Asymmetry Music Magazine

Oh ! espace … espace …

michaelkarman — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:29:13 +0000

Introduction

Un grand nombre des livres et d’articles ont été édités depuis des décennies sur le thème de l’espace sonore, sa perception, sa configuration fixe et mobile dans la composition de la musique acousmatique et sa projection dans l’espace d’un environnement particulier.

Dans cet article, je voudrais seulement témoigner de mon expérience en tant que compositrice de musique acousmatique, fascinée par les différentes techniques de spatialisation stéréophonique et multiphonique.(...)
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Oh! Space… space…

michaelkarman — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:21:29 +0000

by Beatriz Ferreyra
(translation by Lily Woodruff)

Introduction

A large number of books and articles have been edited over the decades on the theme of sound space, its perception, its fixed and mobile configuration in the composition of acousmatic music, and its perception in the space of a particular environment.

In this article, I would just like to testify to my experience as a composer of acousmatic music who is fascinated by the different techniques of stereophonic and multiphonic spatialization.(...)
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Intuition and Order in Xenakis’s Orient-Occident

michaelkarman — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:35:46 +0000

by Brandon Conway

In the late 1950’s and early 60’s, Xenakis worked with GRM (Groupe de recherches musicales) in Paris to produce several pieces for electromagnetic tape, including Orient-Occident, a piece often overshadowed by works like Concrete PH and Bohor, which are rightly considered more groundbreaking pieces in Xenakis’s early oeuvre, particularly Bohor, with its unique source material, its rather violent dynamics, and its rich sound palette. However, Orient-Occident is a firm testament to Xenakis’s visceral immediacy and also a clear example of his early experiments with creating a connection between micro- and macrocomposition. For Xenakis it was important that there be an inextricable link between materials, method, and form. What is most interesting about Orient-Occident is that, unlike many other works by Xenakis, this connection seems to have been forged primarily through intuition as opposed to rigorous systems of control.(...)
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Addendum to Urs Leimgruber in Portland

michaelkarman — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:10:32 +0000

One of the participants in this event has just sent me a link to a soundfile of the entire group improvisation directed by Urs Leimgruber.

http://soundcloud.com/jonathansielaff/urs-large-ensemble-cmg

Enjoy!

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A music; that it might be…: remembering Barney Childs

michaelkarman — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 06:30:00 +0000

Barney Childs died of Parkinson’s disease ten years ago in Redlands, California. Although an important figure in contemporary music, Barney was in no way a self-promoter. I don’t remember hearing any of his music at concerts of the Redlands New Music Society, which he ran. At a weekend series of concerts later that same January (a series that had been organized long before his death), I was amazed at the variety and depth of his musical imagination. It was quite literally revelatory. Even people who had known Barney for many years reported hearing music that weekend that they’d never heard before.

Barney’s music is still not performed often enough, nor are there many recordings, even though he could easily be considered one of the leading American experimental composers of the twentieth century. He was, however, without a doubt an inspiring teacher and colleague. The roster of his friends and students includes many luminaries of contemporary music.

Over the next year or so, Asymmetry Music Magazine will be publishing a series of reminiscences of Barney by some of the people who knew him best. I hope they will be as enjoyable and as inspiring to read as they were for me to collect. And, as this is an on-going project, if anyone who sees this has reminiscences of their own about Barney Childs, please get in touch with me at michaelkarman@asymmetrymusicmagazine.com.

——————

Photograph of Barney Childs by Canada Jack, 1979

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A brace of November concerts in Portland

michaelkarman — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:20:10 +0000

There were plenty of concerts in Portland in October, too, and in September and August, but Asymmetry was in Europe then, haring after festivals (nine of them) and hobnobbing with some of the greats and near greats of new music, reports on those forthcoming. And as soon as I got back to Portland, there were two very fine concerts, one on the eleventh at Worksound and one on the nineteenth at Enterbeing.

The concert at Worksound opened with a set by J.P. Jenkins, the range of whose imagination never ceases to amaze and delight. I have never seen him do the same thing, er even the same kind of thing, twice—and he has never presented anything that wasn’t technically and musically consummate. This evening, J.P. had two bare speakers attached face down, one on a bass drum, one on a tom. I wasn’t where I could see the tom, but the bass drum had some objects on it which would rattle or vibrate (and move around) as J.P. sent different frequencies through the speakers. Simple, elegant, and a treat to hear.(...)
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Wounded Breath

michaelkarman — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:30:01 +0000

Erdem Helvacioǧlu’s most recent album, Wounded Breath, is quite different from his earlier Altered Realities, reviewed here. Wounded Breath is entirely electroacoustic, and quite strong, various, and enjoyable electroacoustic at that. The title piece is perhaps the most “traditional” one, though with Helvacioǧlu a genuinely inventive and quirky imagination always overrides any critical fluffery about genres or traditions.

(...)
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Musica Electronica Nova – 2007 and 2009

michaelkarman — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 22:54:35 +0000

The young Polish festival, which started in 2005, takes place every spring in odd numbered years, the even numbered ones given over to a different new music festival with more instrumental music. Asymmetry Music Magazine, itself even younger than that, wasn’t even around for the first of these festivals, but managed to make it to the last two thirds of the 2007 festival and to all of the 2009 one. Roll on 2011.

While the festival does feature many Polish composers, as is only right and proper, Musica Electronica Nova is an international festival, with music by Pan Sonic, The Electric Hammer, Jonathan Harvey, Helmut Lachenmann, and Kaiji Saariaho (2007) and Harvey, again, David Berezan, Mauricio Kagel, Brian Ferneyhough, TAM Teatromusica, The Spy Collective, and Fausto Romitelli (2009).

(...)
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Updated Leimgruber report

michaelkarman — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:26:08 +0000

The report on Urs Leimgruber’s visit to Portland has been updated with some videos and with the names of all the musicians who took part in the group imrovisation. Take a look at the other Leimgruber videos on YouTube, too, as they’re better quality than the ones I did with my little Canon PowerShot.

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Urs Leimgruber in Portland

michaelkarman — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 05:18:03 +0000

Anyone who has listened to a lot of new music has heard a lot of saxophone playing. A lot of players have been interested in exploring new territory and a lot of composers have been attracted by the variety of wild noises one can get from that instrument. So when I heard of the latest Creative Music Guild concert, I was more interested in the mass improv with local musicians (which was splendid) than I was in a sax player I’d never heard of. After all, what could Urs Leimgruber possibly do that I hadn’t heard already from Ulrich Krieger or Peter Brötzmann or Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich?(...)
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