- Date:
- 2020-02-29
- Summary:
- The Ten of Swords Becky Brown the house of the mother of the Heather Mease Artemisia Ben Luca Robertson The Mirrors of Uqbar Juan Carlos Vasquez ~ Intermission ~ nothing but nothing Alex Christie A mexican intervention Ernesto Guzmán to be performed once and never more, on very traditional old european devices, at any usonian educational entity. I. La escritura|bordes|huellas de un cuerpo. II. Anthem/end of the line. III. (Go to I) Masking Songs Daniel Fishkin Science Ficta An ensemble of viola da gamba virtuosi (Doug Balliett, Kivie Cahn- Lipman, Loren Ludwig, and Zoe Weiss), Science Ficta tackles the thorniest polyphonic challenges, old and new. Longtime collaborators and friends, in 2016 the four were inspired to form an ensemble dedicated to music at least as difficult to play as it is to listen to (and hopefully more so!). Science Ficta's arcane but rewarding repertory is comprised both of new commissions and a wealth of little-known sixteenth century works that have been unjustly neglected by modern performers and listeners. Science Ficta's performances seek points of contact between contemporary music and the diverse experimental musical traditions of the late Renaissance pioneered by composers including Christopher Tye, Ferdinando de las Infantas, John Baldwin, and Johann Walter. Science Ficta has premiered new works by Molly Herron, Doug Balliett, and Cleek Schrey and members of the ensemble have performed and collaborated with composers including Donnacha Dennehy, Nico Mulhy, George Benjamin, Ted Coffey, and numerous others. Recent residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute and Cornell and Princeton Universities have allowed Science Ficta to work closely with student performers and composers. Program Notes & Biographies The Ten of Swords The Ten of Swords is a card in the Minor Tarot. It depicts a prone man, ten swords buried in his back, a swath of red draped over his lower body (which could be interpreted as a robe, or his blood, or both). He faces away from the viewer, looking out over a dark lake, towards a distant sunrise. Becky Brown is a composer, harpist, artist, and web designer, interested in producing intensely personal works across the multimedia spectrum. She focuses on narrative, emotional exposure, and catharsis, with a vested interest in using technology and the voice to deeply connect with an audience, wherever they are. the house of the mother of the The House of the Suicide and The House of the Mother of the Suicide are a pair of architectural structures by John Hejduk erected in tribute to the 1969 self-immolation of the Czech dissident Jan Palach whose death was in protest of the 1968 Soviet invasion. Heather Mease makes sound and video! Heather Mease is often both dry and greasy at the same time! What a nightmare!! Artemisia In Artemisia, the composer employs an extended system of 11-Limit just intonation to model the phenomenon of “stretched” octaves and other spectral non-linearities. Contrasting with the simple, harmonic proportions exhibited by most stringed instruments (including the Viol da Gamba), we generally associate such inharmonicity with bells, gongs, and various metallic percussion. However, through the inclusion of high-order just intervals, one may construct ‘hybrid’ sonorities which embody traits of both harmonic and inharmonic timbres. Here, stretched octaves exhibit intervallic displacement equivalent to at least three forms of just commas (81/80, 45/44, 33/32). The cumulative effect for this mode of inharmonic distortion suggests the perception of an altered or otherwise ambiguous fundamental frequency—thus eliciting a sense of movement analogous to ‘Tonal Flux.’ So as to afford the precise transformations in pitch and spectra necessary in generating these phenomena, performers use custom software to process the signals from two electric instruments within the consort. Commensurate to electronic processing, the ensemble also alters the positions of frets on their instruments to accommodate new tuning schemes. From these procedures emerge a continually evolving set of 28 distinct sonorities, which constitute the structure of the piece. Ben Luca Robertson is a composer, experimental luthier, and co- founder of the independent record label, Aphonia Recordings. His work addresses an interest in autonomous processes, landscape, and biological systems—often supplanting narrative structure with an emphasis on the physicality of sound, spectral tuning structures, and microtonality. Ben’s current research focuses upon the intersection between actuated string instrument design and just tuning practices. Growing up in the inland Pacific Northwest, impressions of Ponderosa pine trees, channel scablands, basalt outcroppings, and relics of boomtown decay continually haunt his work. Ben holds an M.A. in Music Composition from Eastern Washington University, a B.A. from the Evergreen State College, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Composition and Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia. In the Summer of 2015, he was appointed to a guest research position at the Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interactions (TAUCHI) in Finland and recently collaborated with biologists from the University of Idaho to sonify migratory patterns of Chinook Salmon in the Snake River watershed. Ben’s work has been featured at New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), Sound-Music Computing Conference (SMC), Northwest Public Broadcasting, MOXsonic, New York Re- embodied Sound Symposium, Third Practice, Magma-fest, and Olympia Experimental Music Festivals. The Mirrors of Uqbar The Mirrors of Uqbar is a piece based on the metaphor of mirrors found in the short story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" by Jorge Luis Borges. In this story, Uqbar was a fictional society where mirrors were feared in an allegory to hyperrealism, aka a simulation that takes over reality. In the piece “The Mirrors of Uqbar”, the electronics reflect and modify the melodic acoustic materials, creating a progressively independent world. Juan Carlos Vasquez is an award-winning composer, sound artist, and researcher. His electroacoustic music works are performed constantly around the world and to date have premiered in 28 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Vasquez has received grants and commissions by numerous institutions, including the ZKM, the International Computer Music Association, the Nokia Research Center, the Ministry of Culture of Colombia, the Arts Promotion Centre in Finland, the Finnish National Gallery, and CW+ in partnership with the Royal College of Music in London, UK. As a researcher, Vasquez’s writings can be found in the Computer Music Journal (MIT Press), Leonardo Music Journal (MIT Press), and the proceedings of all the standard conferences of the field (ICMC, CHI, SMC, and NIME). Vasquez received his education at the Sibelius Academy (FI), Aalto University (FI), and the University of Virginia (US). He has taken workshops with Robert Normandeau, Miller Puckette, Marco Stroppa, Steven Stucky, William Mival, Jonty Harrison and the Eighth Blackbird Ensemble, among others. Vasquez’s music is available in the catalog of Naxos, MIT Press (US), Important Records (US) and Phasma Music (Poland). nothing but nothing I prefer the space of uncommonly occupied hours. Alex Christie makes acoustic music, electronic music, and intermedia art in many forms. His work has been called “vibrant”, “interesting, I guess”, and responsible for “ruin[ing] my day”. He has collaborated with artists in a variety of fields and is particularly interested in the design of power structures, systems of interference, absurdist bureaucracy, and indeterminacy in composition. Recently, Alex’s work has explored the ecology of performance in intermedia art and interactive electronic music. Through real-time audio processing, instrument building, light, and theater, Alex expands performance environments to offer multiple lenses through which the audience can experience the work. Alex has performed and presented at a variety of conferences and festivals whose acronyms combine to spell nicedinsaucesfeeeemmmmmmnortfogascabsplot. Alex serves as faculty, Director of Electronic Music, Director of Composers Forums, and Academic Dean at the Walden School of Music Young Musicians Program. He holds degrees from the Oberlin Conservatory and Mills College and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Composition and Computer Technologies (CCT) at the University of Virginia. A mexican intervention In the second Trattado de Glosas by the composer and music theorist Diego Ortiz (Rome 1553 ca.) probably discovered later by the African- American songwriter J. Alan Bland, an ancient practice of appropriation is depicted as being common for the Viol Consort repertoire. It is a compositional strategy consisting of taking the melody of an anthem and imposing different lyrics. Such technique has been practiced in many of the regional anthems and state songs throughout The Country. A former president of Avon Products removed the lyrics from a traditional song — where a Canadian declares his love to the daughter of the Oneida Chief Shenandoah — replacing them to make the Virginia Regional Anthem. In later apocryphal studies, it is known that in this anthem–as in the one using the phrase Sic Semper Tyrannis–some verses have been lost or omitted. Following this implanting tradition, these forgotten or forbidden verses are used here to create and add a piece to the body of composed anthems for Viola Da Gamba. Ernesto Guzmán is an award loser composer. Strangely and recently intrigued about borders. As if they sculpted the political topographies of objects. Like a form resulting from many exclusions whose objectives do not correspond with the function of the object in question. Masking Songs Contrary to the masking of external sounds, it is possible to abolish the perception of tinnitus sounds by pure tones of a similar intensity regardless of their frequency (Feldmann, 1971). This proves that “masking” of tinnitus does not involve a mechanical interaction of basilar membrane movements, does not depend on the critical band principle and, therefore, has to occur at a higher level within the auditory pathways. Consequently, the elimination of the perception of tinnitus by another sound should be labeled suppression rather than “masking,” as is commonly used. Unfortunately, Feldmann’s fundamental discovery has been widely disregarded, resulting in focusing attention on masking rather than suppression and in producing tinnitus instruments tuned to the dominant perceived pitch of tinnitus. Tinnitus Retraining Therapy, Pawel Jastreboff, 2004 Daniel Fishkin: I build instruments because I want to live in sounds, with music—I don’t want the music to stop at the end of the concert. I daydream of new machines as if they were melodies crossing my mind's ear. I don’t often sell my instruments, though I do share them with my trusted collaborators. I live with my instruments; I am responsible for my creations, and I am always thinking about how much space they take up in my life, as I carry them with me to and fro. I hear their songs ringing in my ears, even as they rest silently across the room.
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- Date:
- 2020-02-21
- Main contributors:
- McIntire Department of Music
- Summary:
- Concert I Friday, February 21, 2020 at 8:00 pm The Bridge PAI featuring Ryoko Akama David Tudor’s Rainforest IV Sound Art Students Violinguistics Three Blind MICE Dark Parts Becky Brown Remembering with Objects Heather Frasch & Ted Coffey Deep Map #1 Michele Zaccagnini Interruptions in an Endless Expanse Max Tfirn (shimatsu) Ryoko Akama Rainforest IV — Sound Art Students Installation by David Tudor 1973 Realized by students of Sound Art in Practice Rainforest IV by David Tudor runs found sounds through found objects. By sending sounds through materials, the resonant nodes of the materials are released, creating a new kind of sound that blends the sounds and objects together. According to Tudor, the concept for the piece grew out of a “dream-vision of an orchestra of loudspeakers, each speaker being as unique as any musical instrument.” The students designed or chose their own objects, decided on which sounds and came to a consensus about placement. Participants are encourage to move around the installation and explore the sounds close up. They can carefully touch the objects to feel the vibrations as well as listen more closely. Violinguistics — Three Blind Mice Violinguistics: Electro-acoustic phonetic reduplication through violin morphologies of formant-shifting nonconcatenative morphemes Dark Parts — Becky Brown A liminal space is a liminal space is a lmnial spa ce i paace A limin s pa li mna space is space is space is a liimin lnaa spi liminal liminal spsp ANimal speci le scepim nillima ellaminis cesna alimin aces laces animal special alleminiam asp case is a kn i. A kn i. A kn i. A liminal spa is ce f. A kni. f. F. F> Remembering with Objects — Ted Coffey & Heather Frasch Duo Coffey and Frasch will realize this text score by Frasch which maps personal connections among memory, places, and self — and the objects that remind us of those things. Deep Map #1 — Michele Zaccagnini The piece is a recent development of a practice I am developing that I named “deep mapping”: deep mapping is an approach that allows the composer to store and render musical data into visuals by “catching” the data at its source, at a compositional stage. The advantages of this approach are: accuracy and discreteness in the representation of musical features; computational efficiency; and, more abstractly, the stimulation of a practice of audiovisual composition that encourages composers to envision their multimedia output from the early stages of their work. In particular, this piece explores ways of rendering synchronicity between same or similar patterns so that when synchronization actually happens, one can experience it not only aurally but visually. Interruptions in an Endless Expanse — Max Tfirn Interruptions in an Endless Expanse is a composition for interactive electronics, including various drone synths, guitar pedals, sequencers, and live coding. The composition takes shape through a series of long, drone sounds that slowly morph into one another. As the piece progresses, new sounds are introduced that break away from what was previously heard culminating in sonic disorder. Interruptions in an Endless Expanse takes its name from the idea of a made-up scenery being endless to the eye. Looking in any direction gives the viewer the same sight. While the environment changes, the endless expanse seems to go unchanged. It is only when the observer takes a deeper look around that the details start to change and the surroundings take a helter-skelter, eldritch turn. (shimatsu) — Ryoko Akama i.e. beginning + ending management dealing settlement cleaning up getting rid of (usually bad) end result This is the fifth of her solo performance series, shimatsu, with contraptions made out of found objects and simple electronic devices, creating a subtle, sometimes violently silent, listening situation.
- Date:
- 2020-02-22
- Summary:
- Concert II Saturday February 22, 2020 at 8:00 pm Old Cabell Hall featuring Olivia Block Zipper Music - Judith Shatin Cameron Church and Nelly Zevitz, zippers Max Tfirn, controller A Chinese Triptych - Juan Carlos Vasquez Sonic Physiography of a Time-Stretched Glacier - Matthew Burtner for percussion and computer, I-Jen Fang, percussion palimpsest | erasedGavotte (Himno de los durmientes II or Los Olvidados) -Omar Fraire Reverie - Leah Reid Locked In - Michele Zaccagnini I-Jen Fang, percussion October, 1984 - Olivia Block Concert II — Program Notes Zipper Music — Judith Shatin Zipper Music is scored for 2 amplified zipper players with interactive electronics performed by either 1 or 2 MIDI controllists, each operating a Max patch. Composer/technologist Max Tfirn created the Max patch in consultation with me, a process with a great deal of delightful experimentation. Zipper Music forms part of my Quotidian Music series, embracing the musicality afforded by everyday objects, and creating accessible opportunities for performers who do not have traditional musical training. The zipper score consists of icons on a time-line grid, with specific symbols for one to four pulls, as well as a variety of symbol groupings and movement indications. There are also theatrical directions for the players as they interact with one another. The controllist(s) score consists of a line on a time-grid, whose thickness LMH (low, medium or high) indicates levels of processing, with additional shapes designed to suggest degree of sharpness and suddenness of knob and slider change. A flat line indicates amplification without further processing. The piece is performable using a wide variety of controllers. Ideally, they should include multiple knobs for each of 4 – 7 sliders plus a master gain slider. However, it can easily be performed with fewer. A Chinese Triptych — Juan Carlos Vasquez A Chinese Triptych was composed with recordings from an extensive sound documentary made by the composer in the Chinese cities of Hangzhou, Suzhou, Shanghai, Wuxi, Harbin, and Beijing. The piece overlaps sonic events from the rural, the industrial, and the digital China in a single flowing musical discourse, attempting to represent the full range of highly contrasting ways of living in China. The piece lasts exactly 6 minutes, a number that is given in China the connotation of events “flowing smoothly.” The form and proportion of the parts are inspired by the triptych, an art format comprised of three thematically-interrelated parts in which the middle panel is usually the largest. Sonic Physiography of a Time-Stretched Glacier — Matthew Burtner Sonic Physiography of a Time-Stretched Glacier (2014) was commissioned by Brandon Bell with support from the Presser Music Award. The music was created from a recording of Alaska’s Root Glacier. The unique and visceral presence of glaciers is disappearing across the planet because we live in a time of ice melting. Sonic Physiography of a Time-Stretched Glacier tries to stop the glacial melt through signal processing by freezing time, suspending the listener between droplets and a single droplet of melting ice. palimpsest | erased Gavotte (Himno de los durmientes II or Los Olvidados) — Omar Fraire As an exercise in the act of destruction as a creative input, I took Bach’s Gavotte en Rondo from the English Suite II and tried to play it as fast as possible, depressing the keys but trying not to hit the strings. This piece was the first one I learned on the piano; the exercise allowed me to realize how our compositional narratives read the tradition. The notion of removing what is supposed to be music, reveals a kind of unwanted sound activity that belongs more to the encounter of my body with the sound object. And of course, some notes appear but more like accidents. Reverie — Leah Reid Reverie is an acousmatic composition that leads the listener through an immersive fantasy centered around deconstructed music boxes. The work is comprised of eight sections that alternate between explorations of the music boxes’ gears and chimes. In the work, the music boxes’ sounds are pulled apart, exaggerated, expanded, and combined with other sounds whose timbres and textures are reminiscent of the original. As the piece unfolds, the timbres increase in spectral and textural density, and the associations become more and more fantastical. Gears are transformed into zippers, coins, chainsaws, motorcycles, and fireworks, and the chimes morph into rainstorms, all sizes of bells, pianos, and more. Locked In — Michele Zaccagnini This piece is written around the idea of rhythms oscillating around regular and irregular pulses. In particular, the different parts are generated by applying the idea of "non-linear sequencing," i.e., distorting the playback of a regular pattern by applying a non-linear time-line. There is no large structure in this piece, rather it is a collection of Etudes. October, 1984 — Olivia Block October, 1984 is a composition for found microcassette tape, electronically processed breath, organelle, field recordings, piano, and descending tones. Each emerging sound follows the envelope of the preceding sound, conveying a circular progression of aural cause and effect. In the logic of this sound world, breath causes a flood of water, piano causes descending tones. These processes accumulate over time into a roiling, unwieldily storm. Many of the lowest sounds are experienced in the body as vibrations. Through the course of sonic events, October, 1984 emphasizes themes related to time, loss, and memory.
