Quarantine Sessions #43
LIVESTREAM
The Coronavirus Crisis has changed our lives and we are in the midst of a long period without concerts as we knew them. In addition to the problem of large audiences, the regulations also make it 'virtually' impossible for musicians to get together, to rehearse, or perform. However, many technologies and solutions are already available, helping us to find new ways of collaborating and transporting our work to audiences. We have been programming, testing, and rehearsing in an online environment between California (US), Berlin (DE) and Ghent (BE). We present concerts that connect musicians from these locations and guests from other places to each other. The sessions are broadcast live with audio and video feeds from each site.
Guest performers
Donald Swearingen (Oakland, CA)
Chris Chafe (Woodside, CA)
Henrik von Coler (Berlin, DE)
Fernando Lopez-Lezcano (San Carlos, CA)
Juan Parra (Ghent, BE)
Klaus Scheuermann (Berlin, DE)
The 'Quarantine Sessions' are realized using free and open source technologies, which can be adopted by anyone:
JackTrip (audio)
Jitsi (video)
Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist who works primarily with voice, live electronic processing, sampled sound, and video. A pioneer of live digital looping techniques, she processes her voice in real time to create dense, complex sonic layers. Her solo works combine experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, digital processing, and wireless MIDI controllers that allow her to manipulate sound with physical gestures. In addition to her solo work, she has been commissioned to compose scores for dance, theatre, film, and chamber ensembles including Kronos Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, the Bang on a Can All Stars, Ethel, and San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Her interdisciplinary performance works have been presented at venues including The Kitchen (NY), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF), REDCAT (LA), and MCA (Chicago), and her installations have been presented at such exhibition spaces as the Whitney (NY), the Diözesanmuseum (Cologne), and the Krannert (IL). Pamela Z has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. She has performed in numerous festivals including Bang on a Can (New York), Interlink (Japan), Other Minds (San Francisco), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), Dak’Art (Sénégal) and Pina Bausch Tanztheater Festival (Wuppertal, Germany). She’s a recipient of numerous awards including the Rome Prize, United States Artists, a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation residency, the Guggenheim, the Doris Duke Artist Impact Award, Herb Alpert Award, an Ars Electronica honorable mention, and the NEA Japan/US Friendship Commission Fellowship. She holds a music degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder. www.pamelaz.com
Donald Swearingen is an Oakland, California-based composer, performer, multimedia artist, and designer of interactive software and electronic systems for live performance and installation. A classically trained pianist with an ear to the radio, he was drawn to popular music in his teens and early twenties, working for 10 years in the Memphis music industry at such legendary studios as Stax and Hi Records, both as a touring performer and a recording artist. There, his work with studio electronics and modular synthesizers reoriented his focus, and he turned to the academic world, where he pursued interdisciplinary studies in computer music, mathematics, electronics, and physics, followed by advanced degrees in mathematics and computer science. The San Francisco Bay area seemed the logical next step. For the past 20 years, his activities have centered around the use of movement and gesture as the source of media control in an expanded, computer-assisted performance environment, employing instruments and software of his own design. He has also designed instruments and software for other artists, including Pamela Z, Dohee Lee, Miya Masaoka, Guillermo Galindo, and many others. He is a founder and member of the advisory board of the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, and was a featured performer in its 10th season series in 2012. Swearingen has lectured and taught courses in sound applications for multimedia and media networks in the Multimedia Studies Program at San Francisco State University and CSU East Bay, and has written on the subjects of computer networks, electronic music and MIDI for BYTE Magazine, Ylem, and the ACM Journal. He was the software architect and developer of the R2 Acoustical Analyzer for LucasFilm Ltd. THX, and the D2 Acoustical Analyzer for AcoustX, and has provided consulting and software development services for clients such as Furman / Panamax, Yahoo, YouSendIt, Aplia, Wind River Systems, Telenetworks, Next Level Communications, and Network Equipment Technologies.
Constantin Basica is a Romanian composer living in the San Francisco Bay Area (CA), whose current work focuses on symbiotic interrelations between music, video, and performers. His pieces have been featured at festivals and conferences such as MATA Festival (New York, NY), the International Festival for Video art and Visual Music (Mexico City, MX), Currents New Media Festival (Santa Fe, NM), the International Week for New Music and the InnerSound International Festival for New Arts (Bucharest, RO), next_generation Festival at ZKM (Karlsruhe, DE), the 2016 Sound and Music Computing Conference (Hamburg, DE), and Aveiro_Síntese International Festival of Electroacoustic Music (Aveiro, PT). He received the ICMA Award for Best Submission from Europe at the 2017 ICMC in Shanghai (CN). Constantin earned a DMA in Composition at Stanford University (CA) under the guidance of Jaroslaw Kapuscinski, Brian Ferneyhough, Mark Applebaum, and Erik Ulman. He holds an MA degree in Multimedia Composition from the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre (DE) and two BA degrees in Composition and Conducting from the National University of Music Bucharest (RO). Currently, Constantin is a postdoctoral scholar and the concert coordinator at Stanford’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA).
Henrik von Coler is a musician and researcher in the field of electronic and electroacoustic music. He is currently working at Audio Communication Group, TU Berlin, where he is director of the Electronic Music Studio. In his compositions and performances he is focusing on the us of low-tech elements in state-of-the-art technical systems, combining vintage sound generation and erroneous systems with sound field synthesis systems. He is founder of the Electronic Orchestra Charlottenburg, a group of 10 musicians performing live electronic music with modular synthesizers and other instruments on large loudspeaker setups.
Juan Parra Cancino studied Composition at the Catholic University of Chile and Sonology at The Royal Conservatoire The Hague (NL), where he obtained his Masters degree with focus on composition and performance of electronic music. In 2014, Juan obtained his PhD degree from Leiden University with his thesis “Multiple Paths: Towards a Performance practice in Computer Music”. His compositions have been performed in Europe, Japan, North and South America in festivals such as ICMC, “Sonorities”, “Synthese”, and “November Music”, among many others. His acousmatic piece Serenata a Bruno obtained a special mention at the Bourges electroacoustic music competition of 2003 and in 2004, his piece Tellura was awarded with the residence prize of the same competition. Founder of The Electronic Hammer, a Computer and Percussion trio and Wiregriot, (voice & electronics), he collaborates regularly with Ensemble KLANG (NL) and Hermes (BE), among many others. His work in the field of live electronic music has made him recipient of numerous grants such as NFPK, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and the International Music Council. Since 2009 Parra is a fellow researcher at the Orpheus Institute (Ghent, BE), focused on performance practice in Computer Music.
Trummerschlunk (audiolith, lemme records, hold your ground)
Trummerschlunk performs slow techno that immerses into a modular synthesizer-driven soundscape and invites to a sci-fi inspired journey toward big questions and amorphous feelings. In real life, Klaus Scheuermann is a Berlin based mix- and mastering engineer with allmost 20 years of experience in jazz and electronic music.
Photo Pamela Z: rubra (courtesy of Ars Electronica)