After a long absence from Victoria, British Columbia, the Mexican/Dutch composer, Hector Bravo Benard performed a solo concert of multi-channel electronic compositions on November 5, 2011 at the artist-run venu, Open Space.
Pianist Stanley Cowell with “electroacoustic enhancement by Kyma” will be joined by Vic Juris (guitar), Tassili Bond (bass) and Christopher W. Brown, (drums) as the Empathlectro Quartet performing on Saturday, November 5, 2011 at 8:00 PM at An die Musik LIVE!, a classical, jazz and world music venue in Baltimore Maryland. Audience members are invited to a post concert, meet-the-artists reception.
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:
Each year, Future Music Oregon hosts the Summer Academy of Electronic Music directed by Professor Jeffrey Stolet, this year assisted by his graduate teaching fellows Chi Wang and Simon Hutchinson.
This year’s course, for students from the Central Conservatory of Music, Peking University, and Shenyang Conservatory of Music,  ran from 17-31 July 2011 and covered the gamut from recording techniques to the basics of synthesis, and included a final concert of student compositions realized using Kyma.  Plans are already underway for Summer Academy of Electronic Music in the summer of 2012.
Glen Hall and his electroacoustic improvising group So, NU will be performing at Studio 105 (105 Clarence Street) in London, Ontario on Friday, July 29 at 8:30 p.m.
So, NUÂ is Bruce Cassidy – EVI (electronic valve instrument); Eugene Martynec – laptop and MIDIax; Glen Hall – saxophones, flutes, bass clarinet, WWII wind controller and Kyma).
Sarth Calhoun, performing on Continuum as part of Lou Reed‘s band, is touring Europe this July, controlling multiple Kyma/Paca systems for sound synthesis and processing submixes from the band. Â For a full list of dates in the UK, Italy, and France, visit www.loureed.com and click Appearances.
Here’s Sarth preparing his rack-mounted Pacas for the tour:
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!
In addition to presenting his own compositions, Hector presented compositions by Agostino Di Scipio (Italy), Julio Estrada (Mexico), and René Uijlenhoet (Netherlands). Benard’s works for live electronics often start from sounds in the physical world, using the Kyma sound design platform to mould them, adding new depth and texture to create the unexpected and delight the curious ear.
