toy_5 on The New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival

toy_5

Along with a bunch of my friends, Sam Beebe, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Joseph Bohigian, Joseph Bohigian, Rob Cosgrove and Taylor Long, we put together a few works to put on the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival. We had originally proposed a full length concert set, but after the festival was canceled due to COVID-19, they moved to an online format and we all were cast out into far-flung regions of the world. For the online format, though, we still had the opportunity to compose and record some new works for a Networked Music format. We also recorded a work of Sam’s:

Sam Beebe’s Pretty Saro Orbital

Sam had this to say about his piece:

Pretty Saro is a tune I first heard from a Jean Ritchie recording with Doc Watson. I was immediately struck by the simplicity and power of both the performance and the tune and lyrics. Later on I heard Peggy Seeger do it on one of her albums, and it sort of lodged the song in my
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mind ever since – I’ve always wanted to make some interpretation of it. So, with Pretty Saro Orbital, have tapped Brian Eno’s procedure of rotating tape loops from his album “Music for Airports” as a method to cope with the lack of precise synchronization of parts due to the limitations of remote performance via video conferencing and unstable home internet connections. The material, sourced from the traditional song, is presented with an open scoring, and is played to a shared (albeit erratic) metronome, which remains silent to the audience. I am pleased by the way this project has allowed me to explore and remodel these two sources and make them my own.

The festival organizer had this note:

Welcome to NYCEMF 2020.Just as we were organizing our concerts, which were supposed to take place between June 14 and 21, the United States was hit by the world-wide pandemic of the coronavirus. The entire country went into lockdown, and New York City was the epicenter of the outbreak. People were forbidden to leave their homes except to get medicine or food (and restaurants were closed, so you could only get take-out). Over 40 million people in the USA lost their jobs, and the economy went into a meltdown.

All this has had a major impact on music productions and organizations. The largest musical organizations in New York, like the Metropolitan Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra, cancelled their seasons and will not open until 2021. All local concert activity ceased, and the only performances that began to take place were virtual productions over the internet. A few musical productions have taken place with very small audiences in large spaces in order to allow for social distancing, but most events were simply cancelled.

Thus, we were forced to cancel the in-person concerts for NYCEMF 2020, but we were able to organize this virtual presentation. All composers who had works accepted were invited to submit something, and we will also allow them to have the same pieces played live next year if they wish. As you can see, we have an extraordinary group of pieces presented in this way.

We will miss some of the unique features that we have always had in previous festivals, particularly the opportunity to hear works in surround sound and with some of the special ambisonic qualities that some works use, as well as the opportunity to have sound installations and live performances. But we will return to these as soon as we are able to resume our normal activities.

The festival is organized into concerts just like they would have been if we had presented them in person. I encourage you to listen to everything on the festival, and you can do so as long as we are able to leave the festival on line. Enjoy!


Hubert Howe, https://nycemf.org/program-book/

Awarded ZHdK-AVINA Projektfond for Hyperobject: Intersubject With Yris Apsit and Tillo Spreng

So very thrilled to be working with Yris Apsit and Tillo Spreng this upcoming year on a new multi-media work through a grant we won from ZHdK and the Avina Stiftung! Last fall we got together and produced a really fun and interesting experiment that sought to capture the essence of Helvitiaplatz, a public square here in Switzerland. Through this funding we will be expanding the scope of our experiment, by turning the lens of our artistic process towards a most significant Hyperobject: Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Concerts, Concerts…

One of the advantages of being in a university (really Hochschüle) that has tons of concerts and events going on, is there is always something new and interesting to do. This is especially true when the school has a leading institute for computer music/sound technology. A couple weeks ago I went and saw an evening of music put together by students and faculty in ZHdK’s Electroacoustic Masters program. The evening hosted a bunch of interesting works, and I got to hear some music by friends who I have met during my first five months here, in addition to students who I do not know.

Work for Sax and Electronics by Germán Toro-Pérez.

The works ranged from fixed media pieces with some simple, live manipulation, to pieces that involved NIME’s (new interfaces for musical expression), to works that incorporated spatialization techniques to varying degrees. Toro-Perez’s work, shown above, integrated the variable height of the speakers and the movement of the saxophonist in relation to said speakers into the structure of the work. James Tenney’s Saxony was performed as well, but with an added twist thrown in by Eric Larrieux who applied live, first order ambisonics to the recorded loops.

Saxony with ambisonics (although naturally they are inaudible in this state due to the capture format).

Back in December I went to see another concert of electroacoustic music hosted in the Transdisciplinary Department’s Atelier (the department I am associated with) as part of ZHdK’s Lange Nacht der zeitgenössischen Musik. The offerings were similarly diverse, and a ton of fun to experience, along with mood lighting and cheap drinks!

Lange Nacht der zeitgenössischen Musik

Lachenmann in Zürich

Last Fall (I know, big delay), Lachenmann rolled up to Zürich and had a series of events that ran the course of a weekend, including several concerts at ZHdK. This all coincided with his one of performances as the narrator in his Ballopera Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern alongside a chamber concert and talk-back that the Züri Opera house had hosted. This was near the end of the run of the his show—if I remember correctly, there was only the closing show left after this weekend—and amazingly, from an American’s perspective of sales rates for contemporary classical productions, all of the shows were sold out.

Pit, with creepy, “Saw “inspired grandmother on stage before the show starts.

Luckily, I was able to get a ticket through ZHdK, and the seats were amazing. But before I get to the Ballopera (it’s a thing now), let me rewind to earlier in the weekend, which started out with a chamber concert performed by ZHdK students and Lachenmann himself. Without getting into too much detail, there were several pieces on the program. The ones that truly stood out were Wiegenmusik, and temA. Wiegenmusik: for it’s truly lush piano writing and harmony, and temA: for the instrumental and coloristic creativity that Lachenmann is known for. Intériur I was masterfully performed, but it’s funny: I think that for an ‘instrumentarium’ that inevitably demands for creative writing, Lachenmann called for a massive battery of instruments, yet, in contrast to his reputation and the presented temA, got little out of each.

Amazing performances all around.

ZHdK’s Arc-en-Ciel (the school’s large New Music ensemble) also presented some Lachenmann alongside Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel. I spoke with some of the players afterwards, and they mentioned that Lachenmann really took the time to work through everything with the ensemble. The players from the chamber concert expressed the same thing to me, which leads me to believe it was a truly exceptional rehearsal experience. I know, had I been in their position, it would have meant the world to me, to have someone of Lachenmann’s stature not simply dip in for the dress and peace out after the concert (he attended all the post-concert social gatherings). In this way he served as a role-model for how to treat colleagues, students, or even just fans.

Arc-en-Ciel

Das Mädchen was also an interesting experience. There are many political aspects to the work and the production itself, which I will get into in a second. The production was stunning, and the opulence of the orchestra on hand, alongside the fact that it was spatialized throughout the opera house, was really put to use beautifully within the musical experience. The first half of the piece was revelatory orchestral writing, after which, the music (reflecting the content of the narrative) flagged and died away . I wonder if the music would have been so captivating on recording, or whether it is intrinsically linked to how the orchestra is positioned around the audience (bound to the live experience).

See orchestra musicians in the boxes, and the backs of the balcony. It was like this all around.

Hearing a bunch of Lachenmann’s music live, back-to-back over a weekend, alongside seeing a panel discussion hosted at ZHdK (not the one at the opera house), there were a few things that struck me about Lachenmann’s music and the apparatuses (INSTRUMENTARIUM) surrounding it. Lachenmann is well known for being a Marxist, and his modernist style of music hews close to modernism as a dialectically and progressively grounded historical and aesthetic ideology. There are many contradictions in the the sequence of events I’ve covered in this post to a Marxist, or even dialectic musical-political ideal. On the one hand, I do understand that we live in a society (cue joker), and one has to navigate institutions and realities within that society in order to produce the art one wants. On the other hand, there is something quite ironic about a Ballet, whose principal character’s hope is extinguished by a cold, uncaring (capitalist) society, yet the work was most definitely produced in an iconic type-space of Bourgeoisie/high society, which is nonetheless situated in the economic center of one of the banking capitals of the world.

Die Mädchen verbeugt sich.

Das Land Und Die Forschung

Mist Burning Off Alps
Mist Burning Off Alps

There are many advantages to being in Switzerland, but some of the best are the absolutely stunning vistas. When you need a break, or have a bit of wanderlust, it’s not far, and not too expensive to see some radical landscapes—if the weather cooperates. A few weeks ago I went to Interlaken with a few of the other Fulbrighters here in Switzerland after an event at the Embassy. It was fairly rainy and cloudy and the views were obscured quite a bit by the cloud cover. There were some moments, though, where the clouds cleared out a little and we were treated to some beautiful views.

Bachalpsee Above First

R&R is great and all, but I’m really here to see and make art right? There have been some really cool events at ZHdK that I have had the pleasure to attend. The first I wanted to mention was REFRESH #2, which was an experimental art and design conference/workshop. It was hosted by the Immersive Arts Lab, which is this insane space in the basement of ZHdK with motion-capture systems, an ambisonics system, and various augmented and virtual reality systems. A colleague of mine, Melody Chua, who I was first introduced to by Howie Kenty when I was applying for the Fulbright, presented a couple pieces that she had written. Both had fun visuals accompanying the excellent music. I got a boomerang, but you can check out her website for actual audio.

ZHdK also has installations for different projects being put up all the time through the school. One such project I saw recently was a very cool NIME (New interface for musical expression), which allowed people to control what is essentially a player piano. Instead of controlling the hammers internally, like the standard player piano, there were 88 felt tipped hammers situated above the keys themselves, and the control was executed from two touch-screen computers off to the side. The NIME was made possible by a research team at the ICST, which was led by Phillip Kocher. This particular presentation was titled “Pianospiel”, but the broader research project is called “Klavierautomat”. (Sound on below!)

Pianospiel

Back to work, I’ll leave you with a nice pic of Zürich from the Grossmünster and from the rooftop of ETH.

Zürich Landing

The past few weeks have been quite a rush, running from here to there, getting registered with the cantonal authorities, getting registered with the Swiss authorities, attending mandatory orientation events, attending non-mandatory orientation events, meeting people, hustling, avoiding writing a paper that is due to a journal next week. All this is to say that I sadly haven’t been able to do much music making. That said, I have had the opportunity to hear and see some amazing music making.

Theodor and Joel in one of the Telematic nodes during the final performance.

First, I got to sit in and view several days of a Telematic music course hosted by the Transdisciplinary Program, which is my ‘home-base’ here at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste during my Fulbright. Led by Patrick Müller and Matthias Ziegler alongside a few assistants who were also drawn from the Transdisciplinary program, a small group of students explored the medium in a somewhat ‘local’ setting. I say local, because the latency that so defines Telematic music (and more generally much Networked Musics), was still present even as they were only transferring data between different rooms within ZHdK.

Matthias Ziegler, Germán Toro-Pérez and Peter Färber preparing Luigi Nono’s Das Atmende Klarsein

After meeting Matthias for the first time during the course, he told me that he was working on Nono’s Das Atmende Klarsein (for Bass Flute, Children’s Choir and Electronics) and had a rehearsal that evening. I kindly invited myself along because it seemed like it would be amazing to hear that work (at least the portions for flute and electronics) live. The rehearsal did not disappoint, and the bonus was that I learned of another event—this one in Basel—that seemed quite fascinating.

Klangturm from Rohrwerk: Fabrique sonore

While chatting after the rehearsal, Germán Toro-Pérez told me and another Ph.D. student (Marcio) about his recently completed collaboration—essentially the building of a new instrument—and a concert work for that very instrument that were being premiered soon. I decided to take the train out to Basel to see the open rehearsal that was offered. Germán had designed feedback-tubes that were inserted into this upside-down, conical ‘klangturm’, or in English; ‘sound tower’. These feedback tubes could be put into use as electronic tracks for pieces, or as what I assume is a 33′ looped installation piece composed by one of the other artists. The whole visual design of the tower was very cool, and reminded me of a mix between the obelisk from 2001 and Jean Tinguely’s goofy kinetic sculptures (very fitting for Basel).

More Klangturm

The obelisk explanation, I think, is self-evident: An imposing black structure that has descended from above (to put it in the courtyard of the Kunstmuseum Basel, they lifted it in via crane), while the Tinguely reference has to do with all the old wind instruments, bells, organ pipes, etc. that are sticking out from the structure of the ‘tower’.

One thing I found notable about all the music that was presented, was that almost all of the works featured hollow, tubular, resonating bodies. It was a nice programmatic touch, and all the works were fantastic to listen to, even though the artists were still polishing them up (open-rehearsals are like that).

Oh, also. Swimming in the Limmat after a hot day is the bomb.

Fulbright Award

This information has been out of the bag for some time–that being said, what’s the point of having a website if you don’t post cool stuff that happens?

This upcoming fall I’ll be spending a year studying at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste working on my dissertation project. This is all being made possible through the generous U.S. tax payers, the staff at the IIE, the generous Swiss tax payers, and the SFBI under the auspices of a Fulbright Open Study/Research Award and the Swiss Government Excellence Grant.

Check in here over the coming year, where I’ll be posting about my time in Switzerland and the progress of my crazy participatory computer music system!