Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

Åke Parmerud (Sweden): Raw (2012) 18’00 – Norwegian premier

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”Raw” was made for an event created by GEIGER, a Swedish organisation for new music situated in my home town Goteborg. I wanted to make a ”noisy” piece since somehow noise music tends to be a preference in the choice of music presented during the GEIGER events. 

The piece was made from one sound source only. The most uncontrollable software synth I ever encountered: Skrewell, a part of Native Instruments collection of instruments. I decided to use the output totally ”raw” as not to try to perfect the sound in any way, not adding any processing, effects or other post treatment of the sound. It finally came out as a kind of composed improvisation where I combined prerecorded material with live performance. Of course it was a complete failure taken as a noise piece. I guess I reached my limits as a musical chameleon in this case, but I am still quite happy with the outcome of a piece created in less than a week…

‘Raw’ is spatialised using ZKM’s Zirkonium software.




Ludger Brummer (Germany): Shine (2007) 20’00 – Norwegian premier

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A composition for Klangdome.
The paradoxical idea of moving forward yet staying in the moment has been fascinating me for a long time. This thought can be the basis for nightmares but also for interesting thinking models. Consistently fractals among other things can be subordinated to this logic contradicting all dialectic.cMusically speaking this paradox can be phrased in the use of single grains. The grain as sound object is a singular event. By condensing the amount of grains a continuous surface emerges composed from many single events that disintegrate afterwards into singular moments. Equally, singular intervals merge into patterns that again will be compressed into an extremely complex structured surface.This is exactly what happens in the course of the composition Shine – after a burst the singular event emerges from the surface, out of which shapes, while gathering speed and becoming more complex, turn into a surface again before finally disintegrating in the coda. It is the ever constant that is articulated in its permanent wandering.
The totality of this environment is enhanced by the expansion of the acoustic sound space surrounding the listeners’ spheres. As a result the audience appear as part of a cosmos, within which they are located.
’Shine’ has been realised with the aid of Genesis, Zirkonium, Common Music and Common Lisp Music softwares.
Genesis, a software used to simulate swinging objects, was developed at ACROE Institute by Claude Cadoz, Annie Luciani and Jean-Loup Florens. This technology applied in animating physical models is based on the implementation of Newton’s laws. The simulation of objects is persued both acoustically and visually.
The Zirkonium software was developed at ZKM|Karlsruhe .With the aid of Zirkonium software multi-channel works can be played in various speaker environments. Common Music is an algorithmic compositional tool, designed by Heinrich Taube at ZKM and the University of Illinois. Common Lisp Music is a sound synthesis protocol, developed by William Schottstaedt at CCRMA of Stanford University.

INTERVAL

Natasha Barrett (Norway / UK): Shanghai Soundwalk (2014) 8’35 – World premier.


‘Shanghai Soundwalk’ is a recording of an environmental excursion: a soundwalk in the traditional sense, compressed in time. We cross the Huaihai Middle Road, follow parallel backstreets where men playing mahjong mix with children, bikes, scooters and woman going about their daily chores, heading towards markets in the Laoximen district. A clear jump in time and space over the Huangpu River launches us into the World Expo 2010.

‘Shanghai Soundwalk’ is decoded from 1st order Soundfield recordings. A stereo and binaural 3D version will be released on the +3dB label later this year.



Fernando Lopez-Lezcano (USA): Velvet Skin, Heart of Steel (2013) 7’06 – Norwegian premier

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The Bing Concert Hall may appear to be sonic velvet, gracefully covered with multiple overlapping sinusoidal curves carved from warm resonant wood, its sails and cloud ceiling caressing all sounds produced on stage into enveloping beauty, but at the core, the Bing Concert Hall is made of steel. I had a chance to bang on the steel beams as they were waiting on the ground before construction began. Sleeping steel, biding for its time of hidden glory. I also climbed on top of the “cloud” ceiling after construction was finished, recorder in hand, and spent one hour getting sounds out of anything that could be banged or scrapped or bowed. Some of those sounds are included in this collage and short etude that is a prelude for a longer piece. Included are metal doors banging in asymmetrical rhythms, steel pipes and beams of all shapes and sizes, big ventilation fans left over after construction, and much more. The sonic materials were coaxed into musical form using Bill Schottstaedt’s s7 Scheme language interpreter and CLM.
‘Velvet Skin, Heart of Steel’ is spatialised with 3rd order 3D ambisonics.

Anders Vinjar (Norway): Aria ex aria (2014) 12:00 – World premier.
The piece contains recordings of rooms – inside, outside, small, large – filled with the sound of many types of activity – spanning technology, human expression, and nature sounds. The recordings are made using a DMS technique, also known as Sound Field mic. Madelaine Church in Paris, a car, mountain waters in Vassfaret, interiors of instruments, the vegetable seller on the street corner, wandering through Oslo, trifles on the table – different sounding qualities interact and are thus shaped further, creating a musical progression at play. The play is encoded in Ambisonics. All the work is done with Linux and open source software.

Anders Vinjar’s Aria ex Aria is commisioned by BEK, and supported by Det norske komponistfond. The premiere concert is supported by Bergen kommune.