Yasuski goes wireless

Yasuski is performing a series of completely wireless gigs, opening for Crome Molybdan at Akasaka Red Theater in Tokyo and later in Osaka at Umeda HEP Hall.  He’s using AKG wireless audio, WiFi/MIDI by XBee modules, and the iPad. Concerned that all his wireless audio might interfere with each other around 2.4GHz, he discovered that his laptop PC can change its WiFi frequency to ~5GHz to avoid mutual interference.

Check out Yasuski’s blog for videos from the live performances.

Scott Miller performing live Kyma with O’Keefe & Nakatani

On Friday, March 15 at Studio Z, Pat O’Keefe will present the premiere performance of Contents May Differ, a new work for clarinet and Kyma composed (and co-performed) by Scott Miller.  Also on the program are new works for clarinet by Ann Millikan, Brett Warchow, Jeff Lambert, Paul Cantrell and Pat O’Keefe himself. Wine, cheese and a selection of sweets can only add to the evening’s sensual delights.

Pat O’Keefe in Concert at Studio Z
Friday, March 15 at 7:30 pm
Studio Z
275 East 4th Street, Suite 200, St. Paul, Minnesota USA
Admission: $10

 


Then on Tuesday, March 19, in St. Cloud, Scott Miller is performing a live Kyma set with Tatsuya Nakatani, who’s been described as “the Jimi Hendrix of the percussion world“:

Tatsuya Nakatani, percussion & Scott Miller, Kyma
Tuesday, March 19, 8:00 pm
Gant Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
St. Cloud State University
FREE and open to the public

Concert of Di Scipio works at Sonorities Festival

A full concert of works by Agostino Di Scipio is to be featured as part of the Sonorities Festival in Belfast on 26 April 2013.

  • AUDIBLE ECOSYSTEMICS n.1 live electronics
  • PAYSAGE HISTORIQUE n.4 (New York. Background Media Noise), taped sounds and electronics
  • MODES OF INTERFERENCE n.1, audio feedback system with trumpet and electronics
  • 2 PEZZI DI ASCOLTO E SORVEGLIANZA, live electronics
  • Luigi Nono POST-PRE-LUDIUM PER DONAU, tuba and electronics Giacinto Scelsi PEZZI PER TROMBA SOLA

Jonathan Impett is performing trumpet and tuba and Agostino Di Scipio is performing the Kyma electronics.

Free range trombone in the Veg Box

Composer/trombonist Robert Jarvis. Photo by Andy Newcombe.

Find out why Sam Bailey, pianist and organizer of the Free Range experimental music and poetry series at the Veg Box in Canterbury, introduces this performance as “Robert Jarvis, improvising trombone, and the most intelligent & unpredictable computer software that improvises that I’ve ever heard!”

 

If you close your eyes, you’d swear Jarvis is performing with a large ensemble of acoustic and electronic performers; rest assured there’s no one on stage but Robert, his trombone, and Kyma, “fueled,” as Bailey puts it, “by this crazy supercomputer called the Pacarana.”

Opening with orchestral-sounding atmospherics, travelling through rainforests of birds and squealing mammals, proceeding through monochromatic regions of percussive air bursts and the rhythmic tolling of bell-like noises, through rhythmic loops, reflective self-examination, and interludes of music worthy of a TV action drama sound track, evolving into dance-like counterpoint with bubbly sine waves, and building to a dramatic high point at around 28 minutes, Jarvis is a master of pacing, variety, and narrative structure.  That first climax dissolves into growling timbres that morph into wailing whale-song, building to another percussive high point at around 31 minutes, followed by elephantine, broadband timbres that relentlessly build back up only to sublimate into an ethereal sustained section with mandolin-like multipluck synthetic doubling. Centering on D, building tension around a B-flat-E tritone, he launches into a solo cadenza around 42 minutes.  After the frenetic energy and drama, the piece ends slowly and reflectively, followed by seemingly endless applause and clinking of glasses and, last but not least, a lively post-concert discussion.

Your next chance to catch a live performance by Robert Jarvis is later in March when he’ll appear as a special guest of Burning Wood on Saturday 23rd at Creek Creative, Faversham.

IN SICH(T) emerging

On composer Bruno Liberda’s blog, you can actually witness the evolution of a new composition. “IN SICH(T)”, Liberda’s new site-specific piece, in the process of being written for Max Hegele’s memorial chapel in Vienna, includes performers who, in addition to playing their instruments, will be “playing the space”, exploring and transforming the many-seconds long natural reverberation and other acoustic characteristics of the highly reflective dome.

Follow along as Liberda adapts and expands the piece and develops his own notation specific to the space, and be sure to save the date of the premiere performance: April 20 2013.

Voice as Controller: Music of Andrea Young

Andrea Young will be performing her newest compositions for voice and Kyma at CalArts California Institute of the Arts, 8 pm, February 13, 2013, as part of a presentation of her research into vocal feature extraction and its application to controlling live electronics in Kyma. The concert begins with a work for solo voice that exemplifies the parametic counterpoint singing techniques used to feed the unruly algorithms presented in the following works. Noise and oscillators are controlled by the voice, while contact mics and miniature mics make use of the differentiation between signals as yet another source of sound and musical data control.

The concert will also be streamed live via the ROD Webcast.

New Year’s Day with JPJ

On 1 January 2013, Fiona Talkington celebrates the New Year on BBC Radio 3 with special guest, multi-instrumentalist and Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones performing live in the BBC’s Maida Vale studios. On this special New Year’s installment of Talkington’s Late Junction, Jones plays acoustic piano, lap steel ukulele, and Kyma-processed electric mandolin and lap steel guitar.  The show will air Tuesday, 1 January 2013 at 23:00 on BBC Radio 3 (after which it will be archived on the website for one week).  Happy New Year!

 

Sonic Screens Milan

U.S.O. Project (Matteo Milani, Federico Placidi), in collaboration with O’ and Die Schachtel, present Sonic Screens, a concert of live electro-acoustic music on Saturday, December 1st at 8:00 pm.  Featuring premieres of two live Kyma pieces— Two Sound Pieces with Repertoire String Music by Agostino Di Scipio and Time Capsule by Federico Placidi.

Featuring sound spatialization, live interaction between electronics and performers, and including the venue itself as part of the interaction, the event will take place at O’ on Via Pastrengo 12 in Milan, Italy (5 €), with Matteo Milani as sound director. O’ is a non-profit organization that promotes various languages of art ​​through exhibitions, lectures, concerts, labs, performances and publications.

 

Jeff Stolet & Chi Wang open for Musicacoustica-Beijing Festival

Chi Wang at opening ceremony of Musicacoustica-Beijing (Xinhua/Luo Xiaoguang)

Two live electronic pieces for Kyma and game controllers were selected to be a part of the opening ceremonies for this year’s Musicacoustica Beijing festival on October 22, 2012: Chi Wang’s Sound Motion for Kyma and Kinect and Jeffrey Stolet’s Lariat Rituals for and Kyma and Gametrak controller.

Wang Chi’s Sound Motion is a multichannel interactive composition that utilizes Processing to analyze data captured from the user’s movement in space; that data stream is then used to control recorded, synthesized, and modified sound in Kyma.

In Jeffrey Stolet’s Lariat Rituals, fine positioning of the Gametrak in 3-space controls formants and other parameters of a synthesized male voice (as seen in this video).

Following the festival Stolet and Wang spent two weeks presenting seminars and lectures on Kyma at conservatories throughout China.

Jeffrey Stolet performs Lariat Rituals at KISS2012 in St Cloud MN