Newsletter no. 18
Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration Project
May, 2022
CREATIONS AND PRODUCTIONS
Suivi
The premiere of Jorge Ramos' Suivi, composed for bass clarinet and fixed electronics, took place on March 3rd as part of "ATHENA 1925," a new project inspired by the poetic universe of Fernando Pessoa and developed by Frederic Cardoso.
Mauvaise foi
On April 16, Louis Goldford's latest work premiered with the International Contemporary Ensemble at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, New York City. Mauvaise foi (2022) for soprano, ensemble, electronics, and reactive lighting, takes the partials of Alice Teyssier's voice and smoothly morphs them into non-vocal instrumental timbres. The piece finds these gestures orchestrated for an ensemble of eleven players, and is the latest in an ongoing collaboration between Louis and poet Katia Bouchoueva. Concert video and audio documentation will follow, but until then, an Instagram highlight includes brief excerpts of rehearsal and performance footage.
PUBLICATIONS
New publications involving ACTOR members have been made available:
Tabak, B. A., Wallmark, Z., Nghiem, L., Alvi, T., Sunahara, C. S., Lee, J, & Cao, J. (2022). Initial evidence for a relation between behaviorally assessed empathic accuracy and affect sharing for people and music.Emotion. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001094
For the full bibliography, please visit ACTOR publications.
What is timbre ? Why People Interpret Sounds Differently
Often referred to as tone quality or color, timbre is what makes different instruments sound unique, even while playing the same pitch. We use words like smooth, gritty, and warm to describe the characteristics of timbre.
While a spectrogram can show us the acoustic fingerprint of each tone, timbre is subjective to the listener. One person might find an instrument's tone appealing, while another listener might cover their ears. How can different listeners have such varying experiences with the same sound?
Zachary Wallmark, assistant professor of Musicology at the University of Oregon breaks down the layers of timbre and what draws listeners to a particular sound.
PRESENTATIONS
Current issues in popular-music analysis
ACTOR member Nicole Biamonte presented a virtual Colloquium lecture, "Current Issues in Popular-Music Analysis," to the Society for Music Analysis, the music theory society of the U.K. She discussed recent timbre research including Megan Lavengood's novelty layer (in timbral opposition to the melody), Christopher W. White's "novelty swoosh" (a new timbral event late in a song), Lindsay Warrenburg's techniques of sonic intimacy, and Michèle Duguay's study of the gendered treatment of voices in recording production, as well as the upcoming poster presentation of the ACTOR-funded Timbre in Popular Song (TiPS) corpus study at the Music Encoding Conference in Halifax, NS in May 2022.
Experimentation and beyond in music
Composer and ACTOR student member Jorge Ramos presented his doctoral research on April 17 at the XPERIMUS '22 Experimentation and Beyond in Music Conference at Casa da Música in Porto, Portugal. Read more
For a reason
30 May | 5:00pm EDT
Tanna Schulich Hall | Elizabeth Wirth Music Building
527 Sherbrooke St. W.
The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) and ACTOR are proud to host the airing of FOR A REASON, a documentary film by Kyle Johnson on the music and world of ACTOR member and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Roger Reynolds. The event will take place on May 30 in Tanna Schulich Hall at 5:00pm (EDT) and will be followed by a Q&A session with Prof. Reynolds and the film director, Kyle Johnson, via Zoom. Admission is free.
Zoom Access for streaming and Q&A
For more information, visit For a Reason
Trailer for FOR A REASON, a documentary film by Kyle Johnson
Shrubberies of semiconductors: Les lambeaux de mon cœur
26 May | 19:00-21:00pm EDT
Music Multimedia Room | Elizabeth Wirth Music Building
527 Sherbrooke St. W.
Composer and ACTOR student member Joshua Bucchi will premiere a new work for piano and percussion quartet with electronics. The piece is on the program for the live@CIRMMT concert on May 26th. Shrubberies of semiconductors : Les lambeaux de mon cœur is an essentially autoethnographical project which serves as a sort of broken diary inspired by the destructive techniques of artists such as Jacques Villeglé and Bill Bourroughs. It feeds on a variety of sources, such as pre-existing musical material extracted from a selection of previous compositions, recordings of broken toys, videos from personal and public archives, AI generated images, and saturated closeups. Read more
Y4 Workshop
Hotel booking - Deadline extended!
If you haven't done so already, you can still book your hotel room to participate in the Y4 ACTOR Workshop! The deadline for you to benefit from special rates at the University of Calgary Accommodations and Events hotel (former Alma Hotel) has been extended. Bookings can be done online or by phone until 7 June. After this date, rates may change and reservations will be contingent on room availability. To verify rates and book your stay, check the Reservation Information sheet. Should you have any questions, please contact Andre Oliveira.
ACTOR Elections
It is time to elect new committee members for the Knowledge Mobilization Committee (KMC), Training and Mentoring Committee (TMC), and Executive Committee. We want to extend our thanks to those whose terms are coming to an end in 2022:
Executive Committee
Caroline Traube, Catherine Guastavino (KMC Coordinator), Indiana Wollman, Jorge Ramos, Malte Kob, Nathalie Hérold (TMC Coordinator), Lindsey Reymore
TMC
Charalampos Saitis, Jade Roth, Jimmie LeBlanc, Matthew Zeller, Nathalie Hérold
KMC
Catherine Guastavino, Gilbert Nouno, Kit Soden, Laurie Radford, Lindsey Reymore, Theodora Nestorova
We will be accepting nominations and self-nominations until 27 May, at which time we will circulate a ballot or announce committee members by acclamation. Please note that the TMC and KMC coordinators are also members of the Executive Committee. You may run for your position again, should you wish to remain on your committee, or you may run for another position. Graduate student terms on all committees are for one year, to allow Master’s students to serve. All other elected terms are for two years.
The open positions are:
Executive Committee:
Institutional Representative, academic (elected)
Institutional Representative, academic (elected)
Institutional Representative, private (elected)
Graduate Student Representative (elected)
Training and Mentoring Committee coordinator and co-chair (ex officio)*
Knowledge Mobilization Committee coordinator and co-chair (ex officio)*
Training and Mentoring Committee (TMC):
Co-investigator / coordinator and co-chair (elected) [also on Executive Committee, ex officio]
Co-investigator or collaborator (elected)
Co-investigator or collaborator (elected)
Graduate student (elected)
Knowledge Mobilization Committee (KMC):
Co-investigator / coordinator and co-chair (elected) [also on Executive Committee, ex officio]
Co-investigator or collaborator (elected)
Co-investigator or collaborator (elected)
Graduate student / co-chair (elected)
Acknowledging ACTOR
Conference season is here! A quick reminder to include ACTOR and/or SSHRC logos on your presentations—the links can be found here on the Knowledge Mobilization Committee's homepage.
Eliazer Kramer
Eliazer Kramer is a doctoral candidate in music composition at the University of Montreal under François-Xavier Dupas and Caroline Traube. His research focuses on developing a unique musical aesthetic by expanding the use of the virtual instruments and by distinguishing virtual orchestration from traditional orchestration. In addition to composing concert music, Eliazer regularly collaborates on music for film and video games. In 2016, he composed the music for the viral animation video, Le clitoris. Eliazer teaches “Audio for Video Games” and “Symphonic Orchestration 1” at the University of Montreal.
Yuval Adler
Yuval Adler's research revolves around contemporary practice in orchestration, and more specifically on how composers and performers approach instrumental grouping and blend using extended instrumental techniques and their notation. Yuval is a PhD candidate in Stephen McAdams' lab at McGill University, and his paper presenting ACTOR-related research to a Hebrew-speaking readership is under review for the Israeli journal Peimot. Yuval is also a composer, music technologist, and trumpet player. His compositions have most recently been performed at the impuls festival in Graz, Austria, and he will be presenting a workshop and improvisatory performance in collaboration with Goni Peles at the International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (TENOR) and the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) this summer using Peles's ScoreCraft musical game.
Satellite Meeting Funding
The purpose of the Satellite Meeting Funding is to increase ACTOR's visibility at international conferences by supporting the organization of adjunct meetings involving at least 2 ACTOR members. A maximum amount of $300 (CAD) will be provided. Applications will be accepted continuously, but must be submitted at least two months prior to the conference date. For more information on how to apply and to access the online application form, visit ACTOR Funding Opportunities.
Special Collection: Sonorous Objects
The following recent call for papers for a special collection from Music & Science may be of interest to ACTOR members:
Sonorous Objects. Contemporary Auditory Ecosystems and Innovative Musical Contexts: Insights into the Aesthetics and Perception of Sonorous Objects
This special issue aims at delving into the aesthetic and perceptual nature of sonorous objects by opening up towards a broader conception of today’s musical panorama (including contemporary art music and sound art), in which multisensory and immersive environments are created in order to provide an augmented listening experience to the audience. Different disciplines might contribute to gain a deeper and wider understanding of the topic, including musicology, music aesthetics and philosophy of music; sociology and anthropology of music; neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive sciences.
The deadline for submission is September 30; manuscripts can be submitted here. Read more
Contributing to TOR
We encourage all ACTOR members to share their research (in progress or completed) with the ACTOR community via the Timbre and Orchestration Resource (TOR). This may include an article, blog, or video submission containing information on project ideas, experiments, external resources/tools, teaching materials, analysis, or anything related to timbre and orchestration that you deem relevant. We believe that only in doing so will we truly benefit from the expertise and feedback from the world-class team of scientists, artists, and humanists involved in ACTOR. If you have any questions about the submission process, please contact Kit Soden. Read more
