Newsletter no. 20

Written By ACTOR Research Team

Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration Project

 

 

CREATIONS AND PRODUCTIONS

"Jusqu'à peu" by Fabien Lévy

Fabien Lévy's piece, Jusqu'à peu (2022, for two organ players on four manuals organ, ca. 19′, Edition Peters), was premiered on June 25 in St-Martin Dom, Kassel, Germany, during the opening concert for the Festival Brandneu for new organ music. The piece was commissioned by the Kulturplattform St. Martin e.V. and was supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

About the piece, Fabien writes, "Adverbial locutions in French, which I often use as titles, often have the wonderful characteristic of containing several meanings. Jusqu’à peu means both until recently and until barely or until a little. The piece is indeed a crisis composition: COVID crisis, midlife crisis, Ukrainian crisis, climate crisis. All these crises, which have been lining up in a new pace for the last few years, have comparable characteristics: They emerge slowly, without being expected, and then explode in an uncontrolled way, often leaving a bitter and disillusioning aftertaste, if not despair, death and destruction. The climate crisis will perhaps be the last of these crises, challenging notions of human progress and perhaps leading to ultimate extinction. Written for one of the most sophisticated instruments in human music, the piece remains on the symbolic level of these different crises, but follows the form and spirit of this emergence and decline."

For more information: The new Rieger microtonal Organ of St-Martin Dom

Fabien was also featured as a podium guest during an event on June 20th celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar.

 

 

"Tracing in Vastness" by Jonas Régnier & "rau" by Pablo Andoni Olabarría

The final concert of the Conducted Ensemble Workshop, which took place in Paris on July 2nd in the context of the ManiFeste Academy 2022, featured two world premieres written by ACTOR student members Jonas Régnier (Tracing in Vastness) and Pablo Andoni Olabarría (rau). The pieces were be performed by Ensemble Intercontemporain under the baton of Jean Deroyer. Read more

photo: left - Pablo Andoni Olabarría; top right - Jonas Régnier; bottom right - Ensemble Intercontemporain

 

 

"Doshite" by Bob Pritchard

Pianist Megumi Masaki performed Bob Pritchard's "Doshite?" at the Banff Centre on June 23 as part of the performance series "Evolution: Classical Faculty." The piece tracks data from Pritchard's Sleeve-Hand Responsive User Garment (SHRUG). Pritchard's optical gesture tracking of movement will be used this winter in the ACTOR strategic funding project titled "Dance and Timbre Exploration (DATE)."

 

 

PUBLICATIONS

New publications involving ACTOR members have been made available:

For the full bibliography, please visit ACTOR publications.

 

 

PRESENTATIONS

International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) 2022

Goni Peles and Yuval Adler ran a workshop on ScoreCraft during the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) 2022. ScoreCraft is a multiplayer music game exploring online music making mediated through gameplay. Each player controls the game by producing sounds; by playing the game, the players are making music. To control the game elements the in-browser game analyzes various features of your sound, including timbre, dynamics, and pitch. Read more

 

 

The metaphors of sound

Victor Rosi's PhD defense took place at Ircam on the 8th of July at 2pm (Paris time) with ACTOR member Charalampos Saitis serving on the jury. Victor's dissertation is titled, "The metaphors of sound: from semantics to acoustics - A study of Brightness, Warmth, Roundness, and Roughness." Read more

Student member receives Ilshin Composition Prize

Student member Sang Song (Ph.D. candidate at UC San Diego) has been recently awarded the 2022 Ilshin Composition Prize. Established by the Ilshin Foundation in Korea, the Ilshin Composition Prize is considered to be one of the nation’s most prestigious prizes awarded to composers of Korean nationality or ancestry. The prize has traditionally been awarded to mid-career composers, but a panel of jury led by the internationally acclaimed composer Unsuk Chin selected Sang, still a graduate student, as this year’s winner. The award comes with a cash prize of 10 million Korean Won (approximately US$9,000), and Sang will be writing a new piece to be performed at the award ceremony.

Brandeis Composers Conference

24 Jul – 07 Aug
Brandeis University
Waltham, USA

In July, Chelsea Komschlies will be attending the Brandeis Composers Conference as one of ten composer fellows with support from the Fromm Foundation. Her new piece "Four Relics Cast in Chocolate" for horn, trombone, cello, and double bass will be premiered.
"Four Relics Cast in Chocolate" offers a gourmet blend of nostalgia and science generously infused with kitsch. Each relic, represented by its musical milieux, has been paired with a flavor of chocolate that best brings out its visual and historical qualities. These taste pairings have a foundation in the science of crossmodal correspondences, which are intuitive, synesthesia-like connections between sensory modes that the majority of people share. The flavors of each chocolate have been coded into the movements through timbral, orchestrational, harmonic, and textural composition choices. Movements are titled as follows:

I. Pilgrim's Pulpit of St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna (c. 1515), Cast in salted dark chocolate, 75%
II. Guimard's Paris Métro Balustrade (1900), Cast in absinthe-infused white chocolate
III. Barbie's Deluxe Dream House (1998), Cast in ruby chocolate
IV. Starfleet Type-3 Phaser Rifle (c. 2265), Cast in Romulan-Ale-infused dark chocolate, 90%

 

 

Chroniques déchantées by Fabien Lévy

22 Jul | 7:30pm
Theaterhaus Stuttgart T4
Germany

Chroniques déchantées, for accordion & piano (2019, ca. 15', Editions Peters), by Fabien Lévy will be performed on 22 July, 19:30, at the Theaterhaus Stuttgart T4, Germany. The piece includes two movements: I.- Quand le psittirostre zinzinule and II.- Novembre (in memoriam Corinna L. & Jean-Claude Risset) and will feature Anna-Maria Hoelscher on accordion and Florian Hoelscher on piano.

Timbre and Orchestration Writings

Interactive Project Reports

The many facets of musical listening

A new student collaborative project report—"The many facets of musical listening: Auditory perception mechanisms and learned experiences," by Lena Heng (McGill University) & Mengqi Wang (Université de Strasbourg) is now available on the TOR.
Abstract:
Composers make use of their knowledge of different orchestration techniques in creating certain effects and sonic outcomes. These effects may be comprehended by listeners to a greater or lesser extent depending on the amount of shared understanding with the musical tradition, style of music, and other factors. In this project, we look at how the success of these effects depends on both prior knowledge and experience, and how they are perceivable by listeners. Successful orchestration is built upon the fact that regardless of the instruments used or the musical or cultural connotations of the music, they adhere to universal mechanisms of auditory perception and cognition. Read more

 

 

Timbre Lingo

A new Timbre Lingo essay, "Vibrato," by Theodora Nestorova, is now available on the TOR. “Sound is vibration! Repeated, continuous vibration of the air creates sustained sounds. Within sustained sounds, vibration modulations are a natural component of both vocal and instrumental music. Patterns of vibration modulations are perceived by the human ear, and we call them vibrato. Vibrato is commonly accepted to be a distinctive feature of musical sound, inextricably tied to artistic expression and timbre.”

 

 

Y4 Workshop

Hybrid Setup

The ACTOR Y4 Workshop is ongoing but it is still possible to participate - no registration needed.All ACTOR members are welcome to participate—no registration needed. The hybrid workshop wrapping up our fourth year of activities will be accessible via Zoom. Check the complete schedule on our website and choose which sessions you would like to join.

The Plenary Session on July 9th will include 12 lightning talks and 7 student presentations, including two from the recipients of the Collaborative Student Project Grant.

STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

  • Theodora Nestorova (McGill University): Timbre semantics of the singing voice

  • Chelsea Komschlies (McGill University): Did Messiaen draw from shared crossmodal correspondences within his synesthetic colour system?

  • Ninon Devis (IRCAM): Deep audio learning for novel timbre generation

  • Louis-Michel Tougas (McGill University): Compound Figures in my CORE piece "Étude for ensemble"

  • Ehsan Fard (Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig): Principles of Gestalt psychology as a means for emergent orchestration

For the full abstracts, visit our website.

COLLABORATIVE STUDENT PROJECTS

On Days 2 and 3 (July 10th and 11th), all ACTOR workgroups will be holding a session to discuss their projects, initiate new collaborations, and brainstorm. Don't miss out! It's the perfect opportunity for the ACTOR community to get updates and get involved in the projects being developed.

For more information, please visit our website or contact Andre Oliveira.

Not a member yet? Visit our General Information page and learn how to apply for membership in time for the workshop.

Host Highlight Session

We are happy to announce that our hosts from the School of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Calgary have organized a special roundtable discussion and an ensuing recital at the Y4 Workshop.

Roundtable discussion: The sound fields of music that escape conventional notation

July 10th, 4:00-5:30pm (MDT)

This session will feature four short talks presented by Friedemann Sallis, Jeffrey Boyd, Martin Ritter, and Hans Tutschku. A discussion period will follow. The Zoom access information is available on our website.

Recital

July 10th, 7:30-8:30pm (MDT)

The recital will include pieces by Hans Tutschku and Martin Ritter, with Héctor Arroyo on the piano. This event will be accessible to the general public via Zoom. For the complete program, visit our website.

Join this Zoom Meeting

 

 

Fabien Lévy

Fabien Lévy is a composer and teacher of composition and directs the Center for Contemporary Music at the Leipzig University of Music. He studied composition with Gérard Grisey at the Paris Conservatory and was resident at the Villa Medici / French academy in Rome and in Berlin with the DAAD Artist Program. His works, published by Billaudot (1998-2008), Ricordi Germany (2008-2018) and since 2018 by Editions Peters, have been performed by numerous international ensembles such as the Ensemble Recherche, the neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, the Ensemble Modern of Frankfurt, the Argento Ensemble, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the philharmonic orchestra of Radio-France or the Deutsche Symphony orchestra (among others). Fabien won the 2004 Förderpreis from the Ernst von Siemens Förderpreis Foundation for music. He taught at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns-Eisler in Berlin (Germany) and has been Assistant Professor of Composition at Columbia University in New York (USA), senior professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold in Germany, and since October 2017, senior professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy” in Leipzig.
Fabien regularly teaches orchestration. In recent years, following in the footsteps of intuitive work of others (e.g. Marc-André Dalbavie) and thanks to the exchanges within ACTOR, Fabien has been developing the system of "functional orchestration." In addition to the orchestration techniques which are linked to contexts (historical context, language, availability of instruments) and psychoacoustic effects, functional orchestration aims to deepen and classify universal, "functional" categories of orchestration. Examples include types of contrast and form/orchestration issues, categorization of sound objectives for doubling and coupling mechanisms, and hierarchization of voices (melody, accompaniment, etc).

 

 

Nathalie Hérold

Nathalie Hérold is Associate Professor (Maîtresse de conférences) in Music Theory and Analysis at Sorbonne University (Faculty of Arts and Humanities) and has been a member of the Research Institute in Musicology (IReMus, UMR 8223) since 2021. She previously worked as a Contract Researcher at the GRÉAM (Experimental Research Group on Music in Act) laboratory of excellence at the University of Strasbourg, and as a Teaching and Research Assistant (Attachée Temporaire d’Enseignement et de Recherche) at Université Grenoble Alpes. She holds a PhD in Arts with a specialization in Music from the University of Strasbourg and a Bachelors’s degree in Mathematics and Piano Teaching. Since 2017, she has been vice-president of the French Society for Music Analysis (SFAM) and co-editor in chief of the French journal Musurgia : analyse et pratique musicales. She has been involved in the ACTOR project since its creation and has served as coordinator and co-chair of the Training and Mentoring Committee (2020-2022).
Nathalie Hérold’s primary research area concerns timbre as musical material and seeks to examine its role within musical form since the second half of the 18th century. With both the emergence of the pianoforte and the development of the modern orchestra, this period constitutes indeed a turning point that influenced the structural use and theoretical conceptualization of timbre. She elaborates theoretical and analytical approaches to timbre and orchestration in tonal as well as post-tonal instrumental music, with a particular interest in piano repertoire. She has published on composers including Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Debussy, Dutilleux, and Murail, as well as on topics related to the epistemology and history of timbre and orchestration theory and analysis, with a particular focus on methodological considerations. She is also interested in the diversity of approaches covered by music theory and analysis, as well as by computer-aided music analysis.

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. 

 
 
ACTOR Research Team