Tag: MaxMSP
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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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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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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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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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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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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, 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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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 told the audience that this violin plus computer piece would last 52 minutes but after the performance Dario Sanfilippo, who did the lights, told me it was more like…
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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 Massimo Marchi and Paolo Zavagna, professors of electronic music (and excellent hosts) in Venice. I’d be hard pressed to think of a more beautiful place than this to…
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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 (5-10 April). We did a portrait concert in Aveiro and Seia featuring five pieces of mine (two 4-channel fixed media, three instrument plus electronics) spanning the years…
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premiere of hyperboles 5, Birmingham
Ellen Fallowfield and I outed the latest version of my hyperboles project last weekend at the Crosscurrents Festival in Birmingham. After two days of intense rehearsals and development it was a real pleasure to play in the Dome of the Bramall Music Building. Scott Wilson and Annie Mahtani’s team are continuing and developing the Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre tradition…
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Music for Parallel Consumption: An open-ended self-reconfiguring musical composition as app
Composed in 2010 but not released until some final polish was applied in 2015, Music for Parallel Consumption is a 4-channel digital composition made for delivery and playback via a custom computer app. The title refers only partially ironically to the tendency to consume music as part of a backdrop to our otherwise-engaged lives. At the same time as offering…
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Music for Parallel Consumption
Update, January 2016: This project has now been released on bandcamp It’s a lovely word but a little overused by self-help and marketing gurus: serendipity. Those familiar with talks on my slippery chicken algorithmic composition software are no doubt aware of the claims I make for the explorative potential of such systems. I argue…
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hyperboles 4 – the extremities of cold, Montreal
My hyperboles project saw a new iteration in Quebec last month. Performances of hyperboles 4 (“insomniac rain”) took place in Canada, on February 25th courtesy of the festival Mois Multi 2015 – Spectacles in Quebec City, and on March 1st at the Montreal Nouvelles Musiques festival. Programme Note Humans exaggerate on a regular basis. Typical hyperboles might be “this…
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The mNAP sound installation
Experiencing this sound installation involves stepping into a custom-built soundproofed box (the mNAP) and listening to the twelve-minute piece I made on stereo headphones. Simple feedback on the piece can made by participants via a custom iPad interface I programmed using MaxMSP and the Mira app. The audio file that mNAP participants hear inside the box…
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hyperboles are the worst thing ever
(aka Epimenides would have been gutted)
AmsterdamSince August 2013 I’ve been working on hyperboles, a series of pieces that allow musicians to tweak the algorithm parameters that are used to generate the work’s score, sound files, and real-time processing. A software interface allows the creation of different versions of the piece with durations ranging from c. 15 to 52 minutes. It’s an invitation…
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their faces on fire, San Marino
Gianpaolo Antongirolami and I premiered my new piece for baritone saxophone and computer their faces on fire in San Marino on June 20th 2014. It’s 100% algorithmically generated, and allows the musician to configure various parameters of the algorithms via a MaxMSP interface: Here’s the programme note: “their faces on fire” is a flexible, musician-tweaked algorithmic…
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better a broken bone
A new release of freely improvised music featuring me on saxophones and electronics, Christos Michalakos on drums and electronics, and Jack Weir on electric guitar is now available on the reid label. Christos did the graphic design and came up with the title, which I believe came from Majory Allen’s phrase “Better a broken bone than…
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not us
Not Us by Not Us Fritz Welch and I have just released not us, a studio album made in my Edinburgh flat (in the sauna, actually). Recorded and mixed collaboratively between 2010 and 2012 it features two extended tracks using various percussion instruments played by Fritz and contributions on tenor saxophone and computer by myself.…
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lapslap – granita
Our fourth and final (for this series at least) lapslap CD is now out on Leo Records. As the booklet text below attests, in contrast to our previous CDs I made the form for this one-hour piece in post-production. It was a labour of love but I wanted something special for this final CD and think it…
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lapslap recording sessions, september 2010
lapslap are Michael Edwards (saxophones, laptop), Martin Parker (horns, laptop), and Karin Schistek (piano, Nord synthesiser). We recorded free improvisations in the Reid Hall from the 8th to the 12th of September 2010. This was to be our fourth album on Leo Records. On September 11th, the American percussionist and 9/11 survivor Fritz Welch visited…