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).
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“Summoner” for Leap Motion and custom software created with Max and Kyma, composed and performed by Mei-ling Lee, professor at Haverford College“Developing Musical Intuition as a Pathway for Creating Artificial Intelligence Models” a talk by Jeffrey Stolet, professor at University of OregonGametrak 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)
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.
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”.
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
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 LinWhen Dandelion Whistles Fang WanSong Yun Chi WangTransparent Affordance Jeffrey StoletTestimonio objetivo Oliver KwapisLucky Jinshuo FengListening to the Deep: An Interactive Music Exploration of Oceanic Soundscapes and Climate Change Tao Li枯山水 Beyond Landscape Hector Bravo BenardNowhere
On the paper sessions:
Jeffrey StoletMusic-Centric Description of Performance with Data-Driven Musical Instruments
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: 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.
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, photo by Basile Morin CC BY-SAPaca, photo by Hans Hillewaert CC SA
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.”
“I used to have 30 guys helping me do this,” quips Jones as he adjusts a mic stand. “…but here I am.”
And indeed, there he was, all alone on the stage, performing a dizzying variety of instruments, from lap steel, to mandolin, to triple-neck guitar, grand piano, pipe organ, Kyma electronics, and of course his signature bass. Winning the prize for the festival’s most audacious entrance, Jones rose from the orchestra pit playing “Your Time Is Gonna Come” on a bright red-painted theater organ, to delighted squeals of recognition, masterfully tweaking his audience’s collective memories and, alternately coaxing them along with him into the future with live electro-acoustic performances like this one:
Bassist, keyboardist, mandolinist, composer (and much more), John Paul Jones – once in a little band called Led Zeppelin — has more recently toured as Them Crooked Vultures with Dave Grohl and Joshua Homme, appeared in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera ‘Anna Nicole,’ toured the US with Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch, released Cloud to Ground (debut album of Minibus Pimps), and made several guest appearances with acclaimed Norwegian avant-garde group Supersilent.
John was also one of the first adopters of Kyma (on the original Capybara), and he continues to expand the frontiers of live interactive electronics performance today using the newest incarnation of the APU hardware — the Pacamara Ristretto — in conjunction with his bass, piano, and a menagerie of tiny controllers and other instruments (expect the unexpected).
“One of the world’s biggest music bashes” (NYT), the Big Ears Festival features visionary composers and musicians on concerts that transcend genre — bringing together trailblazers and iconoclasts, blending classical and contemporary composition, jazz, rock, world music, pop, avant-garde, ambient, experimental, and beyond.
Big Ears offers 200 performances during the festival situated in historic downtown Knoxville — at restored historic theaters, churches, refurbished warehouse spaces, museums, galleries, and clubs — with pop-up events and performances, exhibitions, films, literary readings, workshops, markets and talks taking place in cafes, bars, hotels, restaurants, all within walking distance or dedicated trolley service to nearby hotels.
