CCRMA

Fall Concert

CCRMA Computer Music

Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music & Acoustics (CCRMA) will present a concert featuring new music by Molly Thompson, Fiammetta Pasi, Erling Wold, Marcia Bauman, and David Jaffe, at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, in Campbell Recital Hall (Braun Music Center)

For information, call the Music Department at (415) 723-3811.

Program

Interval


Knife Songs

Four Dark Songs for Solo Voice and Radio-Baton


Quimeras (1996)

There isn't a close relation between the piece and its title. "Chimere" is the first "image" I found in my mind when I started to work at this piece, or, better, I can say that it was already in my mind before... But, maybe, this is not so important... and I just like the word. "Quimeras", in Italian : "Chimere" ("visions", far away in the space and in the time); from an English dictionary: "Chimeras" (1 - from the Greek Mythology: Monster with a lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail; 2 - Wild or fantastic conception).

My intention in this work is to develop contrast and interrelation between two basic ideas, or, "worlds" , that complement each other. The first one is featured by "warm and surrounding" sonorities given by long single sounds, or clusters of sounds, appearing and disapperaring mostly in the medium-low region of frequencies, a sort of "bordone". The second idea is distinguished by a more "natural flavor" of sounds that intentionally remind some percussion instruments. This aspect gives a new sense of perspective and dinamic liveliness to the flow of the sound. The interrelation between the two worlds takes place by procedures such as simple entries and appearences, transformation and merging of one into the other (for example by the means of fragmentation - when the long "FM-sound-band" becomes a melodic-rithmic sequence - ), or by processing original fragments. The emergence of drum-like rithmically organized fragments marks the end of the piece.

"Quimeras" is realized on Next Computers running Common Lisp Music (CLM), a complete "music programming language" that produces and processes digital sounds. In addition the application "soundworks" is used. This is the second piece I completed while being at CCRMA. Here I explore the sound in itself working from the inside (processing the sound) and using mainly CLM functions as "resample" (or "Src"), "expand", "delay". A special thank to Marco Trevisani for his patient support during my (not finished ) journey in the fascinating world of CLM.

Fiammetta Pasi (1960) graduated in musical composition from the Music Conservatory of of Milan, Italy, in 1993, where she studied with Giuliano Zosi and Umberto Rotondi. She also attended courses with Giacomo Manzoni and Franco Donatoni in Fiesole and in Siena.Her musical interest and creativity expanded thereafter into the area of electronic music, which she began to study with Riccardo Sinigaglia in Milan, in 1992. She is currently a visiting scholar at CCRMA, and she had a first "digital" piece performed at Stanford on February of this current year.


Second Prayer (1989; revised 1993)

Second Prayer is a short aria from the chamber opera "A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil" based on the Max Ernst collage novel of the same name. The story is that of a young girl who is about to join a convent. In her dream, she is transported to a place where her love of religion, her emerging sexuality, and an excruciating memory of a past injury mix. The musical language of this song is very simple and direct, fitting her age and her naive ecstasy.

Erling Wold (1958) has been specializing in the writing of vocal music for the last few years, although he is experienced in a variety of musical media. He is currently working on several operatic scores including "Sub Pontio Pilato," based on the death and resurrection of Pontius Pilate to a libretto by James Bisso and for vocalists Laurie Amat and John Duykers. His chamber opera "A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil" will be presented by the Paul Dresher Ensemble in its second production in the fall of 1997 with major support from Opera America.

He is an eclectic composer whose teachers include Gerard Grisey, Andrew Imbrie, John Chowning and Robert Gross, but who has been called "the Eric Satie of Berkeley surrealist/minimalist electro-artrock" by the Village Voice. He composed the soundtracks for independent filmmaker Jon Jost's Sure Fire and The Bed You Sleep In. There are currently three CD releases of his music, and he was included in the first magazine/CD issue of the Leonardo Music Journal. For the last two years, he has been writing interactive music for dance with the Palindrome dance company in Germany using a custom video-based dancer tracking system.

He has published artistic and technical articles in several publications, including IEEE Multimedia, Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, SIGGRAPH, the Just Intonation Journal 1/1 (where he was the music editor), IEEE Transactions on Computers and several books. He holds a doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley and was a researcher in signal processing and music synthesis at Yamaha Music Technologies before cofounding Muscle Fish LLC, an audio and music software company.


Canyon (1985; revised 1989)

Canyon was composed primarily on a Synclavier II digital synthesizer at the Eastman School of Music Computer Music Studio. To create timbres, the composer used frequency modulation and additive synthesis techniques, and features of the synthesizer which allowed changes to occur in the harmonic spectrum within the durations of sustained pitches. The composer then sent the resulting textures and timbres through a reverb unit.

Some sounds were further processed through an Effectron digital delay unit, while other effects were produced by using traditional electroacoustic music techniques. For example, the "bass drum" (heard halfway through the piece) is really a tambourine whose sound was modified by a Bode frequency shifter as it was being played and recorded by the composer.

A four-track tape recorder was used by the composer, who "performed" and recorded each track individually while listening and adding it to previously recorded tracks. Some of the sonorities and shimmering effects are the result of the interaction between sounds that were produced at the same time, and they were a welcome surprise to the composer! As the four tracks were mixed down to two tracks, the composer added spatial effects (panning), and boosted and attenuated frequencies at the mixing board. One can compare this processing of sound as it is played to the shaping of clay with one's hands as it revolves on the spindle of a potter's wheel.

The "canyon" depicted by the music is an imaginary landscape, and perhaps it isn't really a canyon after all, but more a description of psychological descent, ritual and ascent.a reverb unit.

Some sounds were further processed through an Effectron digital delay unit, while other effects were produced by using traditional electroacoustic music techniques. For example, the "bass drum" (heard halfway through the piece) is really a tambourine whose sound was modified by a Bode frequency shifter as it was being played and recorded by the composer.

A four-track tape recorder was used by the composer, who "performed" and recorded each track individually while listening and adding it to previously recorded tracks. Some of the sonorities and shimmering effects are the result of the interaction between sounds that were produced at the same time, and they were a welcome surprise to the composer! As the four tracks were mixed down to two tracks, the composer added spatial effects (panning), and boosted and attenuated frequencies at the mixing board. One can compare this processing of sound as it is played to the shaping of clay with one's hands as it revolves on the spindle of a potter's wheel.

The "canyon" depicted by the music is an imaginary landscape, and perhaps it isn't really a canyon after all, but more a description of psychological descent, ritual and ascent.

Marcia Bauman (b. 1949, Hackensack, NJ) received the BA degree in psychology from Ithaca College in 1971, the MA degree in music theory and composition from San Francisco State University in 1982, and the Ph.D in composition from the Eastman School of Music in 1995. She has composed music for dance, radio drama and film, including the internationally distributed documentary Word Is Out, aired on PBS television stations nationwide. Her works have been featured on public radio (KPFA radio in Berkeley, CA, and WXXI Radio in Rochester, NY), and her electroacoustic music has received numerous performances, including presentations by the Syracuse New Music Society (in conjunction with Meet the Composer) and the National Association for Composers, USA. Since 1990, she has been a Research Associate at CCRMA. Her project, the International Digital ElectroAcoustic Music Archive (IDEAMA) involves the collection and preservation of historically significant electroacoustic music.

Bauman has also worked in the field of broadcast journalism, as a radio news writer in San Francisco, for the now-defunct Zodiac News Service. She also reviewed local concerts for Gannett Newspapers in Rochester, New York. As a departmental assistant, Bauman taught classical electroacoustic music techniques and digital sound synthesis with MIDI applications at the Eastman School of Music Center for Computer and Electronic Music.

Bauman has been a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) since 1990. From 1990 to 1996 she was a Research Associate at Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). Her project, creating the International Digital ElectroAcoustic Music Archive (IDEAMA) involved the collection and preservation of historically significant electroacoustic music. She is currently an Expressive Arts Educator/Consultant, leading workshops in creative expression through sound and music.


Cadenzas from 'The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World' (1995)

"Cadenzas" consists of solo portions from David A. Jaffe's epic work "The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World", recently released on CD by Well-Tempered Productions. Four years in the making, this seventy-minute seven-movement piano concerto is scored for solo Boie/Mathews-Radio-Drum-Performed-Disklavier and ensemble. The piece was supported by a Collaborative Composer Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. (Since that time, the NEA composer programs have been eliminated, thanks to right wing pressure from congress.) The solo part was developed in collaboration with Andrew Schloss.

Tonight's performance of "Cadenzas" presents several of the unaccompanied cadenzas from the full work. These are partially-improvised, designed in such a way as to define a "space" in which the Radio-Drum soloist can express himself; that is, the composer's role is transformed from specifying what MUST be played to enabling and circumscribing what CAN be played.

Jaffe writes: "In searching for a medium to convey the grandiose quality of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, I felt a need to transcend the limits of conventional musical instruments, while remaining in the purely-acoustic domain. So Schloss and I developed what amounts to a new acoustic instrument: a hybrid between drum and piano. No one sits at the piano; instead a percussionist plays the electronic Boie/Mathews Radio-Drum, which in turn (via computer) plays the Yamaha Disklavier grand piano from several feet away, producing a purely-acoustic sound. The result is a unique combination of percussive idioms with piano sounding mechanism, composed so as to allow Schloss to draw on his extensive background in jazz improvisation, Afrocuban and contemporary music. The flexible and seemingly-magical transformation of virtuoso percussive gestures into piano music gives a new meaning to the word "pianistic." Complementing this sound [in the complete work] is an unusual orchestra, consisting of instruments that extend the sound of the piano: harp, harpsichord, mandolin, guitar, contrabass, harmonium, and an extensive variety of percussion instruments. The result is a new kind of piano concerto."

Andrew Schloss, percussionist, composer and researcher, was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1952. He studied at Bennington College, the University of Washington, and Stanford University, where he was a researcher at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), and received his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1985. Since that time, he has taught at Brown University, the University of California at San Diego, and since 1990 at the University of Victoria. In 1988, he was awarded a Fulbright grant to conduct research at institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique (IRCAM) in Paris, during which time he developed the percussive use of the Boie/Mathews Radio-Drum. His research and performance with "intelligent musical instruments" is widely recognized; he has been called a virtuoso on the Radio-Drum by its inventors.

Schloss has performed on Broadway in New York and on an international tour with Peter Brook's production of "The Conference of the Birds". He has also performed frequently with Jaffe and appeared as percussionist soloist with the Brooklyn Philharmonic in Jaffe's "Would You Just As Soon Sing As Make That Noise?", conducted by Lukas Foss. In 1991, he and Jaffe collaborated on the creation of the improvisational duo "Wildlife", for Zeta violin and Radio-Drum.

David A. Jaffe's music first attracted international attention in 1982 when his "Silicon Valley Breakdown" was featured at the Venice Biennale and acclaimed by Le Monde and Newsweek as a landmark of computer music. This piece has since been performed in over twenty countries and has contributed to his reputation as one of the leading composers working with technology. In addition, his acoustic music--for orchestra, chorus and chamber ensembles--has been widely performed and commissioned. Jaffe served as the 1991 National Endowment for the Arts Composer-in-Residence with the vocal ensemble Chanticleer and has been awarded four NEA Composer Fellowships. Jaffe is also well-known for his technical research, which has focused on ways of increasing the expressive potential of electronic and computer-controlled sound.

At once personal and audacious, his musical language has aesthetic roots in the music of Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, and Henry Brant. It embraces heterogeneity and draws on a vast range of musical resources--from folk music to jazz to popular music--to create complex systems of juxtaposition and hybridization, in which several highly-contrasting aspects of experience mix to produce something that is both new and hauntingly-familiar.