composition, improvisation, software
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great symphony in c
Javad Javadzade asked for a piece for two double basses and electronics. He wanted to be able to perform it alone also, so ended up having to trigger electronics way more than is usually acceptable. Be careful what you wish for, I suppose. It was a good test of current digital resources as the performance…
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lusted fleeting
lusted fleeting is a 68-minute fixed-media immersive-audio piece in five parts (plus coda) with optional live on-stage speaker and lighting effects. Aesthetic promiscuity interrupted by digital discontinuities, degradations, spectral and acoustic shifts, pauses, nostalgic machine noises, and jump-cuts create a meta-narrative that breaks the suspension of disbelief and the basking in immersive sound. Many of lusted fleeting’s rhythmically-focused…
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Stereo renders/masters from ambisonics
Mixing and composing in ambisonics is great. Translation from one speaker system to another is fairly painless and you can’t argue with the price of the basic tools (free) and the potential for long-term archiving and restoration of mixes. One of the issues we face though is how to generate stereo masters from, say, a…
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Learning to Forget the Past; Yearning to Forget the Future
The following, in German, arose out of the slides and notes I made for a talk given for the German Society for Electroacoustic Music (DEGEM) at ZKM Karlsruhe on 28.9.2024. The theme for the talks was Perspectives on Emerging Forms of Experimental Music: Futurisms I. From Now to Tomorrow | Emergence and Experiment and my…
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naked empty silence in Hannover
My new piece for cello (Martha Bijlma), electronics, and Jean-Francois Laporte’s self-made compressed-air-driven instrument the Bol was premiered on November 19th 2023 at the Rampe in Hannover, Germany. This was part of the Zeitlupe series initiated by the Hannoversche Gesellschaft für Neue Musik. In these concerts, a new work is presented twice, with other works…
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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 listening to the results of algorithms I am developing using Wolfram Codes 1 for rhythm generation. I will not even attempt to offer a lengthy, philosophically-rounded answer…
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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 are no electronics in this piece but Jorge did make a single-camera video recording—with some music manuscript paper flourishes after the recording was done—which Karin then used…
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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 materials were made in Dorico. The 5th-order Ambisonics sound files were made, collated, and mixed in Reaper using IEM’s plugins. My image-to-sound algorithms were the main new…
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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 Abstrakt and premiered by them, just prior to the recording, at the Alte Feuerwache in Cologne, on December 3rd. Programme notes in English and German are available…
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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 took the opportunity to remaster this binaural stereo version using, amongst other things, Melda’s MCompressor plugin. I love this tool because it allows me to finely-tune several stages of…
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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 Carlos Pacheco. An immersive binaural recording of the performance is below, followed by the programme note in English and German. programme note Absence. Erasure. Fidelity. Presence.…
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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 the Folkwang University, where pop music composition takes its place alongside electronic, instrumental, and composition and visualisation. My criticism of the music industry and commercial music is sometimes…
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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 curious; I immediately liked the idea: “The particularity of this Musical Podcast project lies in the purpose that the invited composers do not directly talk about their…
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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 of any provenance (plain text, image, etc.), adding a standard wave file header and ‘calling it a sound file’. For instance, whilst programming and debugging C code…
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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 kind support of the Direction régionale des affaires culturelles Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Raphaël Bourdier from Ensemble Cairn. From the original proposal submitted: voir dans le secret will be created for…
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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 entitled Surrounding Sound Systems celebrating Folkwang Recorders and the career of Ulrike Volkhardt—Ulrike was retiring at that time from her professorship at the Folkwang University of the Arts. The idea…
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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 five minutes, in stereo, are available on YouTube: pulsed.like a star. is a composition for single channel video and immersive audio by: Michael Edwards: composition, improvised sound processing,…
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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 so included pieces by Clarence Barlow, Conlon Nancarrow, and Ludger Brümmer, along with the installation pieces I made with my colleagues Günter Steinke, Thomas Neuhaus, and Dirk…
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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 folkwang university of the arts. Entitled Perceptual or Conceptual (in Electronic Music)? I presented aspects of concept art as they impact both the visual arts and music, taking a…
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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 and thoughts alongside ICEM teaching staff, we presented six concerts and 12 impulse lectures leading to group discussions. My welcome text from the symposium booklet is copied…
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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 wood, metal, drum, and plate plus computer (the latter producing 3rd-order ambisonics surround sound) this is essentially a piece for percussion and sampler, in the form of…
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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 piece had a bit of a difficult gestation period. I was planning on using my new live electronics system vivos for this piece but that would have…
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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 presented over several evenings as an installation during the NOW! Festival, Essen, from October 23rd to 27th 2019. All four composers contributed four short pieces that were…
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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 at the Europäische Kunstakademie Trier. Like hyperboles 3, for saxophone quartet, this version departs from the initial conception of purely algorithmic music for solo instrumentalist and computer.…
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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 recorded from around the globe: Ecuador, Japan, Cuba, Antarctis, Europe, etc. The software was written by Clarissa Ray Porst in PD using some of my Markov Chain…
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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 algorithmically generated, others more traditionally composed. Originally the idea was to present a live stream during the early stages of the corona pandemic but this was postponed…
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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 University, we placed four Yamaha Disklaviers and one Boesendorfer 280VC (a concert grand Disklavier with the same mechanics as the Yamahas) around the audience in the Alfried…
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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. ON – Neue Musik Köln · ONpodcast #30 Arbeitstitel: Improvisation vs Komposition mit Salim Javaid (und Michael Edwards)
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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 the NOW! Festival on October 29th 2019. This was a spectacular and unique event in that it included five MIDI pianos (4 Yamaha Disklaviers and 1 Boesendorfer…
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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 Electronic Media at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen, in particular the compositions of my students of Electronic Composition there (Tamon Yashima, Sebastian Wendt, and Tim…
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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 Voco by Jonathan Harvey. My vivos software aims to create flexible, lively, multi-layered, and varied real-time sound processing. Its focus is upon unattended processing driven by audio…
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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 Dich? ME: Als Nomen, erstens: Klangkobjekte oder oft Konstrukte, die man bewusst anhört, um eine ästhetische Erfahrung hervorzubringen. Als Verb (musizieren): die meist menschlich-soziale Aktivität des Zusammensetzens…
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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 of the “Deutschlandfunk Atelier Neuer Musik” series. We met at the Folkwand University of the Arts On December 5th and talked about all manner of things. Georg…
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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 made a mock-up of this new piece with my algorithmic composition software slippery chicken and we’d been listening to it in the background over a cheap bluetooth…
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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. The featured image above is of Jean-Francois (left) along with Quasar Quartet comrades Jean-Marc Bouchard and Marie-Chantel Leclair. What they’re staring at is a laptop. Using MaxMSP,…
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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 conducted by Eva Fodor in the Essen Philharmonic on October 26th 2019. A documentation recording is given above and here is a short pre-performance discussion with my…
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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 heard me talk about algorithmic composition then you’ll know that I’m no fan of randomness in musical structure. A bold statement, prone to generate sneers, no doubt.…
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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 was with us to perform a lovely new work by Dimitris for electric violin and computer called deti. That work showcased Mieko’s research project ‘Modelling a Virtual…
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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 and was given in Blagoje Bersa in Zagreb, Croatia. The Cantus Ensemble was conducted by new music saxophonist extraordinaire Lars Mlekusch. Here’s the programme note: Hinting at…
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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 a free-improvisastion concert with him. We recorded it and finally got around to mixing and mastering it before releasing it on bandcamp in 2017. It’s a single-track…
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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 accompany an international move, I managed to clear the decks of several mixes which had been lying semi-dormant on a hard drive, awaiting my attention. The result…
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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 to Canada to work with a saxophone quartet and give a performance in the beautiful Church of the Gesù, Montreal. At passport control both of us stated…
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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 chicken. With its 3.0 version status that year, MusicXML was showing maturity and was definitely a contender for slippery chicken output. After playing around with mainly Sibelius’s MusicXML import functionality, however,…
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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 the hosting club in a social setting. Squash is a sport which attracts people of all ages from all walks of life. I have spoken to actuaries,…
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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 master before Henrique puts it on a release he has planned of my complete works for saxophone and electronics. I’ll be working first of all on a…
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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 Facebook page asked me why my algorithmic composition software is written in Common Lisp and not something more modern (and Lisp-inspired) like Python. My first response might be…
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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) but it hovered around zero for the duration of our seven-day stay this time (reduced by a day due to cracks in our airplane’s windscreen—glad that happened…
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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) CL = Colin Lawson (painting) KS = Karin Schistek (piano) ME = Michael Edwards (composition) ME: What drew you to make a video to this music?…
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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 Roberto Doati’s composition class, as well as to play with some of them in a concert on September 7th that begain with a free improvisation for a group of…
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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, Germany. It’s a pleasure to be here, working with the dedicated and friendly students and staff. I’ll be a Guest Professor until the end of 2016 and…