Electroacoustic Music by Women Composers

Electroacoustic Music by Women Composers

Thursday, March 25, 1999 8:00pm - Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater

In Celebration of Women's History Month

||:KUNST:|| da capo (1997) - Ines Kargel (AUS)
Valdrada (1988) - Frances White (USA)
Ascension - Mei-Fang Lin (Taiwan)
Out Back (1986) - Elaine Barkin (USA)
Vox Alia (1997-98) - Annette Vande Gorne (BELG)
i. Giocoso
ii. Amoroso
iii. Innocemente

---INTERMISSION---

Points of No Return (1997) - Chin-Chin Chen (Taiwan)
With Love (1986) - Vivian Adelberg Rudow
Le Poisson qui Cache l'Oiseau (1996) - Pascale Trudel (CAN)
Flamingo! (1996) - Pascale Trudel (CAN)
Red Snow (1998) - Natasha Barrett (UK)

Introduction article by Elainie Lillios

||:KUNST:|| da capo (10:11) - Ines Kargel

The work - here a segment in a stereo version - was conceived and realized as a sound installation for four channels for the exhibition "the medium - the message", a collaboration of thirteen international artists shown at the former central office for Alpine milk in Vienna from February 22 to March 9, 1997.

This sound installation was based on and implemented the basic concept of the exhibition, which was to unite very different approaches of contemporary art in one exhibition, specifically so that these individual expressions would complement one another. The reason for this was particularly the role played by chance in the distribution and design of the entire grounds, and later in viewing it.

The core sound and basis of this electroacoustic installation is the widely discussed word "Kunst" (art) - written in capitals, placed between repetition signs and labeled with the instruction da capo. Using random operations, i.e. calculations with the algorithm of the ancient Chinese oracle system I Ching,

Ines Kargel, Born 1970 in Linz, Austria/Europe. Ballet training at the Bruckner Conservatory, Linz; learned piano, guitar and saxophone; studied acting at the Music College of Graz (diploma 1990); studied composition and saxophone at the Bruckner Conservatory, Linz (diploma 1996); training course for computer music and electronic media at the Music College of Vienna and at the Studio for Advanced Music and Media Technology, Linz.

Compositional work in the field of interdisciplinary multimedia with a particular reference to space as a determining parameter of the work: sound installations, music for film and theater, performances; performances and tours as jazz and rock saxophonist at home and abroad; has performed in and directed theater productions, readings, show productions and moderation.

Talent promotion award from the Province of Upper Austria for music (1996). Guest lectures about Austrian Elektroacoustic Music at the Sichuan Conservatory, Chengdu / China (1998). Member of GEM (Austrian Society for Elektroacoustic Music), IGNM (International Society for New Music) and ICMA (International Computer Music Association).

Valdrada (16:35) - Frances White

Valdrada is based on an excerpt from Le citt� invisibili (Invisible cities) by Italo Calvino. Calvino's book is a collection of prose poems, connected by the scenario of Marco Polo telling Kublai Khan stories of the fantastic cities which he has visited. The piece is based on Marco's description of Valdrada, a city built upon the shore of a lake. Marco tells of how an arriving traveler sees not one but two cities: the "real" one above and its reflection in the water below; he then explains the peculiar awareness which the inhabitants of Valdrada have of their reflections in the lake. So great is their obsession with these mirrors of themselves that it becomes not so much their own actions and passions which are of importance to them, but those of their images in the water. Finally, Marco tells of the relationship between the city and its mirror: "the two cities live for one another, their eyes locked together; but there is no love between them."

In composing Valdrada, I wanted to draw upon the imagery, atmosphere, and poetry of the text without creating an explicit "setting" of it. In particular, the images of mirrors and water were uppermost in my mind while composing. My treatment of the spoken text proceeded in a similar fashion: although the speech is never clearly recognizable, it shapes the rhythms, timbres, and overall gestures of the music. In the opening, for example, the rhythmic texture is the result of filtering only the consonants in the speech. The middle section then focuses on the timbres of the vowels, while the final section brings these together, with the filtered consonants accompanying the song-like vowel sounds.

Valdrada was composed in 1988 at the Brooklyn College Center for Computer Music.

Frances White composes instrumental and electronic music. She has studied composition with Lawrence Moss, Charles Dodge, and Paul Lansky, and is currently a doctoral candidate in composition at Princeton University. Her music is performed regularly in concert and on the radio in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Australia. She has received awards, honors, and commissions from Prix Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria; the Groupe de musique experimental de Bourges, in France; the International Computer Music Association; ASCAP;and the Bang on a Can Festival. In 1997 her Winter aconites for chamber ensemble and tape won a prize in the 24th Bourges International Electroacoustic Music competition.

Ms. White’s work has been performed at venues such as Gaudeamus in Holland; the Roulette concert series in N.Y.; the Synthese Festival in France; the Bang on a Can Festival in New York; the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco; the Music at the Anthology series in New York; the World Shakuhachi Festival 98, and multiple International Computer Music conferences around the word. Ms. White’s music can be heard on CD on the Wergo, Centaur, Nonsequitur, and Harmonia Mundi labels.

Ms. White has a special interest in Asian instruments, an interest which began in 1996, when she was commissioned by the International Computer Music Association to write Birdwing for shakuhachi and tape. Among her most recent compositions involving Asian instruments are Centre Bridge I, (for two shakuhachis and tape), and While listening to the waves, (for erhu, dizi, pipa, and zheng), which was written for The Chinese Virtuosi, a group based in Beijing that performs contemporary music written for traditional Chinese instruments. This piece is scheduled for a premier in May, 1999, in Beijing. She is currently working on a piece commissioned by violinist/composer Mari Kimura for violin and electronics; this summer she will start on a work commissioned by the Groupe de musique experimental de Bourges.

Ascension (5:24) - Mei-Fang Lin

Out Back (7:01) - Elaine Barkin

Vox Alia - Annette Vande Gorne (BELG)

i. Giocoso
ii. Amoroso
iii. Innocemente

"Vox Alia" is a suite of short etudes based on the voice which via electroacoustic treatment conserves the traces of the melodic, rhythmic and timbral qualities of this marvelous medium so immediately at the service of a particular character or feeling.

"Giocoso", which mixes vocal music of each non-European continent with the 'western past', is conctructed in binary form and is contrasted and reinforced by the compositional organization of space in octophony.

"Amoroso" attempts the experience of an ornamental and contrapuntal compositional style, in the perspective of sound as well as space, using the model of a Gregorian phrase.

"Innocemente" rediscovers immediate temporality with its contrasting, elusive nature and its diffuse, internal sense of space, qualities all of which are germane to childhood.

Annette Vande Gorne pursued classical music studies at the Royal Conservatoires of Mons and Brussels and with Jean Absil. Electroacoustical composition with G. Reibel and P. Schaeffer at the Paris Conservatory. Organises the First International Acousmatic Festival of Brussels (1984). Creates and leads the non-profit making association “Musiques et Recherches” and the “M�tamorphose d’Orph�e” studio. Wins the SABAM price in 1985 and 1996. Teaches electroacoustic composition at the Li�ge, Brussels and today Mons Conservatories. Presently, her music studies various types of sound energies of nature; she uses these as they are or transforms them in the studio to create an abstract and expressive non-anecdotic musical language.

Points of No Return - Chin-Chin Chen

Points of No Return shifts between two different environments or landscapes. To achieve this, sounds were divided into two categories according to their nature and timbre; but as the piece goes on, some sounds from one environment also occur in the other one. Points of No Return employs music concrete techniques and digital editing and processing. Only at a very late stage is electronically generated sound incorporated to color some dramatic moments. Points of No Return is divided into 5 sections, alternating between two different landscapes.

Chin-Chin Chen is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music at Millikin University, and a D.M.A. candidate in composition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her primary composition teacher is William Brooks, and she has been awarded a couple of electroacoustic music commissions from Scott Wyatt. Ms. Chen's electroacoustic works, Points of No Return (1997, for two-channel tape) and Points of Arrival (1998, for violin and tape), won First Prize and Honorable Mention respectively in the Concorso Internazionale Luigi Russolo in Varese, Italy. Her works have received performances and broadcasting in Italy, Canada, Korea, Scotland, Finland, Brazil, Australia, Czech Republic, Greece, Spain, Argentina, India, Belgium, France, and throughout the United States. She served on the music selection committee for the 1998 SEAMUS National Conference and is published by Media Press.

With Love - Vivian Adelberg Rudow

Le Poisson qui Cache l'Oiseau (3:00) - Pascale Trudel

Flamingo! (3:07)

These pieces were composed using sounds recorded by the composer in zoos, parks, etc. This work is part of a series about animals in cages and free.

Pascale Trudel (Qu�bec, 1964) is an artist and plays with sounds, images, animations, words and cyberspace. Since 1986, her work has been presented in concerts, on the radio, on compact disks and on the Internet.

Red Snow - Natasha Barrett

Microclimate II: Red Snow
1998, duration 15'40

Available on "Chillies & Shells"

'Red Snow' is snow coloured rose to blood red by a growth of algae or diatoms. During seasons when there is little sunlight and temperatures are much lower than the freezing point, the algae are dormant.

'Red Snow' is the second in a series of works entitled 'microclimates'. Each work is structurally balanced, not in a symmetrical sense, but through the 'life' of one articulation resulting in a subsequent and counterbalancing reaction. Through the process of composition, the beauty and violence of a natural landscape is concentrated into the 'microclimate' of the work - forming a new 'organisational space' yet reflecting, in acoustic form, the natural world and psychological source inspiration.

The original expression behind 'Red Snow' can be found in Microclimate I: 'Snow & Instability', for live instruments and acousmatic sound. In this work the 'balancing' mechanism operates in the underlying macro-organisation - only apparent over the long-term structure - while the immediacy of the acoustic instruments articulate the surface 'ecology'. In 'Red Snow' the material has been reworked such that the source inspiration is manifest without the need for instrumental material.

I moved to Norway in January - the middle of winter. Both the meteorological and geographical climate dramatically contrasted that found in England. Combined with feelings of emotional isolation, which were the result of leaving friends and places I knew so well, I felt increasingly aware of my current environment. The variety of snow spiralling in the wind, blurring my vision; the cold; the intricate details of vegetation enhanced by a layer of crystal formations; the brightness after the snow ceases to fall; tiny ice crystals falling from branches disturbed by wildlife; footprints suggesting their own scenario... and the potential colour - lying dormant.

Natasha Barrett composes acousmatic and live electroacoustic music, works with sound diffusion, installation projects, instrumental performance and dance. Current musical preoccupations include methods of combining life performers and electroacoustic material, and techniques to model in the musical structure relationships found between the elements of the natural world.

Her work is performed regularly in concerts and festivals throughout Europe and America and has been presented at international conferences and competitions (notably Noroit 1998; Luigi Russolo 1995 and 1998; Bourges 1996 and 1998, Ars Electronica 1998, International Computer Music Conferences 1995 and 1998; International Symposium for Electronic Art 1995). Her work has been commissioned by the ICMA, Sonic Arts Network and independent film artists and choreographers. After studying for a Masters degree in composition and analysis with Jonty Harrison, in 1997 she completed her doctoral degree in electroacoustic composition supervised by Denis Smalley. A period as the guest composer at NoTAM in Oslo lead to her current position: director of the electroacoustic music studios and lecturer in music technology and composition in Tromso, Norway.