What’s the difference between music as art and music as entertainment or decoration?

There is a clear relation in this question to an earlier post which offers a definition of art. I posed the question to myself in this form after…

making sense of: recording

On July 20th 2023, with the help of Jorge Vallejo, Karin Schistek and I recorded my solo piano piece making sense of at the Folkwang University’s Tonaufnahmestudio. There…

in competence: algorithms

Anyone who knows my work can guess that in competence was substantially made with my slippery chicken algorithmic composition software. A lot of free-form editing and development of score…

in competence: ZKM recording

From the 18th-22nd December 2022 Trio Abstrakt and I rehearsed and recorded in competence in the Kubus of ZKM Karlsruhe. This c. 70-minute through-composed work was commissioned by Trio…

Se tu porti il vino, io faccio il pesto
(for Roberto Doati)

I’ve just made a binaural render of my Se tu porti il vino, io faccio il pesto. This was written (very quickly!) in 2020 and composed/mixed/mastered in 3rd-order ambisonics (16-channels). I…

olatunji entpackt

On June 17th 2023 my olatunji entpackt for four midi wind controllers and midi percussionist was premiered in Basel by the EW-4 electronic wind quartet with percussion João…

A definition of art and one view of pop music

I wrote the following definition and commentary because my view of art sometimes raises objections—as should any strong view of something so intangible—most recently in my teaching at…

vortex temporum podcast

The indefatigable Diana Ferreira and Nuno Aroso have started a new podcast highlighting contemporary composers. They’ve just released episode 6 entitled foreign (being), featuring yours truly. The invitation was…

image to sound synthesis

Back in the early 90s I experimented with extremely primitive translations of various data sets into sound. The most basic translation of all is taking a computer file…

voir dans le secret

On March 23rd 2022 my voir dans le secret was premiered at the Biennale de Lyon with musicians from the Cairn Ensemble and Totem Électrique. It was commissioned with the…

spem in alio numquam habui

On February 18th 2022, in the stunning Red Dot Design Museum in Essen, my new piece for 41 consort tenor recorders and tablets was premiered in a concert…

pulsed. like a star.

In 2021 I finally finished the mix and master of a 40-minute immersive audio-visual project that was on the go for quite a while. Details below. The first…

insonic counterpoint at ZKM

On September 25th 2021, Susanne Achilles and I again performed Jean-Claude Risset’s Duet for One Pianist. This was a recapitulation of the 2019 concert at the Philharmonie Essen…

Perceptual or Conceptual (in Electronic Music)?

On November 13th 2021 I gave an impulse lecture to stimulate a discussion we hosted as part of the symposium 50 years of electronic music and audiovisuals at the…

50 years of electronic music and audiovisuals at the folkwang university of the arts

From November 11th-13th 2021 we hosted a symposium to celebrate 50 years of electronic music and audiovisuals at the folkwang university of the arts. With international guests presenting their music…

ma bell premiere (and recording with Ambeo mic)

On January 10th 2022 Michael Pattmann premiered ma bell, a reworking of ma bel. For one beautiful bell and four percussion groups consisting of six objects each of…

seven rotations of seven for three premiere

The premiere of my seven rotations of seven for three (triple doubles) for three violas and electronics was premiered at the NOW! Festival on October 30th 2021. The…

Kla4

Kla4 is a piece by Michael Edwards, Thomas Neuhaus, Dirk Reith, and Günter Steinke for four self-playing pianos, e.g. Yamaha Disklaviers, as in the video below. Kla4 was…

hyperboles 6 for Ensemble S201

On June 11th 2021 at the RüBühne, Essen, Ensemble S201 gave the premiere of the sixth installment of my hyperboles series before repeating the concert on August 12th…

soundscapes around the world

Over the spring and summer of 2020 my students and I worked on a four-channel soundscapes installation that created a continuously remixed and varying aural collage of sound…

Organ – Remote

Over the spring and summer of 2020, my students and I worked on new pieces for the MIDI-controllable Kuhn Organ of the Philharmonie Essen. Some of these were…

Pandora

On October 29th 2019 I presented one of the most interesting concerts I’ve ever organised. Along with my colleagues at the NOW! Festival / Philharmonie Essen / Folkwang…

Salim Javaid’s ONpodcast (in German)

On November 5th 2020 I discussed composition, improvisation, and performance with Salim Javaid in preparation for a podcast release for the ON – Neue Musik Köln Station.  …

NOW! Festival Concert broadcast on WDR (in German)

On September 21st 2020 I was a guest of Johannes Zink and Frank Hilberg at WDR Cologne. Johannes and I discussed the concert I organised as part of…

WDR Broadcast on Electronic Composition @ ICEM (in German)

On September 21st 2020 I was a guest of Johannes Zink and Frank Hilberg at WDR Cologne. Johannes and I spoke about the Institute for Computer Music and…

vivos: automatic unattended real-time processing of audio signals in maxmsp and common lisp

  vivos as a noun means alive in Spanish and Portuguese; living in Latin; but also tips its hat at the 1980 computer music landmark Mortuos Plango, Vivos…

Q&A for Barbara Maurer’s New Music Masters Seminar (in German)

The following questions were put to me by Prof. Barbara Maurer in preparation for a portrait in her Masters in New Music seminar. BM: Was ist Musik für…

Portrait in Deutschlandfunk (in German)

Last October, Georg Waßmuth contacted me out of the blue to arrange an interview session in preparation for a portait broadcast about my career and music as part…

gold im bach

  The title gold im bach arose from a discussion I had with Karin Schistek during a trip in summer 2019 to Camogli, near Genoa, Italy. I had…

ma bel

ma bel, my new piece for Jean-Francois Laporte’s compressed-air instrument, the babel table, was premiered in Canada at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal on October 4th 2019….

orchestration algorithm in
“days with glass edges”

  days with glass edges (chasing the butterflies in my wallpaper), for fifteen-piece ensemble and 4-channel electronics, was premiered at the NOW! Festival by the Folkwang Modern ensemble…

random thoughts

No, the image above is not my latest Max patch, though I can think of a few people who might recognise something there. Not Max: Lisp. If you’ve…

Premiere of Durchhaltevermögen in Münster

In May 2018 I was in Münster with edimpro colleagues Dimitris Papageorgiou and Karin Schistek to give improvisation workshops to students at the Hochschule für Musik. Mieko Kanno…

HOTPO

On July 12th 2018, Portuguese saxophonist Henrique Portovedo premiered HOTPO, my new piece for alto saxophone, ensemble, and electronics. The performance was part of the World Saxophone Congress…

elsewhere, with Mike Svoboda

elsewhere by Edwards/Hayes/Michalakos/Parker/Svoboda Back in May 2012, while Mike Svobodo was visiting Edinburgh to do some workshops with University of Edinburgh postgraduate students, some locals, including myself, did…

three back-to-back edimpro releases

forest by edimpro alison by edimpro heated by edimpro Just before leaving the UK in September 2017, amongst packing boxes and the fifteen other circles of hell that…

oh, (the) shame!

This is the full and original text of my article published on February 15th 2018 in Times Higher Education.   In January of 2017 a colleague and I travelled…

MusicXML output from slippery chicken

Back in 2011, after several years of using either CMN or Sibelius (the latter via MIDI file import), I was considering alternative score output formats for my algorithmic composition software slippery…

Why I’m leaving UK academia

(and no, it’s not just Brexit) Last year I started playing competitive squash in the East of Scotland League. After the matches, meals and drinks are provided by…

Recording “in limine” with Henrique Portovedo

  Henrique Portovedo and I have just finished recording my piece in limine, for two soprano saxophones and computer, written 2003-2005. We’ve now got to work on the mix and…

Porting slippery chicken

First of all I should say that there are no current plans to port slippery chicken. But:  A humourously intended (though sarcastic: you know who you are!) post on my…

hyperboles 3 in Montreal

Quasar Quartet, Le Gesu, Montreal, Canada, 19/1/17:   It was disappointingly warm in Montreal. I’d promised Martin temperatures of -20C and below (it reached -33C on my last trip)…

for rei as a doe: the making of the video: an online interview with the artists

Below is an interview I initiated online with the artists who made the above video to my algorithmic composition for rei as a doe. CI = Chante Inglis (animation)…

for rei as a doe, with video, in Genova

I’ve just returned from teaching algorithmic composition for a week at the Conservatorio Statale di Musica “Niccolò Paganini” in Genova, Italy. It was a pleasure to meet and work with Professor…

Control Waves and Guest Professorship at the Folkwang University, Essen

I’m just coming to the end of my second week of teaching in the Institute for Computer Music and Electronic Media (ICEM) at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen,…

timing accuracy in hyperboles 2

Those present at the St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh performance by Mieko Kanno of my hyperboles 2 (“until the cherries burst in the orchard”) on 20/5/16 were very patient. I…

Bangkok Thoughts: post-concert Q&A

Whilst searching online forY/Our Music, Salee Art Every’s excellent film about Thai  music, I stumbled across a complete recording of the post-concert question and answer session we did at Museum…

Masterclasses in Venice

The week of March 28th 2016 saw me giving saxophone and electronics masterclasses with Gianpaolo Antongirolami at the Conservatorio di Musica “Benedetto Marcello” in Venice. We were guests of…

Portrait concerts in Aveiro, Portugal

It was a pleasure to be a guest and one of the featured composers of the AVEIRO_SÍNTESE 2016 festival and the Dias De Música Electroacústica in Portugal earlier this month…

piano music and cross-staff notation

Anyone who has input a piano score into notation software knows that it’s not so easy as, say, creating a woodwind part. First of all there are chords,…