CCRMA 1997 Fall Concert

CCRMA Computer Music

Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music & Acoustics (CCRMA) will present a concert featuring music by Douglas Knehans, Ron Alford, Celso Aguiar, Sean Varah, Bill Schottstaedt and Jonathan Berger, at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, in Campbell Recital Hall (Braun Music Center)

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

Program

Interval

the fire

for processed soprano voice, MIDI violin and computer

 the fire is a setting of a poem I wrote in 1988 entitled Walking at Night. The poem explores the subtle world of a love relationship with all of its unspoken communications, assurances and perennial sensuality. The setting of the poem is somewhat more overt in all of these respects. The soprano voice takes up the text sometimes as continuant fricatives and front vowels and others as more traditionally sung words. Further coloring of the vocal line is achieved through a liberal use of microtonally shifted pitches and microtonal glissandi as well as closed lip singing or humming which is taken up also by the unamplified violinist's voice. More extensive coloration of particular words of the text is achieved through digital processing of the vocal line through the microphone feed.

The singers words and some violin fragments have also been taken into the computer for digital audio processing, synthesis and filtering. These pre-designed digital audio "soundbites" are then loaded into the computer and triggered, along with the vocal and MIDI violin effects via Max.

Although all of the technology involved may imply a sort of "sonic overload" I have tried to be sensitive always to the text and to the instrumentalists in my awareness of allowing them the space in which to be natural, albeit "wired," musicians. Thus the work conjures a dreamy and sensual yet passionate and dramatic world that the text implied to me. -Douglas Knehans

Painted Carp: Painted Carp is a collaborative ensemble founded by violinist Charles Nichols and soprano Beryl Lee Heuermann. Drawing from the performance experience and compositional experimentation of both members, the duo is committed to interpreting and premiering interactive computer music. Recent performances include participation in computer music concerts at Yale University's Center for Studies in Music Technology and State University of New York at Stony Brook, as well as an appearance at the Mixed Messages festival in New York City.

girltalk

for computer generated tape

girltalk is about my infatuation with children; what they think, and how they perceive our modern world. Children provide a fascinatingly uninhibited view, quite outside my adult reference, so I am forced to see things in a new light. This is the first of a series of related compositions using material from the world of children.

This music was created algorithmically, using CM and CLM in a Linux environment (though the sound-sculpting was done on a Macintosh) during the summer of 1997.

Ron Alford studied at the University of Illinois, the University of Colorado, Adams State College and at Stanford. He has studied with george Crumb, Larry Hart, Wayne Scott, Vladimir Ussachevsky, and Cecil Effinger. He taught music in the American Southwest. He has been an active musician performing in symphony, chamber, jazz, church, rock, performance-art all his life.

He has written, arranged, conducted, and judged music events. He has operated recording studios, hosted opera and 20th century music on commercial and NPR FM radio. He was founder of the New Mexico Jazz Workshop. He has been recipient of grants and National Endowment awards, and recently received an Arts Council award fellowship for Santa Clara County. His music has been heard in Canada, Austria, England, Denmark and Germany.

Monologue for Two

for flute and clarinet

 "Monologue for Two", from 1993, is an investigation into unusual 'everyday life' facts. According to it, there's one day when you can't recognize an intimate friend, or may suddenly realize you've become intimate to a most hostile enemy. Inasmuch, a dialogue can turn into monologue while still involving two players.

The basic pitch materials in "Monologue for Two" were generated by computer programs in Daniel Oppenheim's Dmix environment for composition. The piece is dedicated to the memory of composer Ernst Widmer, who was quite aware of those everyday life 'compositional' facts. The piece is part of a cycle which also includes "Dialogue in One", for piano.

Celso Aguiar was born in Palo Alto, California, and grew up in Brazil in the town of Salvador, Bahia, where he studied composition with Swiss-Brazilian composer, Ernst Widmer. Since then he became interested in electronic music and went on to develop a computer-controlled digital synthesizer in Brazil. He is currently a DMA candidate in Composition at the Centerfor Computer Research in Music and Acoustics where he has been developing software tools for composition with spectral modeling, granular synthesis and sound spatialization.

Celso Aguiar has written music for traditional instrumental as well aselectronic media. His contact with composer Jonathan Harvey at Stanfordhas awakened in him a clear awareness for the spectral domain in music.Along with the skill for applying new DSP techniques, his compositionalmetier has been evolving towards an interesting amalgam of natural sounds and their most pungent transformations. His compositions have been performed in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Idioma

for piano and tape

 Idioma was written for Sonia Rubinsky, and premiered at the National Library of Canada in Ottawa, in a concert sponsored by the Brazilian consulate. Idioma refers to Sonia's and my multi-national (Russian, Brazilian, Israeli, Canadian, American) heritage, as well as my desire to write an idiomatic piece fitted to a traditional pianists' technique.

In all of my computer music pieces I have worked to closely integrate the timbre of the tape with live acoustic instruments. In Idioma I extended this technique to include gesture; on a note to note basis the tape and piano mimic each other, but on a larger scale, the tape and piano work together to form large gestures inspired by romantic piano works.

Idioma should be listened to as a romantic piece. Pianists have spent years developing their playing technique; they can bring out a single line of melody over a sea of other notes so that the piano sounds like a three dimensional instrument. I have attempted to augment this beautiful sound with a spartan application of electronic tape. The tape tries to add body to the timbre of the piano, and alter our perception of its sound. The computer and player are equals in the ensemble; they are a duet.

The tape part for Idioma was realized in my home studio, using the computer music programs CMIX, and RT.

Sean Varah was born in 1968 in Madison, Wisconsin, and grew up in Vancouver, Canada. He holds degrees from Stanford and Columbia University, where he received his DMA. His teachers include Mario Davidovsky, Ross Bauer, and David Rakowski.

In December, 1993 he had his Carnegie Hall debut with the premiere of Burning, commissioned and performed by the New York Youth Symphony. Recently, Burning, and Aria (for tape and cello), were broadcast live in the final round of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 1996 National Competition for Young Composers. Burning was performed by the National Arts Center Orchestra under Mario Bernardi, and was awarded the National Arts Center People's Choice Award.

For the 1997-98 concert year, he has several commissions, including a piece for cello and tape for Shauna Rolston, premiering in Vancouver in April, 1998. His most recent work, Depth of Field, for tape and 7 instruments was premiered February 12th, 1997 at Boston University, performed by Alea III under Theodore Antiniou. His recent awards include a commission from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a joint commission from the Canada Council and the Canadian Electro Acoustic Ensemble, a 1996 commission from the Fromm Foundation, 1995 and 1996 ASCAP Young Composer Awards, a grant from the Margaret Fairbanks Jory Copying Assistance Fund, a fellowship to the Composers Conference at Wellesley College, a Canada Council Arts Grant B, and a Meet the Composer award.

Mr. Varah is currently on leave from his position of Associate Director of the Harvard Computer Music Center, and working at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).

Dinosaur Music

for computer generated tape

 "Dinosaur Music" (1984) was a continuation, in a sense, of "Colony" and "from the Book of the Burning Mirror". It uses the FM violin instrument even for the percussive sounds. The original inspiration for this music was the cartoon "Bambi meets Godzilla", if I remember right. Bill Schottstaedt (fl 1978) is on the CCRMA staff.

When I first saw Gogtab, sometime in 1981 or 82, he was one of a litter of kittens skittering out of a second floor restroom at the old Artificial Intelligence lab. I think his mother and her brood had been abandoned at the lab, and they were desperate for water. Only Gogtab survived. The rest of his family was probably killed by either the barn owls living at the lab, or the coyotes in the nearby hills. Connie Whitman and I befriended him, and started feeding him. She eventually went to Spain, so I ended up with a cat.

During those 5 years, he lived entirely outdoors, and only came into the kitchen area to get an occasional meal. I remember once he was accidentally locked in the kitchen, and had to answer nature's call, so he very delicately covered the mess with our towels. Another time he got a bone stuck sideways in his mouth, and was very grateful when I wrestled it out. Several times I saw him hiding under a bush while coyotes went by; he must have been a resourceful cat to avoid them. He was also a good mouse hunter, spending hours waiting beside holes in the fields that surrounded the lab. Once he fell into the giant drains at the base of the lab (it was an enormous semi-circular building), and ended up covered from head to foot with mud -- I scarcely recognized him when he dragged himself into the kitchen.

He got his odd name during a dinnertime conversation in the kitchen -- GOGTAB was the user-specific portion of the old SAIL run-time library, and was considered a bit esoteric. We had gotten used to calling him "the cat", but then Andy Schloss asked "what's GOGTAB", and the cat looked up suddenly as though he had heard his name; so he named himself Gogtab.

When the lab was demolished in the summer of 1986, I bought a house in Menlo Park. Unfortunately the previous owners had had a kennel with several big dogs, so for the first time Gogtab had to contend with fleas -- he was not pleased. Years later "Advantage" came on the market, but that was only shortly before he died. Flea collars did no good, and Gogtab was incredibly adept at "losing" them, so I would kill the fleas myself with needle-nose pliers while watching baseball.

I never explicitly house-trained him, but he seemed to know that he was supposed to go outside if the need arose. The one time he had an "accident" may have been a complaint; as usual with cats, he had suddenly decided one day that he would no longer eat whitefish and tuna, no matter what; so rather than throw the stuff away, I gave it to the neighbor's cat. Gogtab marched into the house, went to my bed, and pissed all over an old blanket. I told him I thought he was over-reacting. I think the blanket was made of felt; when I tried to wash it, it disintegrated into a huge pile of brown flakes.

He was a very quiet cat. Although he purred a lot, he almost never made any other sound to me except a kind of high pitched, wavery cat-whimper on those rare occasions when we got in the car to go to the vet. This made it doubly funny to hear the low-pitched, drawn-out roar he could make while circling around some other cat. He got into many serious fights, and I often ended up holding a warm rag on his head, and squeezing pus out of abcesses.

To other animals, he was the terror of the neighborhood, the only cat that knew how to hunt. He would sit absolutely motionless for hours, then suddenly explode from his hiding place, knocking down anything in his path, and literally slam into the quarry; the squirrel or whatever was dead almost before it knew what hit it, and was completely consumed except for the feet in less than three minutes. Gogtab usually ate what he killed, although lizards and roof rats tended to be left at the back door for my benefit.

In the mornings he would sleep on the roof, in the afternoons on my car, at night on the sofa. I think he was competely happy for many years.

Then he had eye trouble. A series of pink eye episodes, that the vet blamed on allergies, turned into "uveitis" and both lenses came loose. He had two eye operations that left him largely blind, but that didn't actually stop the slow progress of glaucoma. On top of that, he got a tumor on his nose, perhaps from the sun bathing that was his primary occupation. He hated the repeated trips to Pacifica to treat it -- the highway terrified him. The worst moment came after the second eye operation when I think he could only see upside-down (the second lense being removed), and on the trip home he urinated in the cat carrier, something he would normally never do. The combination caused him to let out an unearthly cry of anguish and fear and humiliation. I still feel terrible when I remember that sound.

After that, he was a different cat -- no hunting, few fights; he was so harmless that the squirrels completely ignored him. He had trouble judging distance and would misjudge any leap, so he eventually stopped jumping, and would carefully feel his way along like a blind person. He still ruled his back yard, but it was painful to watch him try to deal with the other male cats. He could not really see the other cat, so he would jump straight up, stretch out his legs, and come down flailing away at anything nearby, all claws and cat spit; this tactic never worked, but he didn't lose his position in the hierarchy. His teeth started to go bad, and a canine had to be pulled, his inner eye lids didn't close completely, perhaps due to anemia, and the skin cancer treatment had taken a small portion of his nose, so he had a somewhat strange appearance.

The final blow was feline leukemia virus -- he started losing weight, down from 9 pounds to 7. Eventually the anemia got so bad that he stopped eating; I couldn't even get him to touch his absolutely favorite food: Campbell's chicken noodle soup. I finally had him euthanized on July 30, 1997. He was purring when he died.

The Voice Within the Hammer

for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, piano and computer processed sound

 "Whether the sound lies in the hammer or in the anvil: I say that because the anvil is not suspended it cannot resound. The hammer resounds in the jump that it makes after the blow, and if the anvil were to re-echo the sound made on it by every small hammer as does the bell with every different thing it strikes it with the same depth of tone, so would the anvil when struck by each different hammer. And as therefore you hear different notes with hammers of different sizes, it follows that the note is in the hammer and not the anvil." - Leonardo

(from The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, translated by Edward MacCurdy)

The Voice Within a Hammer (1997) uses a sound processing approach based upon the denoising algorithms of Berger, Coifman, Goldberg and Popovic. The computer's source material (and the resultant instrumental materials) are derived from an audience members' cough that occurs between the opening two chords of Toscanini's 1939 live recording of the Eroica Symphony.

The work is dedicated to Rafi Coifman who opened up new musical worlds to me.

Jonathan Berger just finished a piano concerto commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts. He is currently writing a piano trio commissioned by the Jerusalem Rubin Academy of Music, and an interactive work for dancer, computer and live musicians commissioned by the Institute Nacional de Bellas Artes of Mexico. Berger is an Associate Professor of Music at Stanford.

©1997 CCRMA, Stanford University. All Rights Reserved.
Created and mantained by Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, nando@ccrma.stanford.edu