Klub Karma archive
Informal concerts, lectures, and demonstrations at CCRMA organized by Juan Pampin, 1998-99.

Thursday, March 4, 1999 at 8:00pm
CCRMA Ballroom

Electroacoustic Music from Universidad Nacional de Quilmes

(Buenos Aires, Argentina)

(*) Produced at Universidad Nacional de Quilmes (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

(**)Produced at IRCAM (Paris, France)

This Concert is devoted to works by Graduated and advanced students of the Degree in Electroacoustic Music Composition at Universidad Nacional de Quilmes (UNQ). The degree was created in 1991 and it is the first of its kind in Argentine Universities. Its main goal is to form composers through the use of technology.

To graduate, students must aprove about 30 courses in music, technology, science, humanities and aesthetics. Electronic Composition instruction is meant to be the "mixing device" of all involved knowledge areas. I am honored to share the responsibility of this latter courses with Professor Oscar Edelstein, one of the most important argentine composers.

The University has several sound studios, equipped with PC's and Power Pc's with sound software and hardware, as well as all kind of analog and digital devices for Music, Sound and Video. At present these facilities are dedicated to academic instruction, but we are planning to extend them to host guest researchers and composers as well.

Every year about 200 students apply for our degree, only 40 of them are admitted. Students come from very different places, and from a wide variety of aesthetics, ranging from popular to classical music. For this reason, every year constitutes a new challenge for me and all the staff.

Electroacoustic Music changes every day, this is not only due to the influence of technology, but also to the outstanding linking of all knowledge areas and aesthetic currents. People use to ask: "what is electronic music...?", we don't know exactly, that's probably why we are working on it. We will never find a fair answer for this, though we have lots of fun and pleasure looking for it.

Prof. Oscar Pablo Di Liscia
Director Licenciatura en Composicion
con Medios Electroacusticos
Universidad Nacional de Quilmes
Buenos Aires (Argentina)  

Thursday, November 19, 1998 at 8:00pm
CCRMA Ballroom

Hugh Livingston, cello

Piedra, Papel y Tijera
(Stone, Paper and Scissors)

As the title suggests, the piece has three parts representing different situations: the first one is about domination, where "weak" sounds are modulated by "strong" sounds. There are no conflicts or fights among the sounds. In the second part, as in the third one, craziness interrupts the natural continuity of discourse.

Javier Leichman

Studied music at the National Conservatory "Carlos Lopez Buchardo", Musical Morphology with Francisco Kropfl and Composition with Oscar Edelstein. In 1989 he received a scholarship to study Electroacoustic Music and Composition at the CIM (Centro de Investigacion Musical) at the University of Buenos Aires. In 1990 obtained a scholarship from the Antorchas Foundation to study Contemporary Composition. In 1994 he has been a visiting composer at the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (UC, San Diego) as part of an Exchange Program supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1996 he was invited to compose a piece at the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges, France. He is currently associate composer-researcher at LIPM.(Laboratorio de Investigacion y Produccion Musical).

Tiempos magneticos
(Magnetic Times)
for flute, piano and electronic sounds

"Tiempos Magneticos" was commissioned by the "Música and Tecnología" Foundation. The electronic part was generated at the personal studio of the composer and at the LIPM of Buenos Aires, using mainly Csound. The first performance of the piece took place at the LIPM (11/1/96). The flute and piano part were performed by Patricia Da Dalt and Manuel Massone, respectively.

This composition explores a continuum going from the perception of a series of short pieces to the perception of one piece divided in several sections. The dialog between instruments and electronic sounds is stated as the main feature to shape the macro and micro-form, and it uses several possibilities of combination and ways of linking. First, a brief section for flute alone which creates the expectation for either the entrance of either the piano or the electronic part (to say it simpler: the flute asks and answers itself). Then two brief sections of electronic sounds alone and piano solo are linked to provide the largely expected "double answer". This three sections may be viewed as a first macro dialog. The dialog is suddenly accelerated on the next section in which piano, flute and electronic sounds produce different kind of combinations. The next section is stated as a piano and electronic sounds dialog. In this section, the electronic part is gradually divided in two kind of materials as well (pseudo instrumental sounds and purely artificial ones): the electronic part "dialogue with itself", as on the initial flute solo section. The last section states a different kind of interaction between flute and tape. Here sometimes the electronic part echoes the flute, and sometimes the flute echoes the electronic part. The flute part is stated as a linear counterpoint as well. At the very end of this section an attempt of linear dialog between flute and electronics is suddenly broken.

The electronic music fixed on magnetic media (tape music) is often overlooked at present because its apparent lack of flexibility. The combination of instrumental and electronic media provides one important basis to overcome this limitations. Instead of making the electronic media to imitate instrumental behavior, this piece keeps for each media its own "performance time" and state a dialectic between these. This is what the title "Magnetic times" stands for.

Pablo Di Liscia

Argentine composer and teacher (Santa Rosa, 1955) graduated at Universidad Nacional de Rosario (1980). He studied also with Dante Grela and Francisco Kröpfl (composition). In 1979 he was awarded with the "Juan Carlos Paz" prize in Composition by the Fondo Nacional de las Artes (Argentina) and in 1987 was selected Resident Composer by the jury of Secretaría de Cultura de la Nación (Argentina). During January to May of 1993 he was Scholar Visitor at CRCA of University of California San Diego. He is Professor of Electronic Composition and Computer Music at Quilmes University (Buenos Aires), Associate Researcher at Laboratorio de Investigación y Producción Musical (LIPM) of Centro Cultural Recoleta (Buenos Aires) and member of the FARME (Federación Argentina de Música Electroacústica). He has written software for Musical Analysis and Digital Signal Processing. His works, both instrumental and electroacustic, has been performed at Argentina as well as Chile, Cuba, USA, Holland, Norway, Spain and France.

Tiempos Virtuales
(Virtual Times)

Performed with digitally processed acoustic material recordings. Some sounds were processed on NeXT computers at LIPM (Laboratorio de Investigación y Producción Musical del Centro Cultural Recoleta). Others were elaborated on a Macintosh computer in the composer`s Studio, using diverse procedures. The structure consists of two parts: "A" which is divided into three sections, "B" divided into six sections, and a "Coda" which exposes once again the caracteristics of B and A.

Jorge Rapp

Born in Buenos Aires in 1946, he graduated in composition from the Faculty of Musical Arts and Sciences of the Universidad Católica Argentina. He received the Fondo Nacional de las Artes and CICMAT scholarship in 1973 for Electronic Music Composition and continued postgraduate studies with Francisco Kröpfl. In 1978 he was awarded the Juan Carlos Paz prize by the Fondo Nacional de Artes. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Agrupation Nueva Musica and he is a founding member of FARME (Federacion Argentina de Música Electroacústica, 1984), as well as Director of the sound laboratory of the Centro de Estudios Musicales.

Musica para Saxo (Variante 3)
(Music for Saxophone)

"Musica para Saxo" belongs to a set of 6 pieces all based on the same group of 7 pitch sets and "accentual prototypes" (rhythmic models). The electronic percussion accompaniment is triggered through a pitch-to-midi device. The pieces are ment to be played by a virtuoso performer. Even if there is no trace of jazz proper, nevertheless the author´s familiarity with this expression is reflected.

Francisco Kropfl

Composer, teacher and promoter of contemporary music in Argentina, Francisco Kröpfl was the founder of the first permanent electronic music studio in Latinamerica, the "Estudio de Fonología Musical" of the National University of Buenos Aires, in 1958. At present he is the director of the Music and Technology area of the Centro Cultural Recoleta of which LIPM is dependent. He is professor of Music Morphology at the University of Buenos Aires and president of the Argentine Federation of Electroacustic Music.

Vanessa Tomlinson
Australian percussionist Vanessa Tomlinson studied at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide, Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg with Bernhard Wulff and Robert Van Sice, and completed her Master in Music degree at the University of California San Diego with Professor Steven Schick . She has performed and lectured throughout Australia, USA, Germany, Malaysia and Spain.

Vanessa has performed in ensembles and as a soloist in many festivals including The Adelaide Festival of the Arts, Darmstadt Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Sydney Spring New Music Festival, The Barossa International Festival, Bang on a Can Festival- New York, Green Umbrella New Music Series- LA, Curtis Institute New Music Series and WOMAD. She is renowned for her interpretation of new music and since 1989 has commissioned and performed over thirty pieces for solo percussion.

In addition to new notated music, Vanessa performs regularly as an improvisor with players such as George Lewis, Ewart Shaw, Umezo Kazuto, Vinko Globokar, Anna McMichael, Urban Glass and many other impromtu performing groups.

In Australia, Vanessa is an active participant in the activities of ACME New Music Co, ELISION, Libra New Music, The Adelaide Chamber Orchestra and performs regularly as a member of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Recordings include a recent Compact Disc under the Dutch label Etcetera, with premiere recordings of works by John Cage, and an ELISION soloists CD with a solo work by Ferneyhough.

Vanessa currently resides in San Diego performing with SONOR New Music Ensemble, the Tomlinson McNutt duo, the UCSD Percussion Sextet 'red fish, blue fish' as well as improvising with various members of the UCSD community. She has just created a new full length concert work based on Kurt Schwitters UR Sonata, which will be published later in 1997.

Erik Griswold
Erik Griswold is a composer, improvisor, and installation artist from San Diego. Griswold has written a wide variety of pieces for chamber ensemble (and two for orchestra), with a particular bias towards those involving percussion. Some recurring elements in his compositions include polyrhythms and polyrhythmic ostinati, delicate "wind chime" textures, microtunings, and a persistent quality of ambivalence. His more recent works often incorporate dramatic visual elements and/or improvisation.

As an improvising pianist his work has included post-bop (e.g. Mingus, Monk, the second Miles quintet) explorations with his groups Mungus and the GRW trio (with vibraphonist Brett Reed and bassist Scott Walton) as well as free improvisations with the quartet Urban Glass (with bass-clarinetist Anthony Burr, percussionist Vanessa Tomlinson, and Walton). His solo work ranges from "inside-out" interpretations of jazz standards, originals, and pop songs to free improvisations on prepared piano.

Griswold's sound installations (Moon River: The Evolution of a Marriage, Emerging Voices installation) combine music, sculpture, dance, and interactive electronics to create three-dimensional sound spaces which are discovered and explored by audience-participants. Increasingly, these three disciplines are fused together in his work, forming hybrid genres which could be called "composillation," "improvosition", and "instaposition."

Griswold holds a Ph.D. in Music from the University of California, San Diego.

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