Category: Concert

Innovative pipe organ music in Hamburg

A new pipe organ has just been installed in the St. Johannis Harvestehude church in Hamburg, where the organist is keen to combine the organ with electronic instruments. In addition to several other interesting features, the new organ has speakers installed on the side and the organist has installed a half-size Continuum fingerboard on top of the console.

On Sunday, March 22, 2015, 19:00, two award-winning organists—Wolfgang Zerer of Hamburg and Franz Danksagmüller of Lübeck will present the inaugural concert on the new Mühleisen / Marcussen organ.  To celebrate the combination of tradition and innovation reflected in this new instrument, the program will be presented in two halves: Tradition performed by Zerer, and after the intermission, Innovation presented by Danksagmüller.  The full concert will be recorded by the NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk).

Danksagmüller, a longtime Kyma user and organizer of KISS2015 in Lübeck, will be placing microphones inside the organ and doing live Kyma transformations of the sound as well as controlling the organ via MIDI and a four-step sequencer in Kyma.  The program for the second half of the concert is:

  • Franz Danksagmüller: Sphaera
  • John Cage: Souvenir and Fontana Mix
  • Franz Danksagmüller: Improvisation
  • Franz Danksagmüller: machine organ

Admission is € 10 (with open seating) and you can get advance tickets at the box office

EZUFFPP#6 Film Festival in New York

opus caementiciumOpus Caementicium, a short, abstract cinematic ode to concrète by Karin Schomaker with a Kyma generated score by Roland Kuit will be screened in New York on March 13, 2015 at EZUFFPP#6 NY— a festival bridging experimental architecture, experimental film, and experimental music at Spectrum Space in NYC.

Described as “an experience of form, light, surface, sound and movement,” Opus Caementicium is “an attempt to transcend the mere material.” For the soundtrack, Kuit uses the Slipstick synthesis module to create pulses that are frequency modulated and fed into a Resonator Bank. These reflections of sound are then Time/Frequency shaped to create a beautiful concrete sound/music environment.

EZUFF is different kind of film festival that spans objective and subjective realms and bridges gaps among different scholarly traditions. They see horizons not boundaries. EZUFF is a ‘projectivist’ project playing with ideas of:

  • the projection of moving images – the film medium
  • the idea that the projections of moving image could be related to (or used as a pretext to address) actual & future ‘projections’ of the city/urban life

Using short experimental movies to make a link between contemporary urban forms of expression/representation and the political imagination for the city of today, EZUFF is about oblique ways to dig into present day urban cultures and imagine alternatives for the cities of tomorrow

aroundNorth around Northern Ireland

If the stars were a musical instrument, how would they sound? As the Earth spins on its axis, and day becomes night becomes day, our view on the near universe changes as reflected by the changing positions of the stars in the sky. One star appears to stay stationary (the North Star); and the rest take about 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds to complete one complete revolution. Robert Jarvis’ aroundNorth is an eight-channel sound installation created entirely in Kyma 7 that offers listeners an opportunity to hear this phenomenon in real time. As each star crosses one of the equally spaced virtual lines emanating from Celestial North Pole, a sound associated with that star and its characteristics is heard at the corresponding position in the sky, its size, its distance from Earth, its brightness and its temperature, creating a mesmerizing sound map of the universe as viewed by our turning planet.

aroundNorth, will be touring Northern Ireland throughout the month of March 2015, culminating in the work’s permanent installation at Armagh Observatory. The tour begins on the shores of Lough Neagh, at Oxford Island, the first Dark Sky site in Northern Ireland, proceed to the top of Divis & the Black Mountain National Trust Park, and then on to Armagh. The installation will also travel to Colin Allotments in West Belfast before travelling to Derry for a special performance to coincide with the deep partial eclipse of the sun on the morning of Friday 20th March 2015. There will then be an evening performance in the sports grounds at St Cecila’s College before the final event at the spectacular Beaghmore Stones complex, near Cookstown in County Tyrone.

By mapping the parameters of the stars through the medium of sound, aroundNorth changes the way we think about our stellar neighbors. As stars move across the score’s virtual lines, brighter stars sound longer, fading in and fading out as they move across the score’s virtual lines, while fainter stars sound shorter; stars that are closer sound louder; hotter stars crackle corresponding to their heat; and, bigger stars sound deeper whilst smaller stars are higher sounding.

aroundNorth humanizes the astronomical, giving us an emotional key to help us relate the unfathomable heavens to our own experiences of time and space. With echoes of a Neolithic monument of ancient myth, the installation introduces us to a universe full of interest, encouraging us to think differently about the cosmos and our place within it.

Scroll down for a full schedule of when and where you can experience aroundNorth this month.

THU 12
Lough Neagh Discovery Centre, Oxford Island, Craigavon BT66 6NJ
FREE 7pm – 9pm

SAT 14
Divis & the Black Mountain, Divis Road, Hannahstown BT17 0NG
FREE 6.30pm – 9pm (Approx 20 minute walk to installation area)

TUE 17
Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG
FREE 2.30pm – 4pm

WED 18
Colin Allotments, Upper Colin Glen Rd, Belfast BT17 0LR
FREE 7pm – 9pm

THU 19
Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG
FREE 2.30pm – 4pm

FRI 20
St Cecilia’s College Sports Ground, Fanad Drive, Derry BT48 9QE
FREE 7pm – 9pm

SAT 21
Beaghmore Stones, Blackrock Road, Cookstown BT80 9PB
FREE 6pm – 9pm (Visitors required to walk over rough ground)

MON 23 & EVERY MON, TUE, WED, THU & FRI until further notice
Armagh Observatory, College Hill, Armagh BT61 9DG
FREE 9.30am – 5pm

Gualtieri’s BTF-3 performed in Naples

Vincenzo Gualtieri’s new work—(BTF-3), for Bass recorder, larsen-tones and Kyma—was performed for the first time with Tommaso Rossi playing bass recorder on November 16th 2014 in Naples as part of a concert at the MADRE Museum (Museo d’Arte contemporanea Donna Regina -> Donna REgina contemporary Art Museum), where it was performed in a room containing the site-specific work Spirits by Rebecca Horn.

Gualtieri BTF-3 side view

An adaptive/site-specific digital system with an ecological approach, (BTF-3) stands for BackToForward-3rd and is based on an array of granulators arranged in series with a feedback loop frame. The work was performed again in Padua at the Pollini Conservatory.  Although there is no recording of BTF-3 yet, in BTF-4 you can hear a similar system, also implemented in Kyma, performed in this case with tenor sax.
Gaultieri BTF3

Di Scipio’s work featured in Forms of Sound Festival

Agostino Di Scipio is the featured composer/scholar/sound artist at the Forms of Sound Festival in Calgary 29-31 January 2015.  Featured works include:

  • Modes of Interference n.3 (2007) by Agostino Di Scipio
    • Autonomous feedback system for electric guitars & Kyma
    • open daily in the CIBC Hub Room (Rozsa Centre)
  • Two Pieces of Listening and Surveillance (2009-2010) by Agostino Di Scipio
    • Autonomous sound-generating system with flute and live Kyma electronics
    • August Murphy, flute
  • Agostino Di Scipio 2 sound pieces with repertoire string music and live Kyma electronics

 

Organic sound, Bach, Lübeck, Kyma, and KISS2014

IMG_3339

Everyone knows J.S. Bach as a composer, but it turns out he was also a music-technology enthusiast and a sound designer, having spent many hours of his childhood hanging out at the local organ workshop, fascinated with what was the state of the art in sound synthesis technology. Throughout his life, Bach continued to support experimental musical instrument development (like the forte-piano and the bassono grosso) and his experience with the organ (aka additive synthesis), led him to experiment with creating new timbres in his instrumental music through unusual voicings and instrument combinations. In fact it was his technical expertise, as much as his mastery of organ performance, that landed him his first post at the New Church in Arnstadt, where, at age 18, he was hired to both play and maintain the organ there.

Kungsleden_trailIn October 1705, the then 20 year-old Bach requested a one-month leave of absence from his post in Arnstadt so he could visit the famed organist/composer Dieterich Buxtehude in Lübeck Germany. Obviously, Bach didn’t have a car, so he ended up walking the 250 miles to Lübeck, where he was so intrigued by what he heard, he stayed for an extra two months. We don’t know exactly what happened to Bach in Lübeck, but we do know the experience had a deep influence on both his music and his ideas for new instrument designs throughout the rest of his career.

On 25-28 September 2014, we invite you to undertake your own music-technology and sound-design pilgrimage to Lübeck for KISS2014. At KISS2014, you can immerse yourself in sound and ideas, surrounded by an international community of sound-technology enthusiasts who share your passion for sound, music, and the future of musical instruments. And, like Bach, you’ll return home refreshed, renewed, and with enough new ideas, contacts, and friendships to keep you motivated and inspired for your entire career.

Whether you’re a Kyma expert, new to Kyma, or are simply curious about what Kyma might be and why it inspires so much enthusiasm among composers, live performers, sound designers for film and games, researchers, and educators, KISS2014 is your opportunity to experience an inspiring four days of ideas, music, and interaction with your fellow music/technology/sound enthusiasts.

Registration open until 25 September 2014

Registration includes access to paper sessions, demonstrations, workshops, the Kyma open lab, opening reception and all evening concerts, plus a free lunch with your fellow symposiasts each day: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com/kiss2014-registration

For travel and lodging information, please visit: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com/travel-and-lodging

More information

Get the latest KISS2014 news and updates:

KISS2014 Site: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kyma-International-Sound-Symposium/241910735840451
Twitter: http://twitter.com/KymaSymposium

Contact the organizers: mailto:info.kiss2014@gmail.com

 

Roland Kuit in Stockholm, New York, Edinburgh

Composer/researcher/sound designer Roland Kuit is currently composer-in-residence at the EMS in Stockholm working on a project that combines their Buchla 400 with Kuit’s Kyma/Pacarana system.

He is also at work creating new pieces for Pacarana and Chicago based composer/conductor Renee Baker‘s Chicago Symfonietta to be premiered in New York this fall, and you can hear him lecture on modular sound design for TV and games the Napier University in Edinburgh in February 2015.  Check out his full calendar here.

Making people

In Garth Paine‘s new interactive Kyma work, CrossTalk, created in collaboration with Simon Biggs and Sue Hawksley, the text is automatically transcribed from the dancers’ speech as they describe inner body sensations and their relationship to the system. Later, the dancers collide with the sentences and the system generates a new language which they then dance, and so on. Watch as the printed sentences take the form of dancing stick figures projected on the back walls:

The creators describe it as an auto poetic system for making behaviors based on the anthropological idea of “making people” as described in their paper published in MOCO the Proceedings of International Workshop on Movement and Computing at IRCAM.

In July Garth presented an entire evening of his music (all composed and performed with Kyma) at the Skopja Summer Festival in Macedonia.

From Organs to Organs — KISS2014: Organic Sound

Workshops, Talks, and Live Performances on “Organic Sound”

From organs (biological) to organs (musical), this year’s Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS2014), to be held in Lübeck Germany on 25-28 September 2014, will explore multiple meanings of the phrase “organic sound” through technical talks, live performances, and hands-on workshops. Sound designers, composers, and live performers are invited to participate in a wide range of thought-provoking activities including:

  • An examination of how to emulate the organic sound of the analog recording studio using Kyma, presented by composer/sound engineer Greg Hunter of Dub Sahara
  • A special evening of “pipe organs like you’ve never heard them before” in the experimental, virtuosic hands of master organist/composer Franz Danksagmüller and his students
  • Intensive afternoons in The Collaboratory creating and rehearsing several world premieres including a live sound track for a new film by experimental filmmaker Theo Lipfert performed by faculty and students of the Musikhochschule Lübeck processed through Kyma
  • A hands-on “plantification” workshop where you’ll learn from Rudi Giot and his graduate engineering students how to control Kyma sounds through the growth of living plants

Events will kick off on Thursday with the unveiling of a major new release of the Kyma software and will culminate on Sunday with an evening of dancing to Kyma beats at club Parkhaus. The full program is online at: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com/detailed-program

Stummfilmprojekt

About the Symposium

KMHHosted this year by Franz Danksagmüller and the Musikhochschule Lübeck, each morning of KISS2014: “Organic Sound” features technical/philosophical sessions on topics ranging from voice processing, to sonification of organic chemicals and the Internet, to organic growth and decay, to how to build your own performance controller and use it to control Kyma via OSC, to presentations by individual composer/performers detailing how they utilize Kyma in their live performances and installations.

Afternoons are dedicated to interaction and hands-on activities including open rehearsals of collaborations-in-progress in The Collaboratory, a workshop on Conduction ensemble improvisation techniques presented by London Improvisers Orchestra trombonist and Kymaist Robert Jarvis, and the Kyma Open Lab where Kyma experts (Jeffrey Stolet, Cristian Vogel, Bruno Liberda, Scott Miller, Kurt Hebel, Carla Scaletti and others) will be on hand to answer your questions and consult with you on your current projects.

Franz foreground recording two percussionist

This year’s KISS features more live performances than ever before, with concerts every evening showcasing some of the best work created in Kyma this year, presented in the acoustically perfect MHL Große Saal and the Jakobikirche Lübeck with its three historically important pipe organs, famously decorated with faces on every pipe.

Check out the exciting lineup of presenters, composers, performers and Kyma experts here.

Who should attend

organ pipesAnyone who lives for sound — whether you are a novice looking to kickstart your career, an expert seeking a fresh jolt of inspiration, or simply someone who is curious about sound and Kyma — you will find in KISS2014 a chance to meet kindred spirits and immerse yourself in sound and ideas for four intense and inspiring days and nights of non-stop discussions, interactions, music and sound design.

Here’s how Chicago-based sound designer and re-recording mixer, Dustin Camilleri (http://www.pulsetrain.net) describes his experience at a previous KISS:

“…The unique thing about Kyma, I find, is that it appeals to such a wide spectrum of people doing such an amazingly diverse set of things, but sharing a common language. The conversations I had were so incredibly inspiring; the performances I saw were just over the top, and the community at large was just some of the nicest most genuine people I’ve ever had the pleasure of spending some time with.”

Registration and travel

Registration is now open: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com/kiss2014-registration. Discounts are available for students and for anyone registering before 1 August 2014.

For travel and lodging information, please visit: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com/travel-and-lodging

More information

Stay apprised of the latest KISS2014 news:

KISS2014 Site: http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kyma-International-Sound-Symposium/241910735840451
Twitter: http://twitter.com/KymaSymposium

Contact the organizers: mailto:info.kiss2014@gmail.com