The Allochtones
Yedo Gibson: Reeds Guillermo Celano: Gitaar Marcos Baggiani: Drums This is the new project of these 3 amazing musicians. It is a tower of sound, hundreds of musical languages interconnecting stories, creating a new world, a new way of communication. When we play, we are creating that musical moment in which we are together with the people and the space we are sharing at that very specific moment Yedo Gibson, Guillermo Celano and Marcos Baggiani bring about a delicious melange of Jazz, rock, improvised music and folk sounds, using composed and improvised material as an anchor point for collective creation.
Erik Nystrom
Cataract Cataract journeys into territories where sound and space are the sole agencies of life, and abstract substance meets radiant, visceral sense experience. The title carries several references. One alludes in an abstract sense, to the cascading textural motions: transformational deluges of live sound matter, washes of all-absorbing noise, and glissandi projecting into the heights and depths of spectral space. Another is an analogue between the medical eye condition (a clouding of the lens of the eye) and the way in which our sense of spatial, sonic definition is affected by degrees of textural opacity. The acousmatic cataract I think of is a continuum where hyper-clarity in vivid sound environments intersects with clouds of noise and coagulated microsound, blurring our auditory vision. Finally, Cataract is a reference Pythagoras curtain in the etymology of the acousmatic: I hypothesise that pervasive organicity and spatiality in sound, combined with an abstract aesthetic, removes us further away from the anecdotal world towards the here and now of an integral sound universe all before curtain: if we could see we would know nothing more. The work is composed for eight-channel loudspeaker projection and was premiered in London in November 2010.
Latitudes This work derives its shape from the possibilities of spatial transformation offered by a stable drone extending itself into a fluid mass of noisy cloud formations, resonant oscillations and chaotically propelled beads of particles. The title refers to the idea of lateral strands or layers in spatial perspectives; ripples propagating across the listening field; and distances between the oceanic depths of resonant textures and immersive nebulae of micro-activity. As in another sense of the word latitude, sound is freely extending itself through time in a continual process where the capacity of mutation always tend to increase. The piece was composed in early 2011, for eight-channel loudspeaker projection. The present performance is its premier. Erik Nystrom composes acousmatic, electroacoustic music. With a background in audio engineering, his musical education comprises computer music composition at CCMIX, Paris, and electroacoustic composition at City University, London (MA in 2008 and PhD, ongoing). His principal composition tutors have been Gerard Pape (CCMIX, 2006-07) and Denis Smalley (City U. 2007-Present). Other influential educational experiences include courses and workshops attended during the time at CCMIX, with Jean-Claude Risset, Trevor Wishart, Harry Halbreich, Agostino Di Scipio, Makis Solomos and Curtis Roads. Erik Nystrom’s PhD research concerns spatial texture in acousmatic music and takes particular interest in the sense of spatial scale in music, the relations between abstract structures and qualitative textural states, and processes of motion and transformation. His music, which also includes collaborations with contemporary dance choreographers, has been performed and broadcast internationally. Acknowledgements include the Prix du Public in Metamorphoses 2010, category B (Belgium) and an honourable mention in Musical Viva 2010 (Portugal), both for Elemental Chemistry.
Ji Youn Kang and Mei Yi Lee
Ji Youn Kang, electronics Mey Yi Lee, percussions Mei-Yi and Ji Youn have been collaborating as a duo, combining percussion and live electronics. Here they use crude materials and unusual instruments to create a continual flow that is both ritualistic and human. The performance includes unconventional ways of playing instruments using uncontrollable physical motions and reactions, and creates an ambiguity in the role of the performer by de-activating the instrument and reacting to the behavior of it. The music results from both the communication and competitive actions between performers, and between the performers and the instruments. This is framed against the backdrop of an feedback-based ecosystem, that invites the audience and the space to join the conversation. Ji Youn Kang, born in Seoul, South Korea, is a composer and sound artist based in The Hague. Her objectives and interests revolve around the creation of her own musical language that (re)presents the Korean tradition and culture using materials from Korean music as well as newly generated sounds. Many of her electronic music pieces have been composed based on the rites of Korean Shamanism using the Wave Field Synthesis system at Scheltema in Leiden (192 loudspeakers), exploring the relationship between musical and physical spaces. She achieved her Master degree in Sonology at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, and is currently continuing her studies in composition at Conservatorium van Amsterdam.