Music for robots and other people

Scott Miller has a jam-packed schedule of upcoming collaborations with robots, humans and Kyma electronics. Here are a few highlights:

23 February, ALL DAY: SCSU Performing Arts Center 158, FREE!

On February 23, as a part of the MNMade Festival at SCSU, composer Scott L. Miller and musical roboticist Troy Rogers are holding a free open workshop and rehearsal on composing for robots. Everyone is invited to observe, assist, and ask questions as Scott incorporates theatrical lighting control into his Kyma ecosystemic environment for his new piece Détente.

27 February, 7:30 pm: SCSU Ruth Gant Recital Hall, FREE!

On February 27, you’re invited to the MNMade Festival concert, featuring works by Per Bloland, Troy Rogers, student participants, and Scott Miller’s updated ecosystemic robot piece, Détente.

15 March, 9:00 pm: The Nicollet, $5

In Minneapolis on March 15, Ars Electroacoustica celebrates the Ides of March with visiting saxophonist/electronics artist Jorrit Dijkstra, saxophonist Nathan Hanson, Scott Miller on Kyma and Ted Moore on laptop.

16 March, 7:30 pm: SCSU Ruth Gant Recital Hall, FREE!

On March 16th, Jorrit Dijkstra will be at St Cloud State University where he and Scott Miller will present a concert of improvised music for saxophone, electronics, and Kyma.

20 March, 5:30 pm: honeympls, $5

On March 20th, Ars Electroacoustica welcomes Adam Zahller to Min­neapo­lis for a session with recorder & electronics (Scott Miller on Kyma).

Interested in collaborating with Scott Miller on future Ars Electroacoustica concerts? Let him know!

Kyma Klub of Santa Cruz

When PhD candidate Madison Heying discovered there was a Kyma system at the University of California at Santa Cruz and that Kristin Erickson, Technical Coordinator of the Digital Arts & New Media center also had a personal Kyma system, they decided to organize the Kyma Klub — an informal group of students and staff members who meet weekly to read through Kyma X Revealed and teach themselves Kyma. The first public performance by club members was AQULAQUTAQU — a sci-fi operetta by Madison Heying & Kristin Erickson (voice & Kyma) with Matthew Galvin (voice & video), David Kant (voice), and Maya Galvin (narrator) — that they premiered at KISS2015 in Bozeman Montana (home of first contact).

In early February 2016, UCSC faculty composer Larry Polansky invited Kyma creators Carla Scaletti and Kurt Hebel to UC Santa Cruz where Carla presented a graduate colloquium on data sonification and a seminar on sound design in Kyma 7.

Here, Madison and Kristin are presenting some of the generative algorithms they implemented in Kyma for AQULAQUTAQU:

Madison Heying, Kristin Erickson Carla & Kurt UCSC 2016

After the seminar, the Kyma Klub invited Kurt and Carla to Kristin’s studio where David Kant interviewed Kurt,

Kurt Kristin Carla David UCSC 2016

and Kristin Erickson interviewed Carla, while Matthew Galvin filmed their responses in front of a green screen for an as-yet-undisclosed proposal the Kyma Klub members have in mind to make for KISS2016.

Kristin Erickson interviewing Carla Scaletti UCSC 2016

Note the special blacklight Kyma Klub T-shirts (with matching event posters) designed and printed by Kristin and Madison for the visit.

carla on madison & kristin greenscreen UCSC 2016

Tonsalon: Lecture/performances by Bruno Liberda & friends

tropfen, die auf wasser fallen+R

Wiener Klangwerkstatt’s Tonsalon, the Viennese sound workshop founded in 2007, is now open to the public! You are invited to attend three Tonsalon events at Elektro Gönner in Vienna on the 2nd Tuesday of each month:

8 March 2016
12 April 2016
10 May 2016

In June, they yield to the soccer season and will resume again in the fall.

The program for the first Tonsalon on 8 March 2016 will be:

20:00: “No random random notes”, a lecture by Bruno Liberda

21:00: “Taming of the fact”, a live perfomance by Marina Poleukhina & Alexander Chernyshkov & Bruno Liberda

For updates and information on future performances, follow Tonsalon on Facebook.

Here’s a previous performance by Marina and Alexander:

NeverEngine on the Holodeck

Cristian Vogel is currently engaged in a four week artist residency dedicated to exploring the possibilities of Kyma and the 4DSOUND system at the ZKM Institute in Karlsruhe, Germany.

The residency will culminate in a concert on 5 March 2016 featuring new work from Cristian along with Alyssa Moxley, an Athens-based artist specializing in experimental microphone techniques for field recordings. There will also be a presentation of Iannis Xenakis’ Orient-Occident, presented in 4DSOUND by system founder Paul Oomen.

Algebra as metaphor for Poetry

The Central Library of The Hague will be filled with mathematical functions for the ear and textures for the eye when Roland Kuit creates poetic quadraphonic formulas for Kyma and Karin Schomaker synthesizes images of abstract beauty. Visuals and sounds together create a flow of spatial and textural experience.

Sunday 07 February 2016, 14:00 – 14:50
Spui 68, The Hague, The Netherlands

Spirals within spirals

Carlos Alberto Augusto’s new opera — “TMIE: on the threshold of the outside world” (TMIE is an acronym for Trans Membrane Inner Ear) — for soprano and electronic track, interleaves three stories of audition and spirals. A single soprano plays three women — a Selene goddess, a deaf astronomer named Henrietta Leavitt who “heard what the stars were telling her”, and Beverly Biderman, a Canadian who underwent cochlear implant surgery to regain the pleasure of music.

Augusto produced the electronic track entirely in Kyma using roulette curves applied to different sonic parameters.

The libretto is based, among other texts, on books by Beverly Biderman and George Johnson.

The work, a Miso Music Portugal production with support from Widex Portugal, premiers on February 25th in Lisbon at the O’culto da Ajuda venue with two more performances on the 26th and 27th, and will start touring Portugal later this year.

 

Soap Bubbles and Kyma 7

Composer/producer Miguel Gil is working on new improvisation project featuring Kyma 7 and the poems of Fernando Pessoa

In this video, featuring Lucía Flor-Laguna (voice), Jorge Cabadas (guitar) and Miguel Gil (Kyma 7 and sax), you can see Miguel using a Wacom tablet to elegantly perform a synthesis model and to process and capture the audio from the other performers using Kyma 7.

Here’s the poem:

Las pompas de jabón
(Fernando Pessoa)

Las pomas de jabón que este chiquillo
se entretiene en soltar por la pajita
son, traslúcidamente, toda una filosofía.
Claras, inútiles y pasajeras como la Naturaleza,
amigas de los ojos como las cosas,
son lo que son
con una precisión redondita y aérea,
y nadie, ni aun el niño que las suelta,
pretende que sean más que lo que parecen ser.
Algunas apenas se ven en el aire lúcido.
Son como la brisa, que apenas roza las flores al pasar
y de la que tan sólo sabemos que pasa
porque algo se aligera en nosotros
y todo lo acepta más nítidamente.

Kyma morphing workshop in London

Have you ever wanted to do audio morphing like this?

 

UK Kyma Users’ group organizer Simon Smith announces that the second meeting of the group will take place at the University of West London, Ealing on the Saturday 20th of February from 10:30 am to 4:30pm and will feature a morphing masterclass by Pete Johnston.

DSC00095

Simon Smith

Charlie Norton, Kyma user and senior lecturer at University of West London, has generously agreed to host the event at the University music studios. The day will consist of a Masterclass/Workshop in the morning then after lunch, mingling, brainstorming and sharing of Kyma tips and hints. Also this will be an ideal opportunity to talk to the local organisers of this year’s Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS2016) in Leicester UK: Craig Vear and Simon Smith.

If you would like to morph your own sounds at the workshop, please bring your Kyma system with headphones and some sound files you wish to morph.

To reserve a space, please email organizer Simon Smith.

Acoustic guitar, live Kyma processing concerts

Guitarist Dan Lippel and composer Scott Miller are collaborating on several upcoming concerts in St. Cloud and Minneapolis Minnesota featuring acoustic guitar and live interactive processing of the guitar and the acoustics of the space through Kyma:

January 15, 2016 @ 8pm @ The Nest Above the Pickled Loon (St. Cloud, MN)

January 16, 2016 @ 8pm Gut, Lungs, & Silicon (Minneapolis)

January 17, 2016 @ 7pm @ The Nicollet (Minneapolis)