University of Oregon director of interactive music technology, Jeffrey Stolet, premiered his new piece Hendrix de Aguadilla for Kyma and iPad (Kyma Control app) on the opening concert for Musicacoustica in Beijing on October 24, 2011. Earlier in the day, Stolet gave a presentation on Kyma and the SumOfSines Disco Club (his new book about the Kyma system), describing how Kyma is being used and taught in higher education.  The next performance of Hendrix de Aguadilla will be in Chengdu, China on November 1 2011.
Cristian Vogel will be talking about NeverEngine and Kyma as a recombinant artists’ expert system at the Redbull Music Academy in Madrid on Saturday, 29 October 2011.  For the rest of the workshop, he’ll be dissecting one of the Kyma Sounds he uses for live performance.  The session is open to the public.
Can sound define a space? In sound, is there a Point-of-View or culturally-influenced focus of attention? Sound designers, musicians, audio engineers, composers, acousticians and others interested in “sound space” are invited to discuss these and other questions during the third annual Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS2011), scheduled for 15-18 September 2011 in Porto, Portugal. Inspired by Portugal’s proud history of navigators who set out to explore beyond the known and visible horizon, the theme of this year’s symposium is “Explorando o espaço do som†(“Exploring Sound Spaceâ€) and will celebrate the sound designers, composers, and researchers who are exploring beyond the familiar horizons in sound and music.
A mathematician and co-editor of a new book on the Sonic Spaces of Music (Spazi sonori della musica) will discuss the public space defining and defined by the sounds of the Trevi Fountain in Rome;
Kyma practitioners will have opportunities to attend master classes, participate in interactive workshops and consulting sessions, and most importantly, to make connections with and to learn from fellow Kyma practitioners;
The author of a new text for teaching and learning Kyma (published in both English and Chinese) will describe his search for the SumOfSines disco club;
Plus there will be an abundance of technical talks on a wide range of topics including how to use the spectrum of a sound as a sequencer; techniques for data sonification; using sound to help people confront pain; how to create a dynamic sonic ecology; using context-free-grammars to simultaneously generate dance movements and trajectories through abstract timbre space; techniques for spectral modification & morphing; and more.
Evening performances are to include a screening of the very first science fiction film accompanied by a live-improvised electronic sound track generated by Kyma reconstructions of Luigi Russolo’s intonorumori instruments; a portion of an audio documentary on Holocaust survivor Ksenija Drobac; and a live-generated audio/video film about Galileo that uses Kyma to control VJ software via Open Sound Control (OSC). Other live musical performances will create sound spaces controlled by (among other things) dancers, RFID cards held by the audience, iPads, Wacom tablets, video position trackers, Continuum fingerboards, SoftStep pedal-boards, OSC, acoustic instruments, the acoustics of the room itself, and even a sensor-enhanced Teddy Bear!
For more details on the program, please see the preliminary program and join the mailing list to be kept up to date on future enhancements and additions.
Registration
Registration is open to all. You can register at any time, but there is a discount for those who register prior to 1 August: you can participate in all 4 days (with lunch included) for €120 (€40 for students). Casa da Musica has strictly enforced occupancy limits, so please register as soon as possible in order to reserve your spot: http://kiss2011.symbolicsound.com/registration
Online discussion
You are cordially invited to join in the pre-symposium discussion on the theme of Exploring Sound Space:Â http://www.pphilosophyofsound.org
Porto
Known as A Cidade Invicta (the unvanquished city), in honor of its citizens’ successful resistance of Napoleon’s attempted invasion, Porto’s history can be traced back at least as far as Roman times, with evidence of even earlier habitation by the Celts, Proto-Celts and even Phoenicians.
The ukulele has its origins in Portugal; Portuguese immigrants brought the cavaquinho, braguinha and the rajão, small guitar-like instruments with them to Hawaii where they were re-invented as the ukulele. Portuguese luthiers Cordoba Guitars and Antonio Pinto Carvalho (in Braga about an hour north of Porto) continue the tradition today. In Porto, you can audition a Portuguese 12-string guitar or a cavaquinho at Toni Das Violas, a music shop in the historic center.
Porto is also the official source of Port wine, a special red wine in which the fermentation process is interrupted by the addition of distilled grape spirits known as aguardente (roughly translated as fire water with teeth), leaving a higher sugar and a higher alcohol content. The resulting fortified wine is then aged in wood barrels prior to bottling.
Visiting ConÃmbriga, a well-preserved ancient Roman city and attached museum about an hour south of Porto, is practically like traveling to ancient Rome in the Tardis.
Something about Porto seems to inspire artists who work with space. Not only is it the home of Casa da Musica, it’s also the birthplace of two Pritzker-prize-winning architects: Ãlvaro Siza who designed the central square in Porto, the Faculty of Architecture campus, and the contemporary art museum; and Eduardo Souto Moura whose award-winning work includes Estádio Municipal de Braga, the Burgo Tower in Porto and the Paula Rego Museum in Cascais among others.
Summary
What: The Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS 2011), an annual conclave of current and potential Kyma practitioners who come together to learn, to share, to meet, to discuss, and to enjoy a lively exchange of ideas, sounds, and music! This year’s theme is “Exploring Sound Space”
Presenters: Experts from the fields of music, sound art, sound design, mathematics, philosophy & audio engineering who use Kyma in their work.
Participants: Sound designers, musicians, audio engineers, composers, acousticians and others interested in “sound space” and the Kyma sound design language
When: 15-18 September 2011
Where: Porto, Portugal
Venue: Casa da Musica / Avenida da Boavista, 604-610 / 4149-071 Porto / Portugal
Cost: € 120, students € 40
Organizers: Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto & Symbolic Sound Corporation with support from Casa da Musica & UT Austin|Portugal International Collaboratory for Emerging Technologies
Deadline: 1 August 2011 for early registration discount; registration open through 15 September 2011
Inspired by their recent collaboration in Supersilent, Jones and Sten employ electronics, samplers, processors, instruments, iPads and two Kyma systems to create instrumental improvisations ranging from the intricate to the ferocious!
This July, JPJ joined forces with Supersilent for an experimental electronics set at the Moldejazz Festival:
Scot Solida is scheduled to be performing Kyma live with Christus and the Cosmonaughts as part of he 3rd Annual Kansas City Electro-music Festival 2011, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday July 22, 23, & 24, 2011. Streaming live at http://radio.electro-music.com, KC.EM.FEST will feature live performances, DIY workshops, improvisational collaborations, and more.
In addition to his live performance on Saturday night (July 23), Scot is going to be presenting a Kyma demo at 1 pm, Friday July 22.
The KC.EM.FEST is intended to promote experimental electronic music and musicians in the region and throughout the country and create a stronger network between these artists and the public and the entire event is free!
Cristian Vogel @ Electron GVA Session. Photo by Onneca Guelbenzu
GVA Sessions is an interdisciplinary research and international exchange platform organized by the Gilles Jobin Company, geared to respond to the ever-changing artistic environment of the performing arts, primarily contemporary dance, music and related creative technologies.
In 2011, the GVA sessions have been focusing on one of the longest established collaborative partnerships in the performing arts: that between choreographer and composer, choreography and music. This year, GVA Sessions is offering a mixed format providing a collaborative space for different types and levels of knowledge, artists research and production.
In April, as part of the Electron Festival, Cristian Vogel and Gilles Jobin discussed their collaboration on Spider Galaxies, and Vogel presented an introduction to Kyma and the Pacarana.  The next installment in the series will be “Dialog: Sound and Movement“, a collaborative workshop for composers and choreographers that will take play in 16-23 July 2011 (the deadline for registration is 30 May 2011).
Since 2007, the GVA Sessions have led knowledge exchange gatherings inviting international creative arts practitioners to Geneva (Switzerland) with the goal of sharing in artistic inquiry, thinking  and creating together, all in an informal, collaborative yet rigorous setting.Â
The third annual Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS2011) is scheduled to take place from 16-18 September 2011 at Casa Da Musica, architect Rem Koolhaas’ dramatic new music venue in Porto, Portugal.
Inspired by Portugal’s proud history of navigators who set out to explore beyond the known and visible horizon, the theme of this year’s symposium is “Explorando o espaço do somâ€(“Exploring Sound Spaceâ€) in honor of those who are exploring new methods, concepts, and ideas, beyond the familiar horizons in sound and music.
Universidade do Porto and Symbolic Sound invite you to join us to share ideas, experiences and results related to this year’s theme, ranging from the most literal to the most abstract definitions of sound, space, and exploration. You are invited to learn, to share, to meet, and to enjoy!
Ben Phenix has posted an online survey to gauge the preferred location for future (after 2012) Kyma International Sound Symposium events.
Have you ever been curious about attending a Kyma International Sound Symposium? Â Ben Phenix has posted a survey to gauge interest in various cities as potential future KISS locations. Â If you’d like to attend a symposium, now is your chance to register your preferences as to the location! Â The survey will be active through the end of February 2011.
The SEAMUS2011 conference in Miami Florida January 20-22, 2011 will include several performances and paper presentations by Kyma users: http://www.seamus2011.org/
Film maker Theo Lipfert’s Beneath the Surface (premiered in Vienna at KISS2010) has been selected for performance at SEAMUS in January 20-22 2011 in Miami. The film, featuring processed video taken from a camera that was thrown out into the ocean and gradually washed ashore by the waves, has a live Kyma-generated sound track consisting of crisply processed watery sounds recorded by the camera and randomly-selected, processed phrases of 13 year-olds recounting their vivid and sometimes disturbing dreams (beneath the surface in more ways than one!), mixed and spatialized live using Kyma Control on an Apple iPad.
Engines of…, Scott Miller‘s composition for string orchestra and Kyma-generated fixed-media, will also be performed at the SEAMUS conference. Â Engines of… was commissioned and premiered by the Maplegrove High School orchestra in 2006.
Sharing a paper session are two composers who will be re-presenting their contributions from KISS2010 on the theme ‘symbolic sound’: “Constructing Realities: Nelson Goodman’s Theory of Symbol Systems and Electroacoustic Music†by Scott Miller and Steve Everett’s, “Auditory Roughness and Ecological Listening in Electro-Acoustic Musicâ€.
Last year’s SEAMUS2010 also featured several Kyma pieces as well as a pre-conference day-long Kyma Seminar, described in the Allegro Newsletter.
Inspired by Portugal’s proud history of navigators who set out to explore beyond the known and visible horizon, the theme of this year’s symposium is “Explorando o espaço do somâ€(“Exploring Sound Spaceâ€) in honor of those who are exploring new methods, concepts, and ideas, beyond the familiar horizons in sound and music.