Sonic Circuits VIII

Innova 117

Francis Dhomont (Canada): En Cuerdas

Preston Wright (AK): Carpenter Ant Blues

Malte Steiner (Germany): Draht Welt

Antun Blazinovic (Croatia): Elements

John von Seggern (Hong Kong): Hyper Erhu

Michael Kosch (NY): Colatudes

Philip Mantione (NY): Sinusoidal Tendencies

Katherine Gordon (NY): Holding Patterns

David Jaggard (France): Mary & Ann

Francis Dhomont

En Cuerdas

En Cuerdas is the acousmatic version of a work for guitar and tape co-written by the guitarist Arturo Parra and myself; but it is completely independent from the instrumental version. Its sonic environment however remains that of strings that are plucked, rubbed and struck, made virtual and transformed by computer processes and expanded by the use of "electroacoustic writing".

I wish to thank Arturo Parra, as well as the INA-GRM who were kind enough to make the SYTER studio available to me. En Cuerdas won lst Prize at the "EAR 1999 Electroacoustic Music Competition", Hungarian Radio, Budapest, Hungary, and was a prizewinner at the Second International Contemporarv Music Contest "Citta di Udine", Italy, 1998. The piece was commissioned by Arturo Parra and realized with the assistance of the Canada Council. It was premiered on May 15th, 1998 during the International Festival Musique Actuelle Victoriaville (Quebec, Canada). -SACEM, France. “En cuerdas" is also released on empreintes DIGITALes compact disc produced by DIFFUSION iMeDIA

Francis Dhomont (b.Paris, 1926) is a leading French and Canadian acousmatic composer. Five-time winner at the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France)— where he was awarded the "Magisterium prize" in 1988—he has received a 2nd prize at the Prix Ars Electronica '92 and numerous international distinctions and awards (in 1999, five 1st Prizes: Sao-Paulo, Budapest, Praga, Valencia, and Pescara). Since 1978, he has divided his time between France and Quebec, where he has taught electroacoustic composition at the Universite de Montreal.

fdhomont@mlink.net

Preston Wright

Carpenter Ant Blues

Carpenter Ant Blues was composed in a tiny computer studio in Saint Paul, Minnesota, from samples of PVC pipe, plastic diet coke bottles, pots and pans filled with water, flower pots, metal signs, a variety of Latin, Chinese, African and Native American percussion, and Korg's physically modeled Wavedrum. It was sequenced in Cubase VST and processed in Kyma.

Preston Wright is a self taught musician/artist/computer hack who works outside the commercial and artistic mainstream, and supports his habits by working odd seasonal jobs in New Orleans and Alaska. He is currently working on a full length album with Yu 'pik storyteller Jack Dalton of Anchorage.

preston_wright@hotmail.com

John von Seggern

Hyper Erhu

'Hyper Erhu' is an unfolding of musical possibilities inherent in a short sample of erhu (Chinese violin) playing recorded on my laptop computer at a rehearsal in Hong Kong. Every sound in this piece except for the pulsating bass drum was created by applying various software-based transformations to the same erhu sample and then creating larger shapes and structures out of the resultant sounds. I think of this more as a process of exploration and discovery rather than self-expression, and I am constantly surprised by the sounds I find when composing via this method.

John von Seggern is a performer and composer based in Hong Kong. He is currently active as an mp3/computer DJ with his band Digital Cutup Lounge [http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com]. Together with fellow laptop DJ Stephen Ives, John uses computers to mix together dance tracks, ambient noise, jazz solos, Internet radio broadcasts and music from all over the globe, following a massive multicultural collision course with our hyperaccelerated future. John and Stephen frequently perform together with live musicians as well, exploring the possibilities of human/computer improvisation.

John is also a graduate student in music at the University of Hong Kong, where he is doing thesis research on mp3s, online music, and the far-reaching effects the Internet is likely to have on the future development of music and the music business.

johnvon@digitalcutuplounge.com

Katherine Gordon

Holding Patterns

Holding Patterns slowly circles an unknown destination, waiting indefinitely for the signal to descend. Fragmented streams of encoded information are intercepted, embedded in waves of AM static and radio transmissions. Riding evanescent currents, the sounds give the sense of both stasis and turbulence, as they gradually emerge and then dissipate into the air.

Katherine Gordon makes electronic music for recordings and live performance. Her work ranges from abstract, textural soundscapes to song-like pieces that express an idea more directly through text. A recording of these text-oriented pieces is scheduled to be released by 2001. She is finishing a degree in Music Composition as well as a degree in Philosophy at Oberlin College and Conservatory, where she has studied with John Luther adams, Pauline Oliveros, and Brenda Hutchinson. Her next project is a multimedia installation piece centered on themes of technology and existential angst.

katherine.miller@oberlin.edu

Michael Kosch

Colatudes

Colatudes is three short musique concrete studies: "Barranca", "Djibouti", and "Vienna". The sound sources are empty Coca-Cola cans, bottles (plastic and glass of various sizes), and bottle caps (plastic and metal), recorded using a four-track variable-speed cassette deck. The composer performed all the parts, which he overdubbed, equalized, and remixed extensively. Colatudes premiered in December 1994 as music for the dance Three Things, choreographed and performed by Rachael Milder at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, New York City.

Michael Kosch's music has been performed by the Saint Paul Orchestra, the Maelstrom Percussion Ensemble, Zeitgeist, the Buffalo New Music Ensemble, and his own group, UNSTUCKE, and has been featured at such venues as the Kitchen, Roulette, the Alternative Museum, and the Walker Art Center. He has received awards from the Bush Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, and Meet the Composer. He was born in Paterson, New Jersey and attended the University of Miami and the University of Illinois, where his teachers included Ben Johnston, Salvatore Martirano, and Dennis Kam. He lives in New York City.

Philip Mantione

Sinusoidal Tendencies

Philip Mantione is a New York City-based composer who has written music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, multi-media performance art, experimental video, computer interactive projects, and sound installations. His piece, Radiator, can be heard on the CEC (Canadian Electroacoustic Community) web site as part of Radiophonic Works of Long Duration. You can visit his website at http://www.geocities.com/philmantione/

"I am interested in the architecture of a piece and in exploring listener derived models of form. I randomly juxtapose discrete sections of equal duration in time. Each section is a mini-drone that evolves slowly until it is abruptly interrupted by the next. Without an imposed formal template or narrative, the listener is free to enjoy a structure based on perceived activity and the "interestingness" of individual sections. Having used this approach successfully in Radiator with sample-based material, I decided to explore the use of sine waves (the original seeds of electronic music). Manipulation was limited to amplitude variation, time expansion/compression, and varying the number of sine waves used at any given moment."

manti@earthlink.net

Antun Toni Blazinovic

Elements

[need program note for the piece]

I was born in 1965 in Croatia. I made the decision to become a professional musician in 1990, during the war in Croatia. I have participated in some twenty CDs, both as composer and performer. In public, I am mostly present in company with my band “Only Bass And Drum". I am also the owner of the music label "ARION" specializing in experimental, alternative and film music. In l999 I won two Croatian music awards for "PORIN", in the film and theatre music categories. I am currently preparing a poly-rhythmic ethnic-drum & bass project for European and World markets.

obad1@yahoo.com

Malte Steiner

Draht Welt

Drahtwelt is a computer-based piece made with csound. The peaks of a prerecorded stochastic soundsample excite a complex network of virtual strings. The results of the waveguides are later filtered, reverbed and composed into a whole piece. Drahtwelt was produced in my own studio and premiered in Cuba in March 2000 on the 'Spring In Havana' festival for electroacoustic music.

Malte Steiner began making electronic music in 1983, initially as a background for his own performances and environments. Several music projects followed, such as 'Das Kombinat' and 'Elektronengehirn' which were released on CD. Steiner also does digital art and 3D videos, computer programming, and constructs sound installations with custom-built equipment. The next projects besides a new CD album are a series of installations with Das Kombinat in different places and some new sound software.

steiner@block4.com

David Jaggard

Mary and Ann

"Mary and Ann" is based on a text taken from Samuel Beckett's novel "Watt". The composition was made over a two-year period at the Sonology Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands, using a hodgepodge of old-fashioned analogue equipment dating back to the 1950s. I supplemented the ring modulator, variable speed tape recorder, low-pass filter and 45-pound sinewave generator with a sound effects disc from the public library, the in-house telephone, my housemate’s guitar, some handmade musical toys, and the toilet in the third floor men’s room. Thanks to John Calder Publications Ltd., London, for their kind permission to use this text.

David Jaggard was born in 1954 and grew up in a small town in Iowa. He studied composition with James Sellars, and in 1980 moved to Europe to work in electronic and computer music. His "Elastic Tango" for piano has been recorded by Ursula Oppens and Yvar Mikhashoff. David Jaggard is the author of "Quorum of One", a humor site on the World Wide Web.

djaggard@choppingedge.com