah Reid — Ring, Resonate, Resound (2014/7:23)

Mikaela Sullivan, soprano
Lara Dodds-Eden, piano; Jonathan Carroll, visuals

Cody Kauhl — Excursus (2014/15:00)

three art songs for soprano and flexible media
Mikaela Sullivan, soprano

Commissioned by soprano Mikaela Sullivan for performance in April 2014, Excursus explores the methods in which modern television broadcasting attempts to fulfill different facets of human desire, thus propagating the continued use of the medium. The composition consists of three songs, each of which focuses on instinctive desires, quick fixes that palliate, or intellectual satisfaction. Current television programming attempts to satisfy these desires and fabricated need with sitcoms, pharmaceutical ads and political slander, respectively.

Cody Kauhl is a composer and multimedia artist that pairs found sound and video with the intimacy of the human voice. His work has been performed at international and national festivals and conferences including the International Computer Music Conference and Society of Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States. He is currently artist-in-residence at the Charlotte Foundation Studio Residency Program. Cody graduated in 2011 with a BM in Music Theory and Composition from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and received his MM in Music Composition at the University of Missouri — Kansas City in 2015.
http://www.codykauhl.com

Mikaela Sullivan completed her Master of Music at West Virginia University. Hailing from Normal, Illinois, she received her Bachelor of Music from Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville. Past roles include the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, Belinda in Dido and Aeneas, Munkustrap in CATS!, Lady Psyche in Princess Ida and Belle in Beauty and the Beast. Mikaela premiered Cody Kauhl’s Excursus: Three Art Songs for Soprano and Flexible Media in 2014 and has since performed the piece at the International Computer Music Conference, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Hot Air Music Festival and the Charlotte Street Foundation Studio Residency Program.
http://www.mikaelaraesullivan.com

Garrett Hecker — Bought and Sold (2015/4:45)

That familiar tune you love is up for sale, and everybody’s buying it! Don’t miss out, make it yours now!

Garrett Austin Hecker is a composer and percussionist from South Florida. His music explores stylistic hybridity, rhythmic complexity, socio-political subjects and humour. Hecker has presented compositions nationally and internationally at the Florida Contemporary Music Festival, New Music on the Point, Charlotte New Music Festival, PARMA Festival and the INTIME 2014 Symposium, with performers such as Kevin McFarland, Don-Paul Kahl, Taylor Barbay, Elise Adriana Jimenez, Anatoly Larkin, Ivan Trac, IKTUS Percussion, Great Southern Wind Quintet and Nuclear Music. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Composition at the University of Florida, where he also completed his MM. He earned his BM in Composition from University of Miami. Hecker’s primary composition teachers have been James Paul Sain, Paul Koonce, Paul Richards and Scott Stinson. He is currently an adjunct professor at Santa Fe College.
http://garrettaustinhecker.com

Benjamin McCarthy — The Instagram Loops (2016/10–11:00)

for sampled piano, synth, laptop and visuals
Lara Dodds-Eden, piano; Jonathan Carroll, visuals

The Instagram Loops merges the short audio loops accompanying videos posted on Instagram with a research- and process-based compositional approach. The pianist (Dodds-Eden) is introduced to loops that she is invited to improvise with. The composer (McCarthy) records and later structures these explorations and re-presents the arranged result to the pianist, who with the composer’s help extends her musical dialogue with the emerging piece, arriving ultimately at a score. Through this research the composer develops digital signal processes to complement the composition. This experimental performance is presented quadrophonicly with Dodds-Eden playing an FM synth in dialogue with the earlier recorded and intuitively re-arranged piano work, alongside Instagram-sourced visual loops modulated and expressively played by Jonathan Carroll. The work explores intimacy and surface, speed and slowness, duration and spatiality, and the repurposing of the often incidental audio material that is the by-product of a visually oriented social medium.

Ben McCarthy is a Toronto-based professor, composer and sound artist. He is an indiscriminate audiophile and itinerant autodidact whose practice includes pop experimentalism, orchestral collaboration, sound design and installation.
http://paleeyesmusic.com

Australian pianist Lara Dodds-Eden is in the DMA programme in Collaborative Piano with Lydia Wong at the University of Toronto. Before moving to Toronto, Lara spent the previous year as Collaborative Pianist and Artistic Associate of the Banff Centre’s Fall and Winter Music Residencies, where she assisted in curating public events of the season and took her job description as literally as possible — performing, recording and improvising with international musicians including cellist Gavriel Lipkind, pianist Ronan O’Hora, Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew and Charles Spearin, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and a huge number of singer-songwriters, composers, sound artists and electronic musicians.
http://laradodds-eden.com

Jonathan Carroll makes digital and performance art for on and off the Internet. For the past five years he has been studying at OCAD University, while in the latter three, he helped to lead the collective Tough Guy Mountain. He contributes a breadth of knowledge about software and programming to the collective, facilitating the creation of interactive performances. Online, he works with design and code to create engaging interfaces for the TGM brand, furthering the total immersion of the collective’s art project. Academically, his research is about the evolution of interactive, accessible and creative technological platforms in the context of art history, and how these are situated inside security culture and control infrastructure.

Georgios Varoutsos — Elongation (2015/4:14)

Elongation is an exploration piece from recordings conducted over the month of November 2015. After recording 56 different types of instruments, the project was intended to project the capabilities and characteristics of the recorded sounds. The sounds needed to abide by a project ruling that consisted of having every sound subjected to one and/or two initial sound modifications before alternative transformations. The conceptualization of this piece was to begin exploring alternate resources for sound material, my interest was to move away from digital source material and to begin practising my recording skills at the same time. This led to a piece deriving only from my own work and relying on my skills to be presented in every aspect of the piece.

Georgios Varoutsos is an undergraduate student in the Electroacoustic Studies programme at Concordia University in Montréal. He explores the field of sound with the wide range of projects he has created, and has been part of 60x60, as well as performing in the laptop orchestra CLOrk. His audio creations derive from different inspirations, such as field recordings, digital audio processing, synthesis and experimentation of processing techniques. His signature works encompasses an unorthodox depiction of audio processing in mind of creating tension and emotional reactions.

Hugh Lynch — Another September (2013/12:36)

The work is inspired by the Thomas Kinsella poem Another September (1958). The poem deals with themes such as regret, despair, loss, struggle, contempt, truth and hope. The work attempts to sonically communicate the poem’s narrative. A number of novel sound spatialization techniques for composing enveloping (surrounded by sound) and engulfing (covered in sound) multi-channel electroacoustic music are used throughout the work. The techniques were developed from research undertaken in psychoacoustics, reproduced audio and concert hall acoustic research.

Hugh Lynch is an electroacoustic composer and researcher from Ireland. He graduated in 2015 with a PhD in Spatial Audio from the University of Limerick, Ireland. His research interests include sound spatialization, spatial perception, reproduced audio, concert hall acoustics and multi-channel composition. He has presented research findings at a number of conferences, including Electroacoustic Music Networks conferences (2011) and the International Computer Music Conference (2011, 2013). His works have been performed at various international events, such as International Computer Music Conference (2013, 2014) and the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (2014, 2016). Also, his music has also been played on Irish national radio — RTE’s Lyric FM.

Leah Reid — Ring, Resonate, Resound (2014/7:23)

Ring, Resonate, Resound is an acousmatic composition written in homage to John Chowning. The piece tips its hat to Chowning’s works Stria and Turenas, and the beautiful sonic landscape Chowning explored through his research and discovery of FM synthesis. Ring, Resonate, Resound is dedicated to him.

The composition explores timbre through dozens of bell sounds, which provide the harmonic and timbral material, structure, foreground and background for the piece. The composition is comprised of five sections, each examining a different set of bells and materials that interact with them. The piece begins thin and bright, then gradually increases in spectral and textural density until the listener is enveloped by a thick sound mass of ringing bells. The bells gently fade into waves of rich harmonic resonances.

Leah Reid is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. She has won numerous awards, including the International Alliance for Women in Music’s (IAWM) Pauline Oliveros Prize for her piece Pressure and the Film Score Award for Ring, Resonate, Resound in Frame Dance Productions’ Music Composition Competition. Her works are frequently performed throughout Europe and North America, with notable premieres by Accordant Commons, the Jack Quartet, McGill’s Contemporary Music Ensemble, Sound Gear, Talea and Yarn/Wire. Reid’s primary research interests involve the perception, modelling and compositional applications of timbre. In her works, timbre acts as a catalyst for exploring new soundscapes, time, space, perception and color. She received her DMA and MA in composition from Stanford University and her BMus from McGill University. Reid’s principal teachers include Mark Applebaum, Jonathan Berger, Brian Ferneyhough and Sean Ferguson.
http://www.leahreidmusic.com

19:00–19:30 • Installation

Venue: Geary Lane

Campbell Foster — Creation Spirit Machine

(See Thursday 10 August at 19:30 for information.)

19:30–22:00 • Symposium Concert #5

Venue: Geary Lane

Carolina Heredia — Déjate Caer (2012/7:00), for violin and electronics
Navid Bargrizan — Lava Ilogica (2015/9:47)
Terry Dame — I Feel the Lift Off (2016/15:00)
David Su — 谁追谁? [Who Is Chasing Who?] (2016/5:00), for percussion and electronics
Kevin Patton — A Bird Escaped From the Snare of its Fowler (2016/12:00), for saxophone and electronics

–intermission–

Benjamin Whiting — Illumina! Arabidopsis thaliana (2015/9:17)
Christopher Biggs — Decoherence (2014/15, 10:00), for trumpet, computer and live visuals
Sean Peuquet — What Rough Beast Slouches? (2014–16/11:36)
Mark Zaki — reFRACTion (2012/7:30), for violin and live electronics
David Jason Snow — Wake Me When We Get There (2015/4:58), video
Sundar Subramanian — Locks and Ripples (2013/6:25), for electric guitar and electronics
Maxime Corbeil-Perron — Cubic (2016/11:00)

Carolina Heredia, violin
David Su, percussion
Nikki D’Agostino, saxophone
Robert White, trumpet
Mark Zaki, violin
Sundar Subramanian, guitar

Carolina Heredia — Déjate Caer (2012/7:00)

for violin and electronics
Carolina Heredia, violin

The title Déjate Caer can be translated from Spanish as “Let Yourself Fall” and is taken from the poem Árbol de Diana by Alejandra Pizarnik:

Vida, mi vida, déjate caer, déjate doler,
mi vida, déjate enlazar de fuego,
de silencio ingenuo,
de piedras verdes en la casa de la noche,
déjate caer y doler, mi vida.

[Life, my life, let yourself fall, let yourself hurt,
my life, let yourself be engulfed by fire,
of ingenuous silence,
of green stones in the house of the night,
let yourself fall and hurt, my life.]

Ann Arbor-based composer Carolina Heredia creates contemporary concert works for acoustic and electronic mediums. Her work blends sounds of folk music from her home country of Argentina with textures and forms of contemporary concert music. Her compositions have been commissioned and performed by musicians and ensembles such as JACK Quartet, Derek Bermel, Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and the University of Michigan Chamber Choir. She is the 2015 recipient of a Harvard University Fromm Commission. She recently founded Khemia Ensemble, a contemporary music ensemble who strives to create innovative concert experiences. Her music has been featured on the SONIC Festival, Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowling Green New Music Festival and the 3rd Bienal de Composición Argentina. She is currently in her last year for the Doctorate in Musical Arts program at University of Michigan where she has taught as a Graduate Student Instructor for the Chair of Electronic Music.
http://www.carolinaheredia.com

Navid Bargrizan — Lava Ilogica (2015/9:47)

What gets lost in translating a heavy philosophical text such as Ludwig’s Wittgenstein’s Tractus Logico-Philosophicus, in this case, from German to English? How do we get lost when we are confronted with such a dense philosophical text for the first time? Lava Ilogica touches upon these two questions, by means of digitally processing four voices, which recite parts of Wittgenstein’s text in German and in English.

Navid Bargrizan is a PhD candidate in musicology at University of Florida, pursuing a cognate in composition. He has presented papers on intersections of music, technology and philosophy at several conferences in USA, Canada, Germany, Austria and Turkey. His articles, reviews, interviews and papers are published in Müzik-Bilim Dergisi: The Journal of Musicology, the SCI Newsletter and in the proceedings of Conferences in Berlin and Istanbul. As a composer, Navid experiments with microtones, tunings, intonations and electronics. His music is performed in such venues as New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Midwest Graduate Music Consortium, Collapss/Stacks Concerts (Greensboro, North Carolina), Florida Contemporary Music Festival, Unbalanced Connection Electroacoustic Concerts and SCI Student Chapter Concert at UF. Navid has received a 2015 DAAD Award, a 2016 UF Doctoral Research Award, and UF’s 2015 Best of College of Arts Award for his saxophone duo, 10 Aphorisms.
http://www.navidbargrizan.com

Terry Dame — I Feel the Lift Off (2016/15:00)

I Feel the Lift Off is a structured improvisation performed on Terry Dame’s original interactive, sensor-based sound controllers, the Horn of Plenty, CoinBox and Parisian Hammer Keys. Through interaction with light, motion, proximity and force sensors that are embedded into these sculptural object instruments, Dame triggers and manipulates carefully gathered samples and synthesized sounds. In I Feel the Lift Off, samples from American pop culture, political sloganeering, urban soundscapes and the NASA sound library are transformed into a creative exploration of contemporary sensory overload and the sonic footprint of society today. It is one chapter in an on-going sonic reflection of the composer’s own personal journey to find peace in a world gone mad.

Terry Dame is a composer, sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, instrument builder and educator. She is director and composer for the invented instrument ensemble, Electric Junkyard Gamelan, which toured extensively from 1998 to 2012. Dame’s current work involves performance and installations using interactive sensor-based sound sculptures. Her workshops on instrument building and interactive technologies are sought after internationally. Dame is an alumna of the prestigious Sundance Institute Composer Lab. Her latest score was composed for The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere, winner of Best Short Documentary at the 2016 HotDocs Festival in Toronto. She has received support from Harvestworks Digital Media Art Center, Fractured Atlas, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Rockefeller Foundation and New York State Council for the Arts. She is currently on faculty at the School of Visual Arts and Marymount Manhattan College in NYC. Dame holds an MFA in Performance and Composition from the California Institute of the Arts.
http://www.terrydame.com

David Su — 谁追谁? [Who Is Chasing Who?] (2016/5:00)

for percussion and electronics
David Su, percussion

Who Is Chasing Who? is a composition for solo percussionist and laptop that utilizes digital signal processing methods to provide a novel electroacoustic take on the drum solo. A ChucK program is initialized and runs for the duration of the piece. Sound is generated both by the programme’s output, which implies a jhaptal rhythmic cycle, and by the performer, who engages in improvisatory drumming on an acoustic surface (such as a cajón), as well as an electronic surface with MIDI output (such as the SPD-SX). As the performer follows musical cues given by the software, the programme will simultaneously react to the performer’s actions using pitch tracking, beat detection and controlled feedback processes in a series of game-like “rounds”. In this way human and machine interact seamlessly in a musical dance of leader and follower, posing the question in the piece’s title: Who is chasing who?

David Su is a composer, drummer, and computer musician currently based in New York City. His works have been featured at the International Computer Music Conference and the Web Audio Conference. His concert music has been performed by counter)induction, the Columbia Jazz Composers Collective and Tonada Productions, and he has played at venues such as Lincoln Center, Bowery Ballroom and WNYC’s Greene Space. In 2013, as a recipient of the Rapaport Music Performance Fellowship, David attended the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music, where he was coached by Vijay Iyer and Ambrose Akinmusire. In 2016 he received the French Tech Ticket award for Inspiro, an online collaborative platform for musicians and artists. Most recently he toured the United States as part of the indie-pop band Morningsiders. David is a recent graduate of Columbia University, where he studied music composition with Fred Lerdahl and Brad Garton.
http://usdivad.com

Kevin Patton — A Bird Escaped From the Snare of its Fowler (2016/12:00)

for saxophone and electronics
Nikki D’Agostino, saxophone

A Bird Escaped From the Snare of its Fowler is an improvisation between saxophonist Nikki D’Agostino and Kevin Patton steering the BrundleFly Framework. The BrundleFly Framework is a series of DSP modules built in Max/MSP/Jitter that use a real-time analysis of the saxophonist’s performance to control the parameters of the different modules. The modules also operate independently through various levels of controlled randomness to challenge the performer with anomaly, the unexpected, the disruptive and the contradictory.

Kevin Patton is a musician, scholar and technologist active in the fields of experimental music and multimedia theatre whose work explores the intersection of technology and performance. Kevin is an assistant professor of emerging media at the New York City College of Technology in downtown Brooklyn. He holds a PhD and MA from Brown University in electronic music and multimedia composition, as well as a Master of Music degree in jazz studies from the University of North Texas.

Nikki D’Agostino is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist/performer and composer. Nikki is an active performer in the NYC avant-rock scene as a member of several notable groups ranging in style from indie pop to harsh noise. The “beautifully brash” saxophonist, synthesizer enthusiast and sound artist’s current projects include publishing a book of scores and recording an album of works using a notation system that she developed. Nikki holds a BA in Composition from the University of North Texas and an MM in Composition from Brooklyn College.

Benjamin Whiting — Illumina! Arabidopsis thaliana (2015/9:17)

This piece represents the on-going artistic and scientific collaboration between genomic biologist Aleel K. Grennan and myself. Grennan is studying the rate of photosynthesis between a natural wild type of Arabidopsis thaliana leaf and three genetically engineered mutants with different sizes of chloroplasts. I took the data she provided me, sonified and incorporated the results in an 8-channel surround sound piece of electroacoustic music. While the piece is peppered with various processed sounds of found objects, I designed the majority of the sonic material in DISSCO and KYMA, incorporating Grennan’s data into several parameters (such as ADSR envelopes, spatialization within the 8-channel acoustic field, etc.), thus creating a wealth of stylized sounds that represent each different type of leaf and the way they reflect, absorb and transmit light. Also captured sonically is the movement of chloroplasts through the leaves’ starchy membranes.

Benjamin D. Whiting received his BM in Music Composition and his MM in Music Theory and Composition from Florida State University, and is now finishing his DMA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is an internationally award-winning composer of both acoustic and electroacoustic music, and his works have been performed in several important festivals and conferences. Never satisfied by simply composing alone, Whiting is fascinated with and constantly seeks out interdisciplinary collaboration and cooperation, often working with artists and performers from many different fields on several projects. His current major collaborative effort is with flautist Melody Chua on developing an open-source electroacoustic flute. Over the years, Whiting has studied composition with Scott Wyatt, Sever Tipei, Erik Lund, Erin Gee and Ladislav Kubik.

Christopher Biggs — Decoherence (2014/15, 10:00)

for trumpet, computer and live visuals
Robert White, trumpet

Decoherence is dedicated to Samuel Wells and was commissioned by a consortium consisting of Samuel Wells, Aaron Hodgson, Scott Thornburg and the UMKC Trumpet Studio. The work abstractly reflects on a phenomenon in quantum physics and a possible explanation for the phenomenon. Decoherence is a phenomenon whereby particles that have probable locations always take on a specific location when observed by a human. This is represented through the presentations of hundreds of possible ways to a play a single pitch on the trumpet followed by the performer’s decision to play the pitch in a specific manner. Also, when the performer is making a decision about what to play, he or she becomes part of the video. One possible explanation for how probable locations collapse into a specific location is that all probable locations come to exist in their own parallel universe upon observation.

Christopher Biggs is a composer and multimedia artist residing in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he is Assistant Professor of Music Composition and Technology at Western Michigan University. Biggs’ recent projects focus on integrating live instrumental performance with interactive audiovisual media. In addition to collaborating with artists in other disciplines on projects, he treats all of his works as collaborations between himself and the initial performing artist by working with the performers during the creative process and considering their specific skills and preferences.
http://www.christopherbiggsmusic.com

Robert White is Assistant Professor of Trumpet at Western Michigan University and a member of the Western Brass Quintet. He frequently performs, tours and records with the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Milwaukee and Grand Rapids, as well as the Blossom Festival Orchestra in Cleveland. In addition to the Western Brass Quintet, Robert has also performed as a chamber musician at the Eastern Music Festival and June in Buffalo Festival. In 2016, he was appointed to the artists’ roster of the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings. White was a member of the Charlotte Symphony from 2004–09, and he has appeared as a soloist with the Charlotte Symphony, the Western Michigan University Symphonic Band, the Indiana State University Wind Ensemble, the Indiana University New Music Ensemble and Indiana University Chamber Orchestra. He holds degrees from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University and Western Michigan University.
http://wmich.edu/music/directory/white

Sean Peuquet — What Rough Beast Slouches? (2014–16/11:36)

What Rough Beast… “slouches” toward the musical culmination of various sonic trajectories. Pitch deviation, reverberant space and tempo are some of the most significant sound parameters that appear to shift moment to moment. What first appears to be nuanced, intentional and well-timed sonic events begin to appear as a matter of happenstance. Nuanced juxtapositions turn into complicated, irregular configurations. As new sounds introduce themselves — each following its own logic and complicating the composite sonic image — a growing sense of directionality nevertheless emerges. In attempts to resolve the whole, relative to each voice, we perhaps encounter the non-existence of the whole. And yet, the whole (the composite sound mass) increasingly structures and directs our attention toward the regularities that emerge within each voice. What Rough Beast Slouches? is algorithmic music based on convergent sonic trajectories, the consequence of which forces us to confront our own irruptive, discontinuous and divergent aural attentions.

Sean Peuquet is an independent composer, digital artist, scholar, programmer and music hardware developer based in Denver. He presents his work regularly at national and international venues like SEAMUS, ICMC, NYCEMF, SCI, TIES and EMM. From 2012–14 he held the position of Visiting Professor of Digital Arts at Stetson University while completing his PhD in Music Composition at the University of Florida. He received his MA from Dartmouth College and holds a BA from the University of Virginia. His current research interests include generative music, self-reflexive listening practices and new paths for art as a socio-cultural determinant. In addition to his creative and scholarly work he has co-founded two Denver-area startups: RackFX, which provides a web-based interface for analogue signal processing, and CauseART, a platform for cultivating relationships between artists and businesses.
http://ludicsound.com

Mark Zaki — reFRACTion (2012/7:30)

for violin and live electronics
Mark Zaki, violin

reFRACTion is an object that reflects its own history. Revealed through iterations of fragmented material, its final form is realized through the accretion of layered sound over time. From a simple and transparent opening statement, a foundation is derived which subsequently remains below the surface. Fragments are captured, processed and added to a slowly evolving fabric. There’s no attempt to apprehend any musical narrative directly, the piece only does so in retrospect. The ear chooses between current and past events as histories begin to emerge and compete with one another — often productively, but also in ways that can be unresolved. To a certain extent, reFRACTion could be viewed as metaphor — a palimpsest of existence, where the past is covered up but continues to visibly influence the present.

Building on his many diverse interests, composer and violinist Mark Zaki’s work ranges from historically informed and traditional chamber music to electroacoustic music, mixed-media composition and music for film. He is an associate professor at Rutgers University-Camden, where he is the director of the Music Program and the Rutgers Electro-Acoustic Lab (REAL). In 2012–13, Mark was a visiting professor at the University of Sheffield as the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award to the United Kingdom. He also has served as the president of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS).
http://www.markzaki.com

David Jason Snow — Wake Me When We Get There (2015/4:58)

Video

As British scholar Paul Rennie has noted on his blog BAGDContext, a train journey offers an experience similar to that of cinema: A distanced, voyeuristic platform for observation of the world, and a systemic organization of time and motion. Rennie notes that this experience of being “on track” is both comforting and disconcerting to the passenger, who abandons the autonomies of modernist identity in favour of being driven, provoking a powerful, terrifying sense of the train being unstoppable.

The compositions of David Jason Snow have been performed in concert by the Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the New Juilliard Ensemble at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the American Brass Quintet at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC, and many other artists and ensembles internationally. Snow has been the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, the ASCAP Foundation and BMI, and has been an artist resident at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs and the Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, New York. He holds degrees in music composition from the Eastman School of Music and Yale University where his principal teachers were Joseph Schwantner, Warren Benson, Samuel Adler and Jacob Druckman. He currently resides in New York, where he is a reference librarian at The Juilliard School.
http://www.davidsnowmusic.org

Sundar Subramanian — Locks and Ripples (2013/6:25)

for electric guitar and electronics
Sundar Subramanian, guitar

Locks and Ripples is a notated, loop-based multi-track composition for solo electric guitar with real-time digital processing in the Max for Live software environment, integrating influences from progressive rock and ambient electronic music as well as post-minimalism. Patches that are based on both time-domain and frequency-domain processing are used on the various tracks, many of which were designed by the composer-performer. The composer-performer creates and layers loops on multiple tracks. Finally, E-bowed lead guitar melodies are performed over the layered patterns, with some use of a randomized stutter effect. No synthesizers or external samples are used. The composition of this work was supported by a grant from the Saskatchewan Arts Board.

Sundar Subramanian is a Canadian composer, guitarist, theorist and educator. He is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition and Music Technology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Subramanian has had instrumental compositions performed at numerous venues in North America by performers including the Madawaska String Quartet, Arraymusic, Seth Josel, Christina Petrowska-Quilico, David Mott and William Beauvais. In 2013, he was awarded a grant by the Saskatchewan Arts Board to compose Locks and Ripples, an interactive work for electric guitar with live electronics. From 2013–15, he was involved with the J’Acousmatic electroacoustic concert series in Ottawa. Subramanian completed his PhD in music composition through University at Buffalo (SUNY) in 2011. In 2014, Subramanian was awarded the Luther Brown Prize for an analytical presentation at the International Conference on the Blues. His analytical work has been published in Ex Tempore: A Journal of Compositional and Theoretical Research.
http://sundarsubramanianmusic.wordpress.com

Maxime Corbeil-Perron — Cubic (2016/11:00)

This piece is part of a compositional continuum in which I am looking to blur the limits of certain æsthetic codes. The agglutination of a melodic presence, of referential sound objects and of old vinyl samples drove the work toward an æsthetic influenced as much from the acousmatic idiom than from underground electronic music.

Maxime Corbeil-Perron is a composer and multidisciplinary artist whose work has been noticed by many international competitions and events. His work has been qualified as an “infinite cosmos” (Etherreal, 2015), “pushing the boundaries of abstraction” (Silence and Sound, 2015) and “defying any explanation or labeling” (La Folia, UK, 2015). He composes electroacoustic and mixed-media music, with a compositional approach that is inspired by electronic music, experimental cinema and visual arts.
http://maximecorbeilperron.com