Kyma 7 at SEAMUS

If you’ll be participating in the SEAMUS electronic music festival at Virginia Tech at the end of the week, you’ll have an opportunity to hear several performances in which Kyma 7 played a part, among them:

  • Every Problem is a Nail, Scott Miller
  • Imagined Destinies, Jeffrey Stolet
  • Violin Power, Mark Phillips
  • Youngman/Overholt, Jon Bellona
  • Number Vortex, Olga Oseth
  • Shin no Shin, Simon Hutchinson
  • Magic Fingers, Chi Wang

If you’re at the conference, you can cheer on your fellow Kyma practitioners and be sure to introduce yourself to them after the concert.

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

 

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

The Collaboratory

What if you could hear your music performed on a 500 year old organ that was once played by J.S. Bach? What if you could invent a new kind of live DJ set with Kyma and live percussion? Or work with an opera singer and a pop singer to develop new ways of transforming the voice in a live performance? What if you could spend several days experimenting with live Kyma-processing of strings, woodwinds, piano, percussion, and other acoustic instruments?

The Collaboratory is a “collaboration laboratory” where you can be part of a team of composers/performers/technologists inventing a new kind of live performance piece, live improvisation, live sound-track-to-picture performance, live DJ set or experimental live interaction involving Kyma and acoustic or electronic performers. The choices are yours, and the possibilities are limitless. Make a proposal and see what happens!

http://kiss2014.symbolicsound.com/the-collaboratory

Isikyakar in Ankara

Ilker Isikyakar, sound designer and composer at Cloud18 post production studios in New York, will be in Ankara (Turkey) on 31 October and 1 November to make a presentation on Kyma at the Audio Technologies For Music and Media international Conference (ATMM 2013).

Audio Technologies for Music and Media is an international interdisciplinary conference that focuses on various aspects of audio, audiovisual and music technologies for music and media as well as the relationship between sound, music and image in both ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ media.

Isikyakar will demonstrate how he utilizes Kyma in his work and talk about how Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi‘s nine elements of flow apply to his way of interacting with Kyma. Csikszentmihalyi describes the ‘flow state’ as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one…”

You can read Ilker Isikyakar’s abstract in the ATMM 2013 Program booklet.

Kyma at Musicacoustica Beijing

Three world premieres at the Musicacustica Beijing 2013 festival are utilizing Kyma for live sound generation and processing:

Magic Fingers for Leap Motion and Kyma by composer/performer Wang Chi, a composer and performer whose research and composition interests include data driven instruments and sound design. Chi is also an active translator for electronic music related books, including Kyma and the SOS Disco Club.

 

The FA Yun An man for Kyma by composer Wang Chunming, associate professor of Zhejiang University of Media and Communications, PhD candidate in digital media at the Shanghai Conservatory Of Music, and Director of the Institute of China Electronic Music.

 

And Theatre of Spheres by composer Jeffrey Stolet of the University of Oregon. Jeffrey Stolet is a professor of music and director of the Intermedia Music Technology at the University of Oregon where he has installed 5 Kyma teaching and production studios. In addition to teaching Kyma to his composition and sound design students at the University, Professor Stolet also directs the yearly Summer Academy on the UO campus where he welcomes international students and faculty for a two-week intensive course on digital audio, sound design and Kyma. Recently Stolet completed a book on Kyma, entitled Kyma and the SumOfSines Disco Club that is currently available in English and will soon be available in Chinese.

KISS2013: INTER faces

At this year’s Kyma International Sound Symposium —12-15 September 2013 in Brussels, Belgium — composers, sound designers, and performers will be focusing on interfaces for interactive sound design and live performance.

Allison Pickett @ KISS2012
Actor Allison Goodman, shown here controlling Kyma with an Emotiv EPOC neural headset, is one of the performers scheduled to appear at KISS2013 in Brussels September 12-15 2013

Some of the special activities in store for this year include hands-on demonstrations of interfaces for interactive sound and performance, a public dialog on spatialization featuring electronic music pioneers Annette Vande Gorne and Joel Chadabe, a competition pitting teams of sound designers and engineers against the clock to create new performance interfaces, an exclusive preview of new developments in the Kyma sound design language, concerts of new music inspired by the Belgian painter René Magritte, live Kyma electronics spatialized through a 70+ speaker Acousmonium in the Espace Senghor, and an installation in the ISIB foyer where visitors (tracked by a Kinect camera) will create a continuous, collaborative soundscape.

KISS2013: INTER faces will also feature technical sessions on topics ranging from signal processing to interfaces, an ‘Open lab’ where Kyma experts will be available to answer questions, hands-on demos and workshops focusing on innovative user interfaces and controllers, and evenings filled with live musical performances showcasing some of the best work created in Kyma this year, including music controlled by brain interfaces, game controllers, iPads, Continuum fingerboards and drawing tablets; audio signals used as controllers; Foley artists as live performers; live cinema; motion-tracked dancers, and more!

Kyma developers Carla Scaletti and Kurt J. Hebel will be joined by over 30 audio and music professionals from ten countries in presenting the seminars, music, and hands-on demonstrations.

The full KISS2013 schedule is available on-line.

Program highlights

Institut Supérieur Industriel de Bruxelles

KISS2013 organizers Rudi Giot and Jacques Tichon, along with their students at the Institut Supérieur Industriel de Bruxelles (ISIB), have several special activities planned for KISS2013, including:

Hands-on interfacing sessions

Get up close and personal with hardware and software interfacing tools including Open Interface and Skemmi (the universal Open Sound Control interface builder), Soft Kinetic Cameras, Interface-Z sensor kits, Tobii eye trackers, Reactable on a Microsoft Surface, Raspberry Pi, Dynamixel, Microsoft Kinect, and more!

InterFaceOff

Modeled on a reality-TV-style creative competition, InterFaceOff pits teams of composers and engineers against the clock, challenging them to create new performance interfaces in just four days!

A Spatial Dialog

KISS2013 attendees will have a unique opportunity to learn about live spatialization performance from Belgian composer Annette Vande Gorne who, in a public dialog with Electric Sound author and composer, Joel Chadabe, will discuss and demonstrate musical spatialization using a 70+ loudspeaker Acousmonium installed in the Espace Senghor.

The Listening Room

Inspired by René Magritte’s painting of the same name, Christian Frisson’s interactive LoopJam composition The Listening Room blurs the line between the individual and the group. Based on collections of sound clips generated in Kyma, LoopJam creates a two-dimensional sound map using timbral similarity as distance. Throughout the conference, visitors (tracked by a Kinect camera) will be interacting with the space in a fluid and playful way, creating a continuous collaborative composition in the foyer of the ISIB.

 

Concerts

Concerts featuring performances of live interactive Kyma pieces will be spatialized in real-time by experts from Musique et Recherches utilizing their 70+ speaker Acousmonium.

Who should attend

Anyone who is obsessed with sound – whether a novice looking to kickstart his or her career, an expert seeking fresh inspiration, or someone who’s simply curious about sound, interfaces, or Kyma – will find in KISS2013 a chance to immerse themselves in sound and ideas for four intense and inspiring days and nights.

Here’s how Chicago-based sound designer and re-recording mixer, Dustin Camilleri describes his experience at last year’s 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. For a conference it was truly amazing.”

Registration and travel

Registration is now open. An early registration discount is in effect until August 1, 2013. Student discounts are also available.

Looking for a place to stay that is near the action? Here is some travel and lodging information.

Links

KISS2013 Site
Facebook
Twitter

Questions? Please contact the organizers.

 

Kyma Symposium in St Cloud

Fascinating papers, lively concerts, entertaining hands-on workshops, and conversations that carried on late into each night made KISS2012, the fourth annual Kyma International Sound Symposium, an inspiring and invigorating experience for all.

The symposium was covered by several local news outlets (click on photos to read the stories):

 

 

 

Hua Sun and Kurt Hebel perform the annual ritual for KISS2012

Here’s a slideshow of photos from the event:

 

For more details on the event, please see the official KISS2012 site and Kyma Symposium on Facebook.

Future Music’s Summer Academy of Electronic Music

Professor Jeffrey Stolet and post graduate teaching assistant Chi Wang

This year’s Summer Academy of Electronic Music, directed by Professor Jeffrey Stolet at Future Music Oregon, welcomed 5 faculty members from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Shenyang Conservatory of Music and the Sichuan Conservatory of Music.  The faculty members, along with students from their schools and from Peking University and the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts, immersed themselves in Kyma, recording techniques, sound synthesis, and composition in a two week intensive seminar based on Professor Stolet’s text, Kyma and the SumOfSines Disco Club, now available in both English and Mandarin Chinese.

Professor Stolet was assisted this year by three of his current and former graduate students: Chi Wang, Jon Bellona, and Hua Sun (see photo on left).

The Summer Academy culminated in a final concert featuring 20 compositions, all completed by students over the course of the two-week course.

Professor Jeffrey Stolet, academy student Yang Fan, & Professor Yang Wanjun

If you missed the summer academy, you still have a chance to learn about Kyma.  During the fall semester 2012, Professor Stolet and his former masters degree student Chi Wang will be presenting Kyma seminars at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Shenyang Conservatory of Music and Sichuan Conservatory of Music.