Conference – the eighth nerve

Audio Developer Conference 2024

Carla Scaletti, creator of the Kyma language and co-founder of Symbolic Sound, was invited to present the closing keynote for the 2024 Audio Developer Conference in Bristol, UK on 13 November 2024.

Scaletti spoke about strategies for exploring the boundary between the known and the unknown through “recursive construction” and reminded software developers that the risky kinds of thinking required for creating something truly new are best supported by facing the unknown together.

She also touched on some of the design decisions behind the Kyma Sound (why it is a function, rather than a wiring diagram), the ways in which a user-interface defines an explorable universe of computable sound, the influence of programming languages on what you can imagine and create, and the co-evolution of the Kyma hardware and software.

An annual event celebrating all audio development technologies, from music applications and game audio to audio processing and embedded systems, ADC’s mission is to help attendees acquire and develop new skills, and build a network that will support their career development. It also showcases academic research and facilitates collaborations between research and industry. ADC will begin releasing videos of the ADC 2024 presentations on YouTube, beginning in 2025.

Kyma developers at ADC in Bristol

Symbolic Sound co-founders Carla Scaletti and Kurt Hebel will be participating in the Audio Developer Conference in Bristol, UK 11-13 November 2024. The conference offers both in-person and online options. An online, pre-conference event called ADCx Gather on 1 November 2024 is free and open to the public.

Carla was asked to wrap up the conference with a closing keynote presentation entitled Sonic Cartography: how audio developers help us navigate the abstract space-time of sound and music (including a few insights into the underlying philosophy of Kyma).

Read the abstract of the talk here.

Musicacoustica 2024

Future Music Oregon composers — past and present — brought their signature brand of live interactive electronic music performance to the Musicacoustica Hangzhu 2024 conference in September.

Characterized by custom controllers, exceptional Kyma sound design, live interactive graphics, and virtuosic stage presence, their performances left a lasting impression on the audience of fellow electroacoustic music composers. So much so, that rumor has it that the University of Oregon Summer Academy for electronic music (on hiatus due to pandemic disruptions) may resume this summer, opening the door to future collaborations among US and Chinese musicians.

Some highlights follow (photos, courtesy of Musicacoustica Hangzhu):

“Realm” composed and performed by Fang WAN, professor at Hangzhou Conservatory of Music

“Summoner” for Leap Motion and custom software created with Max and Kyma, composed and performed by Mei-ling Lee, professor at Haverford College

“Balance” for Kyma, Max, and GameTrak composed and performed by Jeffrey Stolet, professor at University of Oregon

“Dimension reduction approach in the context of real time sound synthesis” a talk by Chi WANG, professor at Indiana University

“Beyond Landscape” for contact microphone, Dry Garden, and Kyma, composed and performed by Tao LI, doctoral student at University of Oregon

“Fusion of Horizons” for Nintendo Ring-Con, Joy-Con, Max & Kyma, composed & performed by Chi WANG, professor at Indiana University

“Developing Musical Intuition as a Pathway for Creating Artificial Intelligence Models” a talk by Jeffrey Stolet, professor at University of Oregon

Gametrak Trio: Jeffrey Stolet performs with his former graduate students, Fang WAN (currently professor at Hangzhu Conservatory CN) and Chi WANG (currently professor at Indiana University)

Sounding the ocean

In June 2024, Jon Bellona presented a paper at the 2024 International Conference on Auditory Display in Troy, NY on behalf of the NSF-funded Accessible Oceans project team. The paper, Iterative Design of Auditory Displays Involving Data Sonifications and Authentic Ocean Data, outlines their auditory display framework and their use of Kyma for all of their data sonification. Program with links to all papers are accessible online at https://icad2024.icad.org/program/

During the presentation, Jon played the full 2015 Axial Seamount Eruption. When an audience member asked about his use of earcon wrappers around each sonification, Jon shared a story about how his interviews with teachers at Perkins School for the Blind led him to include this feature.

In the coming year, Bellona plans to continue his work doing sonification with Kyma as part of a new project funded through NOAA: A Sanctuary in Sound: Increasing Accessibility to Gray’s Reef Data through Auditory Displays with Jessica Roberts, director of the Technology-Integrated Learning Environments (TILEs) Lab at Georgia Tech.

Willful Devices in Dublin

Composer Scott Miller’s Kyma control surface

Ecosystemics — the guiding principle for much of composer Scott L. Miller’s work over past two decades, constitutes an ecological approach to composition in which form is a dynamic process that is intimately tied to the ambience of the space in which the music occurs. In a live ecosystemic environment, Kyma Sounds are parametrically coupled with the environment via sound. As Miller explains in his two-part article for INSIGHTs magazine — Ecosystemic Programming and Composition:

In ecosystemic music, change in the sonic environment is continuously measured by Kyma with input from microphones. This change produces data that is mapped to control the production of sound. Environmental change may be instigated by performers, audience members, sound produced by the computer itself, and the ambience of the space(s) in general.

Sam Wells and Adam Vidiksis, collaborators on Miller’s new album of telematic ecosystemic music, Human Capital, describe performing with Miller’s Kyma environments as “like interacting with a living entity”.

On 2 August 2024, Scott will be joined by clarinetist Pat O’Keefe to perform as Willful Devices (a clarinet plus Kyma duo) at ClarinetFest in Dublin.

Collaborators since 2003, the duo’s name derives from the fact that both of them manipulate devices — one a clarinet, one a computer — to generate music. And that, despite their best efforts, these devices are never fully under their control, at times almost seeming to have a mind of their own. Rather than bemoaning this fact, Scott and Pat welcome the potential for unimagined sonic discoveries inherent in this unpredictability.

Friday’s setlist includes:

Piano – Forte I, Piano – Forte II, and Piano – Forte III telematic collaborations
Semai Seddi-Araban by Tanburi Cemil Bey, the premiere of the duo’s take on a classic Turkish semai.
Mirror Inside from Shape Shifting (2004), for clarinet and Kyma
Fragrance of Distant Sundays, the duo’s tribute to Carei Thomas, the Minneapolis improviser/composer who passed away in 2020

See you in Seoul

Video frame from a performance of *Testimonio Objetivo* by composer Jeffrey Stolet

International Computer Music Conference
“Sound in Motion”
7-13 July 2024
https://www.icmc2024.org/

There will be multiple opportunities to connect with fellow Kyma artists during the ICMC 2024 in Seoul, South Korea, where you’ll hear them performing on several concerts and presenting their ideas on paper sessions. Here are just a few of the composers using Kyma who will be participating in the ICMC during the week of 7-13 July 2024:

Shuyu Lin When Dandelion Whistles
Fang Wan Song Yun
Chi Wang Transparent Affordance
Jeffrey Stolet Testimonio objetivo
Oliver Kwapis Lucky
Jinshuo Feng Listening to the Deep: An Interactive Music Exploration of Oceanic Soundscapes and Climate Change
Tao Li 枯山水 Beyond Landscape
Hector Bravo Benard Nowhere

On the paper sessions:

Jeffrey Stolet Music-Centric Description of Performance with Data-Driven Musical Instruments

Tipping Point

As part of the 2024 International Orgelpark Symposium on 7 June 2024, Franz Danksagmüller invited Carla Scaletti to talk about her piece misfold for hyper-organ and Kyma, which was composed specifically for Danksagmüller.

During the round table wrap up on the final day of the conference, Randall Harlow described misfold as an example of “music for and of our time”

Here’s a performance of misfold recorded by Franz Danksagmüller at St. Nikolai Kirche in Hamburg earlier this year.

Mei-ling Lee’s Sonic Horizons

Mei-ling Lee: composer, performer, storyteller & assistant professor at Haverford College

Music professor Mei-ling Lee was recently featured in the Haverford College blog highlighting her new course offering: “Electronic Music Evolution: From Foundational Basics to Sonic Horizons”, a course that provides students with an in-depth introduction to the history, theory, and practical application of electronic music from the telharmonium to present-day interactive live performances driven by cutting-edge technologies. Along the way, her students also cultivate essential critical listening skills, vital for both music creation and analysis.

In addition to introducing new courses this year, Dr. Lee also presented her paper “Exploring Data-Driven Instruments in Contemporary Music Composition” at the 2024 Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) National Conference, held at the Louisiana State University Digital Media Center on 5 April 2024, and published as a digital proceeding through the LSU Scholarly Repository. This paper explores connections between data-driven instruments and traditional musical instruments and was also presented at the Workshop on Computer Music and Audio Technology (WOCMAT) National Conference in Taiwan in December 2023.

Lee’s electronic music composition “Summoner” was selected for performance at the MOXSonic conference in Missouri on 16 March 2024 and the New York City Electronic Music Conference (NYCEMF) in June 2024. Created using the Kyma sound synthesis language, Max software, and the Leap Motion Controller, it explores the concept of storytelling through the sounds of animals in nature.

Danksagmüller at the Orgelpark

Virtuoso organist / composer / live electronics performer, Franz Danksagmüller is presenting an afternoon workshop followed by an evening concert of new works for “hyper-organ” and Kyma electronics at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam, Friday 7 June 2024, as part of the 2024 International Orgelpark Symposium on the theme of ‘interfaces’ (in the broadest sense of the word).

In his symposium, “New Music, Traditional Rituals“, Danksagmüller wrestles with the question of how new music might play a role in liturgy and religious rituals. While the development of the so-called hyper-organ reveals the strong secular roots of the pipe organ, which, after all, spent the first 15 centuries of its life outside the church, the pipe organ has also been significantly formed by its six centuries within the church, a church which inspired organ builders and organists to create the magnificent instruments that remain an important part of Europe’s patrimony today.

Is there a role for new music in the church? In their pursuit of “truth” do scientists and theologians share any common ground? Danksagmüller does not shy away from the “big questions”!

Coypu meets Paca in Shanghai

A coypu (aka nutria) is a semi-aquatic rodent and is the name given to a Pharo package for live coding developed by Domenico Cipriani (aka Lucretio). At the end of May, Lucretio will be performing with two rodents — his Paca and the Coypu package — at the 2024 International Conference of Live Coding (ICLC) in Shanghai, generating sounds and parsing OSC to control graphics in Kyma and using Coypu to program music on-the-fly.

Lucretio describes his 30 minute live coding performance for Pharo, Kyma and Processing as “a social experiment with euclidean geometries, hexadecimal beats and post-jungle patterns drifting from sparse broken drums and essential scaled-down soulful chords to bass-driven percussive timelines and recursive frequency modulated quirks… heavily influenced by the sound from South London and Detroit.”