John Littig Interview on WBAI

John Littig’s Audio Grafitti opens Tuesday January 18, 2011 at SOB’s in New York. He described how he used Kyma for the intro to Inside Reprise in a December 27 2010 interview with Lynne Rosen on WBAI in New York.

While studying at NYU and working as a research assistant in the brain imaging department at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, John Littig was simultaneously hard at work developing his craft as a jazz drummer in clubs from Greenwich Village to Harlem.  In a December 27th interview on Lynne Rosen‘s “In Pursuit of Happiness” radio show on WBAI in New York, John gave a shout-out to Symbolic Sound and played the Kyma-generated intro to Inside Reprise, one of the songs from Audio Grafitti,  his new show opening at Tuesday January 18 2011 at SOB’s in New York.

Listen to John Littig interview on WBAI; the Kyma shout-out occurs at  around 39 minutes, and the larger discussion on the importance of surrounding yourself with positive, affirming influences is important advice for all artists to reflect upon at the beginning of this new year.  As Littig points out, “No one can do this alone.”

Acoustic Cloak

A team of mechanical engineers at the University of Illinois has developed an ‘acoustic cloak‘ that can bend sound waves.  Designed for frequencies in the 40 to 80 kHz range, the device is intended for cloaking objects from ultrasound or sonar detectors which begs the question: Could a larger-scale version of the device be used for reducing noise in a studio?

More at: http://www.news.illinois.edu/news/11/0105sound_fang.html#

OtherMinds: The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2011

Computer music by Jonty Harrison and Silvia Matheus will be featured on The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2011, Friday-Sunday, January 7-9, 2011, 8pm at the Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco: http://www.sfsound.org/tape.html

Surround yourself with 16+ speakers at the San Francisco Tape Music Festival, during three concerts of  new and classic fixed-media compositions by 20 composers. This year’s event features Jonty Harrison, the British composer and pioneer of surround-sound diffusion and a performance of Crossings by composer/videographer Silvia Matheus.

For more details and advance ticket sales, visit http://www.sfsound.org/tape.html/

The San Francisco Tape Music Festival 2011
Friday-Sunday, January 7-9, 2011, 8pm
Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco

Miller & Zeitgeist

Scott Miller is one of thirty Minnesota composers featured on a new double-CD from Innova entitled Here and Now, a recording in honor of St Paul-based new music ensemble Zeitgeist’s 30th anniversary. Produced, mixed and edited by Scott Miller and Pat O’Keefe, Here and Now will be celebrated by a three-day CD-Release Party at Studio Z at 7:30 pm, January 6-8 2011.

Scott Miller is one of thirty Minnesota composers featured on a new double-CD from Innova entitled Here and Now, a recording in honor of St Paul-based new music ensemble Zeitgeist‘s 30th anniversary. Produced, mixed and edited by Scott Miller and Pat O’Keefe, Here and Now will be celebrated by a three-day CD-Release Party at Studio Z at  7:30 pm, January 6-8 2011.

EMF Kyma Creative Group

Join the EMF Kyma Creative Group in Manhattan to achieve expertise in generating and processing sounds with Kyma, an understanding of sound and the quality of sound, and for exercise in solving problems in sound design, composition, and other applications: http://www.emfstudios.org/kyma.html

Joel Chadabe is posing a challenge to all Kyma sound designers: How many ways can you come up with to make this recording striking, beautiful and memorable?

http://www.emfstudios.org/mp3s/110108_03subway.mp3

EMF Studios, a program of Electronic Music Foundation, is a creative resource center in midtown Manhattan where composers, performers, sound designers, and recording engineers at any stage of their careers can meet in collaborative problem-solving Creative Groups to acquire new skills and form new contacts.   The goals for the EMF Kyma Creative Group are:

…to cultivate boundless musical creativity and apply it to professional problem solving in composition, sound design, post production, film scoring, game development, sound installations, live performance, research, and other creative musical applications.

and

…the achievement of expertise in generating and processing sounds with Kyma, an understanding of sound and the quality of sound, and the exercise of solving problems in sound design, composition, and other applications.

For more information visit http://www.emfstudios.org/kyma.html

Black Swan (the original!)

The music from Cristian Vogel and Gilles Jobin’s collaborative work, Black Swan was released in December 2010 by Sub Rosa (SR303): http://subrosa.itcmedia.net/en/catalogue/electronics/cristian-vogel-black-swan.html

Long before Natalie Portman donned the sequined black bird’s eye makeup, composer Cristian Vogel and choreographer Gilles Jobin were collaborating on their own Black Swan, the music for which was released in December under the Sub Rosa label (SR303).

Boomcat reviewed the recording on the Global Noises forum:

Those who follow Vogel’s movements will already know he is deeply involved with the legendary Kyma digital synthesis/sequencing system, and ‘Black Swan’ feels like the perfect extension of those interests.

Kroniks_01

Composer Julien Bilodeau’s Kroniks_01, for flute and live Kyma processing was performed by Geneviève Déraspe at the Cirmmt Center, McGill University on Thursday, the 9th of December 2010.

Déraspe

Composer Julien Bilodeau‘s Kroniks_01, for flute and live Kyma processing was performed by Geneviève Déraspe at the Cirmmt Center, McGill University on  Thursday, the 9th of December 2010.

The work, composed in 2005 was influenced by Karlheinz Stockhausen in its use of a single kernel of material to generate intervallic and durational relationships on multiple timescales, from the microstructure to the entire piece and even over multiple pieces of music in a larger cycle. This consistency is audible in the overall coherence of the piece and Déraspe brings an intensity and energy to the piece that makes it sizzle. Bilodeau used 84 flute samples reconstructed in sparkling granulations.

In keeping with its multi-scale structure,  Kroniks_01 depicts the relationship between individual and the masses.

Cataclysmic

Sound designer Mike Johnson made extensive use of Kyma in his sound design work for Blizzard Entertainment’s latest World of WarCraft expansion, Cataclysm, to create hybrid vocalizations for several of the new creatures that now populate the world of Azeroth.

Sound designer, Mike Johnson made extensive use of Kyma in the sounds for Blizzard Entertainment‘s latest World of  WarCraft expansion,  Cataclysm.

Johnson used Kyma to create hybrid vocalizations for several of the new creatures that now populate the world of Azeroth.  Creatures with names such asRock Demon, Fire Dragon, Slime Creature, Rock Worm, Stone Golem and Wood Creature were created by taking various human and animal vocalizations and warping them with fire, rock, and other elemental forces to visceral, terrifyingly effect. According to Johnson, “I couldn’t have done it without my Kyma system.”

The Acceptance

Kyma played such a strong role in the sound design for Yogesh Kubchandani’s directorial debut, The Acceptance, he gave it an ending credit. Can you solve the mysteries in this compelling, poetic film? http://www.3stonespictures.com

Following the initial screening of The Acceptance in New York City, director Yogesh Khubchandani, was barraged by questions when he took the stage. He politely declined to speak about the film, suggesting only that if people still had questions, they should watch the film again, adding “there are no symbols in the film; I just had one impression that could not be expressed in words, and so the film came out.” Can you solve its mysteries? (Order your own DVD copy of the film at http://www.3stonespictures.com)

Certain unforeseen events can almost literally befall us, unexpectedly and violently tearing into the web of our interconnections and relationships. In Yogesh Khubchandani’s new film, The Acceptance, one such event has disrupted the existence of Elli (compellingly played by Alicia Lobo) to its very core. Khubchandani’s poetic, spell-binding film uses images and sounds to create an urgent sense of mystery as he traces her inner journey from near despair to a calm acceptance. Khubchandani masterfully recreates a seamless interleaving of the inner imagination and outer events that constitute Elli’s flow of experience. Intense emotion is experienced as sudden silence and a sense of time slowing almost to stop as the character focuses full attention on the anger or fear or frustration and the rest of the world disappears for that stretched-out moment of time. Several threads weave themselves throughout the film: the restorative power of nature, thanking God for what we do NOT have, vegetarianism as identity, the relationships between mothers and daughters (the male characters rarely appear on screen).

Khubchandani also did the sound design for the film, using the sounds of birds, wind and water contrasted with the rattling drones of machines to underscore his themes. Like the images, the sound slips easily back and forth between realism and the logic of dreams. Kyma played such a large role in this transformation, it even gets a credit at the end of the film!