Saturday – March 7, 2020 – Concert 6 – 7pm – Hart Recital Hall

Concert 6 – 7pm – Hart Recital Hall

  • Eric Honour – airclicknoise (broken)
  • Cecilia Suhr – I, you, we
  • Rob Hamilton – Elegy (Ready, Set, Rapture), for Coretet virtual-reality doublebass
  • Alexandria Smith – Exhale, for trumpet, electronics, and interactive media
  • Paul J. Botelho – In Moscow We Marched

*****

airclicknoise (broken)

Eric Honour

Eric Honour, live electronics

The work “airclicknoise (broken)” is an essay for live electronics. Built primarily from samples of air, clicks, and noises made through a baritone saxophone and performed on an Ableton Push, driving Ableton Live and custom Max For Live patches, the work recontextualizes sounds from the world of extended saxophone performance techniques. This framework allows the live electronics performer to synthetically and virtuosically reimagine not only the shape of a hypothetical airclicknoise performance, but to reach inside and break the sounds themselves, transforming them into screeches and howls of electronic aggression, wavering ambient soundscapes, and even breakcore-inspired grooves.

Devoted to exploring and furthering the intersections of music and technology, Eric Honour’s work as a composer and saxophonist has been featured in numerous international conferences and festivals like ICMC, SEAMUS, MUSLAB, Sonorities, EMM, NYCEMF, and others. A member of the Athens Saxophone Quartet, he performs regularly in Europe and the United States, and has presented lectures and masterclasses at many leading institutions.

Honour’s music has been described as “fast, frenetic, and fiendishly difficult” and performed around the world by such notable artists as Quintet Attacca, Shanna Gutierrez, Stephan Vermeersch, Elisabeth Stimpert, the Thelema Trio, and Quartetto Musicattuale. His work as a composer has been recognized in many competitions, published by Roncorp, and recorded on the Capstone, Ravello, and Innova labels. Professor of music, head of the music department, and director of the Center for Music Technology at the University of Central Missouri, his work as an audio engineer and producer appears on the Innova, Centaur, Ravello, Irritable Hedgehog, Weighter, Orpheus Classical Music, Everview, North Star Appli, and E.M.E. Action labels, as well as on numerous independent releases.

*****

I, You, We: Interactive Multimedia Performance

Cecilia Suhr, Composer, Artist, Performer, Interactive Designer

Credit: Hans Tammen, programmer      

I, You, We is an interactive multimedia performance which was created to overlay our mirror image with that of others, thereby blurring the concept of “me vs. you” into a collective “we.” This participatory performance invites audiences to stand in front the camera station for a brief second.  As the camera detects the face, a corresponding sound will be simultaneously triggered and play aloud in the space. This interactive sound is meant to give the viewer a feeling of an embodied presence as they place their head in between the lighting ring and then see themselves on the screen. Throughout audiences’ participation, the performer improvises on the violin to impact the visuals in real time.  The pitch of violin improvisation instantly recreates colorful portraits of the participants’ blurred faces to celebrate one human race while the amplitude of the sound impacts the lighting. 

Cecilia Suhr is an award winning interdisciplinary artist, researcher, multi-instrumentalist (violin/cello/voice/piano), author, electro-acoustic composer and improviser, who is working at the intersection between art, music, sound design, and digital technology. Her work has been exhibited and performed in various galleries, festivals, biennials, conferences and museums nationally and internationally in venues such as Palace of Congresses and Exhibitions Nice Acropolis, (Nice, France), Altice Forum Braga (Braga, Portugal), Djanogly Recital Hall, University of Notthingham, (Notthingham UK), CICA Museum, (Gimpo, Korea), IANG Gallery, Seoul, Korea, Pylaia- Hortiati Municipal Conservatory, Thessaloniki, Greece, Center for Collaborative Arts and Media at Yale University, Pensacola Museum of Art, West Florida, Outside the Box 4,  A Biennial of Outdoor Site-Specific Arts and Performance at Whitespace, West Palm Beach, Kimmel Gallery at New York University, (NY, NY), Venice Art House, (Venice Italy), NIW Gallery, (Tokyo, Japan), House Museum of Marina Tsvetaeva, Moscow Russia, Hill Center Galleries, Washington, D.C., Scholes Street Studio, (Brooklyn, NY), etc. She is currently an Associate Professor of Humanities and Creative Arts (and affiliate faculty of Art) at Miami University Regional, OH. 

*****

Elegy (Ready, Set, Rapture)

Rob Hamilton

Rob Hamilton, Coretet Virtual Reality Doublebass

Elegy (Ready, Set, Rapture) is the second work composed for Coretet, a virtual reality musical instrument modeled after traditional bowed stringed instruments including the violin, viola, cello and doublebass. Premiered on October 3, 2019 at the Transitions Festival at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), Elegy (Ready, Set, Rapture) is a solo multi-channel performance that combines a pre-composed musical chord structure displayed on the neck of the instrument in real-time with improvisation. Two views of the virtual environment are projected to the audience: a cinematic camera view of the networked performance space as well as the performer’s own viewpoint. Coretet is built using the Unreal Engine and is performed using the Oculus Rift head-mounted display and Oculus Touch controllers. All audio in Coretet is procedurally generated, using the physical model of a bowed string from the Synthesis Toolkit (STK), running within Pure Data.

Composer and researcher Rob Hamilton explores the converging spaces between sound, music and interaction. His creative practice includes mixed and virtual-reality performance works built within fully rendered networked game environments, procedural music engines and mobile musical ecosystems. His research focuses on the cognitive implications of sonified musical gesture and motion and the role of perceived space in the creation and enjoyment of sound and music. Dr. Hamilton received his Ph.D. from Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) and currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music and Media in the Department of Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. 

*****

Exhale for improvising performer and computer

Alexandria Smith

Alexandria Smith, trumpet

Exhale is a piece that goes against the notion of music as an adjective, i.e., that music is this, this execution is that.  As a performer trained in the western, classical tradition, I was taught to get to a point in a piece where I didn’t have to think or feel; just play.  This sensation of having calculated control over my body and technical capacity was needed in order to execute the intention of the composer, but often left me with a feeling of emptiness after a performance.  Writing exhale is my attempt to reverse this dynamic within myself and embrace the physicality of performance in the present. Instead of trying to execute passages with my interpretation on auto-pilot, the material is generated by my present, embodied performance experience.  Images and sonic material are abstracted into patterns, textures, and unnatural time to invite the audience and the performer to “go visiting” into an undefined space that is distorted and reiterated with the use of breath and heart rate sensing. Inspired by the Grain of the Voice, Roland Barthes. 

Praised by The New York Times for her “appealingly melancholic sound” and “entertaining array of distortion effects,” Alexandria Smith is a trumpeter, multimedia artist, curator, and recording engineer studying at the University of California San Diego. Her current projects focus on the use of biofeedback as an interfacing tool for musicians, interactive media (audio and visual), and practice based research. Previous engagements include her week (curation) at the Stone in 2019, performing as an ensemble member in the premiere of Alvin Lucier’s Orpheus Variations for solo cello (Charles Curtis), seven wind instruments, and seven dancers,  performances at the La Semana Internacional de Improvisación in Ensenada, Baja California, trumpet/electronics Luminous Tubes Concert at the FONT Festival 2019, performing as a soloist in the Martha Graham Dance Company 90th Anniversary Concert, and John Zorn’s Improv Night at the Stone.

*****

In Moscow We Marched

Paul J. Botelho

Paul J. Botelho, voice

In Moscow We Marched (2019-20) is a musical response to protest sounds and images captured in Moscow, Russia. In the fall of 2013, the composer marched with thousands in the streets of Moscow calling for the release of political prisoners. The piece stands as a continued call for the effort.

Praised for his vocal virtuosity, Azorean-American composer and countertenor Paul J. Botelho performs worldwide. His work includes acoustic and electro-acoustic music, multimedia installation pieces, visual art works, vocal improvisation, and a series of one-act operas. He performs as a vocalist primarily through extended technique and incorporates the voice into much of his music. His recent work explores live performed vocal responses to composed and prerecorded sonic environments. His work has been performed, presented, and exhibited in concerts, festivals, galleries, and museums across the Americas, Europe, Oceania, and Asia. Botelho received a Ph.D. and M.F.A. in Music Composition from Princeton University, an M.A. in Electro-Acoustic Music from Dartmouth College, and a B.F.A. in Contemporary Music Performance and Composition from the College of Santa Fe. Currently he is Associate Professor of Music at Bucknell University where he teaches music composition. 

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