Concert by Master Students @ NOVARS: the International Anthony Burgess Foundation

Crytek GmbH provides NOVARS Research Centre with Educational site licenses for the game engine software CryEngine 3

Crytek GmbH has provided University of Manchester in UK with educational site licenses for the game engine software CryEngine 3 (CryENGINE® technology) to undertake research in Audio for game engine environments at the NOVARS Research Centre.

The network licenses will provide the studios with access to CryEngine 3 for PhD research and for a new undergraduate music course entitled: Sound for Digital Entertainment Environments

Crytek GmbH ("Crytek") is one of the world’s leading independent development studios for interactive entertainment. It is based in Frankfurt am Main (Germany) and has additional studios in Kiev (Ukraine), Budapest (Hungary), Sofia (Bulgaria), Seoul (South Korea) and Nottingham (UK). Crytek is dedicated to creating exceptionally high-quality video games for next-generation consoles and PC, powered by their proprietary cutting-edge 3D-Game-Technology, CryENGINE (R) . Since its foundation in 1999, Crytek has created the multi-award winning PC titles Far Cry (R) , Crysis (R) (awarded best PC Game of E3 2007 and Best Technology at the 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards) and Crysis Warhead (R) (awarded Best Graphics Technology at IGN Best of 2008 Awards). In March 2011, Crytek will release the newest instalment of its multi-award winning FPS Crysis (R) series, Crysis (R) 2 – the first Crytek game to be available on all three major platforms.

Crytek, Crysis, Crysis Warhead, CryENGINE, Sandbox and LiveCreate are registered trademarks or trademarks of Crytek GmbH in the USA, Germany and/or other countries.

S.LOW @ National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Dublin; S.LOW- vip lounges are for ALL - a dynamic documentary film

S.LOW - vip lounges are for ALL - a dynamic documentary film

Presented by Ricardo Climent

Duration: 42 minutes film

Place: National University of Ireland, Maynooth Campus @ The music department

Day: Friday 25th March 2011

Time: Starting at 2 pm

Sound setup: 8.1 channels surround

Film samples one, two, three, four

-> followed by the Seminar talk: 'The Navigation System Through Sound and other Composition Environments'

Synopsis: S.LOW - vip lounges are for ALL is a non-linear non-directed documentary film as a result of the S.LOW Projekt (Berlin). In the summer of 2010, about forty international and national visual artists, music composers working with electronic media, musicologists, performers, engineers, physical scientists and film-makers met in Berlin to discuss the concepts of low and slow in the context of the city. The film explores how art can survive outside the comfort of large institutional support and if as a result, artists can change the rules of engagement with audiences by giving the latter equal importance in the process of sharing and making arts. With an emphasis on people and by documenting 'the things in between' during such project, this audiovisual work allows listeners to navigate through a number of values and concepts such as, trust, believes, authorship, excellence, art-killing rules, dream-cities, time-to-share or being-faithful, as seen by the artists.

web: s.low-low.org

PhD Composer Sam Salem: Part-time Lecturer, Bath Spa University 2011, to expand NOVARS's list...

Since the start of the year, Composer Sam Salem, a current PhD student at University of Manchester has been teaching every Thursday at Bath Spa University. Although he travels many miles every week from Manchester to Bath Spa, he is still involved very much with NOVARS Research activities and serving as teaching assistant for the electroacoustic courses in Music at Manchester University.

Sam's teaching story adds up to the number of existing PhDs and graduates from NOVARS, engaged with education and research in other institutions in the last couple of years or so; e.g. Tom Scott, Mauricio Pauly and Rodrigo Constanzo at the RNCM, Diana Salazar at Kingston University London, Manuella Blackburn at Liverpool Hope University, Kaho Cheung at the Baptist University of Hong Kong and Richard Scott (visiting @ Lancaster University). Some master students have been accepted to international courses like Chris Swithinbank (IRCAM) or continued PhD Studies (Patrick Sanan in Pure Maths in California or Panos Amelides awarded to study PhD with Prof John Young at De Montfort University), got jobs in Schools (Heather Bamforth) or stablished themselves are freelance composers and performers (George Denis in London, Gavin Osborn in the North West of England, Irma Catalina with 'Miseria y Hambre' or Mark Pilkington, an active performer in the region and teacher at Futureworks, school of media) or people who already had University jobs in composition like Nick Casswell (at UCLAN) came to join our PhD community of composers and sound reearchers.

Composer Suk-Jun Kim to start a residency at NOVARS

Composer Suk-Jun Kim to return to MANTIS to work on a new composition for the MANTIS Festival in June 2011, which will have a concert outcome and an Audioguide outcome. A visit sponsored by Cities@Manchester for the MANTIS Augmented Aurality day on June 12th.

Jun's residency at NOVARS will take place during the last week of March (28 March - 2 April 2011)

CITIES@MANCHESTER SUPPORTS AUGMENTED AURALITY TOURS AS PART OF MANTIS JUNE 2011

MANTIS FESTIVAL's proposes this year to convert the City as Museum/City as Instrument (the city of Manchester, UK) in partnership with - NoTour Audioguides (Augmented Aurality GPS system). A project supported by CITIES@MANCHESTER and the MANTIS Festival at University of Manchester.

Diffusion workshop @ NOVARS & blue-sky-thinking on new directions for the MANTIS-GLUION interface

Pictured above PhDs @NOVARS Sam Salem and Constantin Popp at the John Thaw blackbox Theatre testing the new babyMANTIS-GLUION TM diffusion system (32 sound channels on a laptop)

MONDAY 21, March 2011 @ Studio one (NOVARS Research Centre)

Workshop to be podcasted afterwards.

babyMANTIS TM was exclusively designed by PhD Students at University of Manchester, as portable diffusion system for smaller theatres. babyMANTIS TM a version informed by David's Berezan's MANTIS system which controls a larger array of speakers for sound diffusion.

Pictured below, rehearsal of MANTIS Guest speaker Helmut Lemke and his 1980s multichannel tape device which was hooked to the babyMANTIS-GLUION TM system by NOVARS PhD students.

Pictured below Composer Richard Scott performing at MANTIS (islington Mill concert the day after) - another interesting concert space in Salford. A former Factory now converted a huge space devoted to arts.

Trio in Residence at NOVARS premiere 'Triple Retort', a new work with electronics by former PhD Manuella Blackburn

Pictured above, Trio Atem rehearsing in Studio 3 at NOVARS

for more information abou the trio click here

Programme below:

Thursday 17th March 2011

Venue: The Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall

Time: 13.10

Admission Price: FREE

WALTER CARROLL LUNCHTIME CONCERT

Trio Atem

Gavin Osborn – flute, Nina Whiteman – voice, Alice Purton – cello

Manuella Blackburn Triple Retort (world première)

Edward Caine Poem in Silence

Kaija Saariaho Mirrors

Martin Iddon pneuma.pistis (world première)

Richard Whalley Questions Arising From Sympathy (world première)

Helmut Lachenmann temA

Trio Atem return with a vibrant and dynamic programme showcasing the full sonic scope of the ensemble.

Rodrigo Constanzo starts residency at STEIM today (14th-23rd March 2011)

Rodrigo Constanzo is a Spanish-American performer and composer living in Manchester, England. He is an avid improviser and performs regularly using home made electro-acoustic, and modified electronic instruments. He has performed at the FUTURESONIC and Manchester Jazz Festivals in Manchester, the SOUND Festival in Aberdeen, and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. He has released several CDs including an improv duo CD with Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, and most recently, I AM YOUR DENSITY, a large ensemble improv composition which includes the graphic score with it. He is currently working towards an MA in Electroacoustic Composition at the University of Manchester and involved in several projects including Takahashi’s Shellfish Concern, an improv based performance-art group. He also co-runs The Noise Upstairs, an improv collective and label which puts on monthly nights and quarterly workshops in Manchester and Sheffield. Rodrigo Constanzo was born in Madrid, Spain in 1976. He then spent the next three decades living in Miami, Florida, before moving to Manchester, England where he resides today. He has performed as a solo musician or as part of various groups for the majority of his life, including at the FUTURESONIC and Manchester Jazz Festivals in Manchester, the SOUND Festival in Aberdeen, and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. He began his studies in music at the age of four, studying piano with his grandmother, formerly a piano teacher at the Conservatory of Cuba. In high school he formed, and directed, the South Miami Senior High School Rock Band, which performed regularly at school functions. He graduated in 1994 and went on to study at Miami Dade College under Jane Pyle, Jo Foster, and Linda Fowler. While there, Rodrigo won, and placed in, several composition competitions, met future collaborators, and eventually earned an Associate of Arts degree in Music.

In 2004, Rodrigo formed Failure, Arc of Beauty with Gilbert Kong. The group would eventually grow to include his future wife, Angela Guyton, whose participation allowed for the exploration of the ways sight and sound could interact on a performance level. This is something Rodrigo always had an interest in and worked hand in hand with his passion for improvisation. It was improvisation which would lead to the formation of MUS2301, an improvisation-based group/class that continued in Miami until Rodrigo and Angela moved to Manchester, England in 2007. Although he is classically trained, his primary interest lies in experimental music and improvisation. For the past ten years he has built and performed using instruments he has built himself, ranging from modified electronic toys, to a electro-acoustic stringed instruments. He is as eclectic a composer as he is a performer, believing that each composition is self-standing, with each idea being a unique one, and demanding a unique outcome. The one thing that ties most of his work together is the surrendering of part of his control as a composer, be it in aleatoric or arbitrary decisions at the composition level, or through largely improvised forms at the performance level. This can manifest itself as a graphic score for large ensemble, an intricate string quartet, or a simple folk song.

Follow Rodrigo's blog notes at STEIM here

Quatuor Danel did workshop Andrew Garbett's new piece for String Quartet and Electronics

Pictured on the left Quatuor Danel

10th of March 2011: Danel String Quartet workshop newly created string quartets composed by PhDs at University of Manchester, UK. The workshop started with Andrew's piece which included electronics composed after transforming materials as a result of Danel's aural responses to Andrews other works recorded in Studio 3 at the start of the year.

(From his bio): Andrew Garbett is a highly versatile composer whose experience ranges from composing solo, chamber, choral, orchestral and electroacoustic music for the concert hall, to writing music for dance, film, and youth ensembles. Andrew studied with Adam Gorb, Paul Patterson and Anthony Gilbert at the Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester, UK). He is currently studying PhD at the NOVARS research centre under the supervision of Dr Ricardo Climent and Dr David Berezan

Research Interests: His music ranges from highly experimental avant-garde works through to very accessible music in a wide range of genres.

Web: http://www.andrewgarbett.com/

For more about the Danels- click here

MANTIS FESTIVAL 2011 -Manchester Sonic Meta-ontology PART ONE - Accomplished!

Manchester Sonic Meta-ontology part ONE took place last weekend. Thanks to all who came to hear this project!!

Pictured here, a live performance of guest artist Helmut Lemke, using his 8 cassette recorder device live (now 30 years operational), improvising with 200 tapes of Manchester (UK) Sounds.

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Manchester Sonic Meta-ontology encapsulates a number or newly created compositions, sonic events and ambisonics field recording trips across the City of Manchester and the North West of England. The project is showcased in two parts (5th-6th March 2011 and 10th-12th June 2011) in the form of concert events and experimental laboratories at Manchester University, Islinton Mill and the City of Manchester. 'Manchester's Sonic Meta-ontology' explores whether there is really such thing as a 'Manchester sound' and if so, what is it, can we experience it, and can we understand it? Substantive empirical investigation takes place in partnership will local agents and artists in the region, which are looking into the creation, identity, and survival of the real truth of Manchester's Sound.

For more about part two, keep an eye on our MANTIS FESTIVAL website, here