Winter Concert
Winter ConcertFor information, call the Music Department at (415) 723-3811.
The first part of the piece is a quest for something unknown. Tension slowly builds up until what is searched for is found. As usual, the end of the quest finds something that is very simple in comparison with the complexity of the search itself, and this new material is developed in the second part of the piece. The natural rhythms of sine wave beats play for a while until the memory of the quest returns and takes command of the discourse while the searcher and the searched-for object become one and end together.
Fernando Lopez-Lezcano (Buenos Aires, 1956) received a Master in Electronic Engineering (Faculty of Engineering, University of Buenos Aires) and a Master in Music (Carlos Lopez Buchardo National Conservatory, Buenos Aires). He started working with electroacoustic music by building his own analog studio in 1976. After graduating he worked for nine years in industry as microprocessor hardware and software Design Engineer for real-time systems and latter spent one year at CCRMA as Invited Composer, part of an exchange program between LIPM in Argentina, CCRMA at Stanford and CRCA at UCSD. He did research in dynamic sound localization and taught an Introduction to Electronic Music course for one year at the Shonan Fujisawa Campus of Keio University, Japan. He is currently Lecturer and System Administrator of the computer resources at CCRMA, where he splits his time between the company of good friends, keeping computers and users at CCRMA more or less happy and enjoying the arts of composing music and writing software. His music has been released on CD's and played in the Americas, Europe and East Asia.
Janet Dunbar has studied composition with Chris Chafe, John Chowning, Jonathan Harvey, Jorge Liderman, Wayne Peterson, and Tikey Zes. She has a Bachelors degree from Duke University, a Masters from San Jose State University, and is currently a doctoral candidate in composition at Stanford.
Richard Holmes has been playing percussion and guitar for over 20 years, and has taught privately for the past ten. Having received his degree in music from City College of San Francisco, he has pursued further studies at San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Currently working as a programmer at Hewlett Packard, he is enrolled in the Masters program in computer science at Stanford through SITN.
Jacqueline Thurston is an artist, writer and Professor of Art at San Jose State University. She received a BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University and an MA from Stanford University. Professor Thurston is twice the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her work is in major collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Library of Congress and the Bibliotheque National. She has recently completed a series of images and poems which explore dimensions of the feminine spirit titled "Cycle of Songs." Professor Thurston lectures on the nature of the creative process and the role dreams and memories play as sources for works of art.
Bill Schottstaedt was born in 1951 in NYC, grew up in Oklahoma, attended Stanford, worked awhile at Apple, and currently works at CCRMA.
Jonathan Harvey's large musical output covers a broad range of instrumental, vocal, and electronic resources. In addition to his compositional activities, he has conducted, broadcast frequently on music, and authored a book on Karlheinz Stockhausen. Jonathan Harvey graduated from St. John's College, Cambridge, later earning a Ph.D. from Glasgow University and a Mus.D. from Cambridge. In 1980 he became Professor of Music at Sussex University, England, and in 1995 joined the composition faculty at Stanford.
Les tours de silence Ils battent les pierres Ils voudraient avoir une ombre Ils voudraient avoir une corps Ils ne sont ni jour ni nuit Ils sont aux mains de l'espace Encore une chute de clarte Et les pierres seront soleil (Paul Eluard)The piece "Aux mains de l'espace" was composed in 1993 using the Synlab-Analog-Synthesizer of the ICEM (Institute for Computer Music and Electronic Media) at the Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen, Germany. An integral part of the composition process lays in the analysis of my intended formal and aesthetic conception, and the sound results of the Synlab which arose as a consequence of the way it was built (e.g. thermal instability). Apart from the Synlab, only additional filter and echo programs have been used.
The poem from Paul Eluard, selected after finishing the composition, has to be seen as an associative element, not as an element formally related to the piece.
The various processes generated in "Aux mains de l'espace" are not presented in order; they appear in different states at different points in the piece and are integrated into their respective temporal environments. They consist of arrangements of sound points with irregular rhythms, of different pitches and intensities, which have been created by an extreme over-modulation of filters. Sounds are created whose information content regarding length and discernibility, as opposed to their neighboring sounds, has been alienated. Generated sound points are given spatial perspective through independent movement within the acoustic space, both through special distribution over the loudspeakers and a diminishing echo. This has an effect on their spatial / temporal surroundings, so that new connections are formed, which gain further importance by the use of additional parameters (rhythms, latent pitch perception, etc.).
Individual states loose their connections to previous states because of the way the compositional / temporal form is dealt with in this work. The macroform and the major formal connections are created by structures of overriding importance, which absorb the differences, e.g. "qualities" or sound characteristics of the individual elements.
The last sequence is separated from the other parts of the work by a 10-second tacet. As a result of the various deep transpositions of singular material. i.e. previously only rudimentarily related by pitch, a construction method contrary to that explained above is generated, which communicates itself immediately to the listener by the difference of its sound.
Gerald Eckert was born in 1960 in Nuremberg and studied cello, piano and conducting from 1985 to 1990 at the Conservatory in Nuremberg, and mathematics from 1987 to 1992 at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Beginning in 1989 he studied electroacoustic composition under Wilfried Jentzsch in Nuremberg. He also studied composition with Walter Zimmermann and then, from 1992 to 1995, with Nicolaus A. Huber, and electroacoustic composition with Dirk Reith at the Folkwang-Hochschule Essen. In addition, he attended classes with James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey and Marco Stroppa.
He received various awards and prizes, e.g. a prize in the Luigi-Russolo competition 1993 in Italy and the "C.Gulbenkian-Prize" 1993 in Portugal. He won the 3rd prize in the NDR orchestra-composition competition. He was nominated by an international jury for the world music days 1995 and the ICMC 1996 in Hong Kong. He received the "Kranichstein-Prize" 1996.
Since 1987 he has also worked on his own pictures. He has taken part in different exhibitions and installations. His first catalogue appeared in 1995.
The title Snapshots on a Circle has a double meaning. The first meaning is more literal in the sense that several of the photographs were taken during an extended lunch at a cafe on a plaza. The second is more universal in that most travels, no matter how long or how far, eventually wind their way back to their point of origin.
Jonathan Norton was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1966. He is currently studying at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University working towards a Ph.D. in computer-based music theory. During his time at Stanford he has studied with John Chowning, Julius Smith, Max Mathews, Chris Chafe, David Soley and Jody Rockmaker. Before CCRMA, he received his masters in music composition at Northwestern University.
His works for dance, acoustic instruments, tape, and soundtracks have been performed worldwide. His most recent soundtrack for Dreams of a City: Creating East Palo Alto has been shown on PBS and recently entered into several film festivals. His soundtrack for ENDGAME had its world premiere at Siggraph '94 in Orlando Florida and has since been in festivals and on television in the US, Russia, Spain, Japan, Monaco, Italy, France, and Switzerland.
Gary Scavone specializes in the performance of contemporary concert music and actively encourages new works incorporating the saxophone. Before coming to California, he was a member of the Aeolian Saxophone Quartet and principal alto saxophonist with the New York Chamber Saxophones. He holds degrees in electrical engineering and music from Syracuse University, where he studied saxophone with Ronald Caravan and Sigurd Rascher. He also spent a year studying with Jean-Marie Londeix at the National Conservatory of France in Bordeaux under a Fulbright Scholarship. Mr. Scavone is currently completing a Ph.D. in "Computer-Based Music Theory & Acoustics" at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Stanford University.
On a lighter note, Mr. Scavone prides himself with having performed in almost every major European capital --- as a street musician during the summers of 1987, 1988, and 1990.
Dahna Rudin, Cellist, received an artists diploma from the Vienna Hochschule für Musik. She also holds a bachelors degree in Psychology from Pomona College. Ms. Rudin was the recipient of the 1985 Rudolph Polk Memorial Award and was a prize winner in the 1984 S.F. Symphony-Julia Klumpkey competition. As a member of the Wiener Sinfonietta, and the Belvedere Trio, she has toured Europe, Asia, and the United States. Ms. Rudin can be heard on a recently released CD of the two Mendelssohn Piano Trios on the KKM label.
Mark Goldstein graduated from Stanford University in the late 1980's with a Masters degree in Computer Science. He is a noted Bay Area percussionist and can be heard regularly throughout the Peninsula and East Bay. With close ties to CCRMA, Mark pursues his interest in and incorporates into his music alternative percussion controllers, algorithmic composition and other MIDI devices.
| ©1997 CCRMA, Stanford University. All Rights Reserved. Created and mantained by Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, nando@ccrma.stanford.edu
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