Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall
Walter Carroll Lunchtime Concerts
MANTIS and Special Guest Julio d’Escriván
Thursday 1st December 2011, 13.10
Ben Cottrell: Saxophone
Eleanor Gaynard: Violin
PROGRAMME
Ensayo sobre la Torpeza (2007) live acousmatic code compiling [ca. 9']
This piece and the other ‘ensayo’ in this programme belong to my series of ‘live code essays’ or works of live 'tweaking' sound art, which can be described as 'editing-performances'. I am interested in the boundaries (and possible misinterpretations by the audience!) between computer language and natural language projected on screen, but also in the creative flow of code editing as a performance. Although these pieces are not traditional live coding (as much code is prepared beforehand), edits and new lines of code are compiled and performed live in front of the audience and projected on screen. Photography and text chunks are also presented algorithmically and related to the essays. The relative messiness of the screen shared with the audience reflects the coexistence of the many media formats and the way computer composers think musically. From a conceptual perspective, the ensayos attempt a media art take on the essays of French renaissance essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533-92). In his essays Montaigne contemplates a topic and freely moves between quotation of the classics, his everyday experiences and his own philosophical musings. His writing is fresh and varied and likely to leave the reader with more questions than answers. In this he is a role model for me. I have tried to use sounds that elicit instant visual associations and play with their meaning, juxtaposing, mixing and transforming. But I am also interested in the hyper linking spirit of Montaigne's referencing and the potential for plundered media to help enrich the poetic message.
Garabesque Machine (2010) tenor sax and live electronics [ca 6']
Sax: Ben Cottrell
Although written for clarinetist Gareth Stuart, this work is not restricted to any wind instrument in particular. It explores musical patterning and the extension of the sonorities of the sax by live electronic manipulations. The piece is in an episodic form alternating lyrical melodies with rhythmic passages and wondering at how varied a sound-world can be derived from a single instrument.
The Blank Page (2011) live coding starting from a blank page [ca 7']
The title of this coding improvisation references a work that introduced me to nested n-tuplets and music programmed on the synclavier sampling instrument by the now legendary composer Frank Zappa.
eBop (2010) tenor sax and live electronics [ca. 7’]
Sax: Ben Cottrell
This work was commissioned by Spanish saxophonist Iñigo Ibaibarriaga. It is entirely composed using variations and rhythmic transformations of basic melodic cells through live coding. Using the SuperCollider computer music programming language, I set about jamming with riff ideas for the tenor sax. One variation leading to another and making use of controlled randomness in the detail of the score, I nevertheless stood back and reassembled the music from the results of my code. While I was writing (typing!) it, I could not help thinking of Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaacson’s Illiac Suite of 1957. In their piece an ‘etude’ approach is employed to apply contrapuntal and rhythmic variation techniques to the generated pitch material. The result was then transcribed for string quartet. Their approach was well planned and although the tones were generated randomly, the composition strategies were employed quite rigidly, one could say scientifically. ‘On the fly programming’ as afforded by languages like SuperCollider, allow the composer to test and playfully interact with their computer music work as they create it. This was not possible in 1957, yet the spirit of allowing the machine to work out the details of a composition according to rules remains a common fascination across time.
Ensayo sobre la bicicleta (2010) live acousmatic code compiling [ca. 9’]
(see the notes above)
Insect Medium (2011) Violin and Soundtrack [ca. 3’]
Violin: Eleanor Gaynard
Insect Medium was written for virtuoso Japanese violinist Mifune Tsuji who gave its first performance in October 2011. In this performance the piece included a drummer (which is optional for the performance of the piece). This music takes the ‘tape and soloist’ genre of electroacoustic music and slightly recasts it into a piece which is really intended for a remixing DJ and a live performer.
Biography
Julio d’Escriván (b.1960) is a composer and creative technologist who has worked extensively in music for commercials, TV and film. d’Escriván’s recent work includes the Cambridge Introduction book to Music Technology to be published in October 2011 by Cambridge University Press. He is coeditor of the Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music and co-author of the Chapter on Composing with SuperCollider for The SuperCollider Book published recently by MIT Press. D’Escriván has won several prizes both for his concert and film music. He has been twice winner of the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition, France, in 1987 and 1989. His electroacoustic music has been performed and broadcast internationally. At present, d’Escriván is Reader in Creative Music Technology at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Ben Cottrell is a composer and saxophonist currently based in Manchester. He is best known as the musical director of the Beats & Pieces Big Band, which he founded in 2008 as a vehicle for his own compositions and arrangements. Since then, the band has established a reputation as one of the UK’s most exciting emerging jazz groups, a reputation that is also rapidly spreading into Europe. In March 2011, Beats & Pieces were named as the winners of the European Young Artists’ Jazz Award, one of the continent’s major jazz prizes for emerging musicians, held as part of the Burghausen International Jazz Festival in Germany.
Eleanor Gaynard Ellie Gaynard is a 2nd year music student at The University of Manchester, where she studies violin under Julia Hanson. Ellie is involved with various MUMS ensembles and has a keen interest in new music, having performed with the University’s contemporary music ensemble, Vaganza. Since a young age Ellie has been involved with folk music and regularly plays for sessions, festivals and ceilidhs. Pursued alongside her classical training, this has provided her with an alternative musical perspective which has recently been extended by her study and performance of traditional Eastern European Klezmer. Ellie hopes to pursue further classical performance study after graduating next year.
MANTIS (Manchester Theatre in Sound) presents concerts of music and sound, featuring compositions and performances enhanced by the use of new technology and digital media. MANTIS combines a broad array of sonic events at the MANTIS Festival and MANTIS-in-Motion, which range from the live diffusion of acousmatic works on a 48-loudspeaker sound system (using the unique MANTIS System), to Live Instrumental and Electronics events involving large ensemble groups on stage.
The Lunchtime Concert Series is supported by the Ida Carroll Trust.
Although Lunchtime Concerts and Recitals are free, you are invited to make a voluntary donation towards their running costs.
Photography and/or recording of this performance are strictly prohibited.
Please remember to turn off your mobile phones.
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