Kay Abaño (Philippines / Spain)
Filmmaker formally trained in Visual Communication at the University of the Philippines & in Cinematography at the Escuela TAI in Spain. Worked as a Set & Costume Designer for the Film & TV industry for 12 years and won an Academy Award for Best Production Design for her work in the feature film "Markova: Comfort Gay" (2000). With her works, she speaks about people, the space they inhabit & the broader themes of Movement & Change.
Maria Ponce (Mexico)
Sound artist, Radio Producer & Events organiser with a Masters Degree in Sonic Arts from Queen’s University Belfast & an Audiovisual Communication degree from Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana in Mexico. Worked for 15 years in various radio stations in Mexico & on the production of podcasts for the London School of Economics in the UK & the Empire of Dreams podcast in Berlin. With her radio work, won Honorary Mentions at the International Contemporary Film Festival of Mexico City & at the 6th International Radio Biennial.
Notes Across Time
A CONVERSATION between 2 paths that have unwittingly merged - that of Kay Abaño (Filipina Filmmaker) & Jose Rizal (Filipino National Hero). When Kay migrated to Europe, she became interested in her own country's history. Digging deeper than what was taught in school, she discovered that the man considered to be the "First Filipino" had taken the same path & lived in the same cities. Rizal's novel “Noli Me Tangere,” which inspired the Philippine revolution against Spain in 1896, was finished & published in Berlin, where Kay currently resides. But were her choices as a migrant-artist her own decision or mere premonitions of a future already told? Every particle in our body is said to know that all of time coexists – the future is the present as much as the present is also the past. Could she then have picked up on decisions of a past that's still with us?
A COLLABORATION that came out of our musings about our own migration, inspired by our experiences with traversing both space & time.
Francesco Bossi (Italy)
Francesco Bossi is a composer whose work includes acoustic and electroacoustic music, video and multimedia installations. He holds degrees from the University of Bologna and Conservatorio di Milano where he graduated with highest honours. His research is currently focused on algorithmic computer based custom synthesizers. His effort is to share contemporary music beyond academic audiences. His works are selected by international festivals and concerts. He has been awarded first price in "The Sounds of Music" competition, (Villa Arconati Milan, 2012). Recently he has been invited to Naples (2012), Florence (2014 and 2016), Padua, Venice (2014), New York City (2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017), Denton (Usa) - ICMC (2015), Singapore (2015), Valencia (2015), Statesboro USA (2016), Bourges (2016), Sao Paulo (2016), Matera (2016), St. Cloud, Usa (2017), Livorno (2017), Como (2017), Seul (2017), Cyprus (2018), New York City (NYCEMF 2018), Daegu (ICMC 2018), Firenze (“Diffrazioni", March 2019).
Bâtons intérieurs minimaux
The increasing attention of the electroacoustic composers to audiovisuals developed a particular form of expression, in which frames and music seem to be united in a common language.
Accordingly with the Deja Vu theme, this is a work in which you can find something of my inner history: a variable number of sticks that react to vibrations (like the Mikado game), and a piano riff that resembles something you maybe heard in the past (The inner mounting flame of The Mahavishnu Orchestra, to be precise).
The basic idea is represented by the artistic evolution of the oscilloscope. The idea is that there is almost no sound that is not related to its visualization. The perception of sound depends on our visualization of it, then time is always relative. Our experience of it is shorter than the effect itself.
Cristian Fierbinteanu (Romania)
Cristian Fierbinteanu is an independent artist, member of the diplomat-artpop music duo Fierbinteanu. Active in Bucharest/Romania, Fierbinteanu have performed live on several important European scenes, including Berlin Konzerthaus, and released albums via Local Records and Music Boy (independent labels). Their work have been presented at international contemporary art, performance, music and film festivals, Fierbinteanu being the winners of multiple "best" video and music awards.
Adore
The piece is an ear-candy attempt at hipgnosis, one of the methodes used to reproduce experimentally the sensation of Deja Vu.
Memory-based explanations of the phenomena might be tested under well-controlled experimental conditions, evoked by the septic aesthetics of the sounds involved.
Konrad Handschuh (Poland)
Konrad Handschuh (born in 1996) is a young Polish composer specializing in contemporary music. He developed his passion to contemporary music and composition at the Academy of Music in Poznan. During his studies was qualified to Paderewski Chamber Choir and as a member of this ensemble he has performed contemporary repertoire and succeeded in prestigious competitions in Europe. He was co-author of the radio program “New-serious” about contemporary music. In 2017 he began studying electroacoustic composition in class of Rafał Zapała. Now he is focusing his attention on composition, sound design and working in studio. His current work includes developing new ways of producing sounds, the use of live electronics, building his own instruments, designing sound installations and making attempts in video art.
Discobolus
DISCOBOLUS is an audiovisual presentation of an athlete. The choice of discobolus is not a coincidence. Every sound is made by electric powered small rotary discs. The only instrument used in this piece was upright piano with removed hammer mechanism. Spinning discs caused string vibrations.
The composer wanted to expand the idea and drew a slow motion animation of a discobolus. The slow process of forcing a particular string to vibrate matches with every unnoticeable detail of the moving body.
Instead of a score there was a timeline of muscle movements - very precise, repeatedly practiced.
The message of the piece is clear: it doesn't matter if you are an artist or an athlete, every time you practice, every time you perform, you have experience of deja vu. But this time you have a chance to look closely at it.
Panayotis Kokoras (USA)
Kokoras is an internationally award-winning composer and computer music innovator, and currently an Associate Professor of composition and CEMI director (Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia) at the University of North Texas. Born in Greece, he studied classical guitar and composition in Athens, Greece and York, England; he taught for many years at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki. Kokoras's sound compositions use sound as the only structural unit. His concept of "holophonic musical texture" describes his goal that each independent sound (phonos), contributes equally into the synthesis of the total (holos). In both instrumental and electroacoustic writing, his music calls upon a "virtuosity of sound," a hyper-idiomatic writing which emphasizes on the precise production of variable sound possibilities and the correct distinction between one timbre and another to convey the musical ideas and structure of the piece.
Mnemonic Generator
Mnemonic Generator creates a surreal soundscape of an ancient construction site. Like a time machine the soundscape is slowly developing into a heavy industrial delirium. The reality is amplified and the concrete sound is transformed into an abstract sound object. Complex rhythms introduce archaic soundscapes with powerful gestures. Ecological patterns determine the compositional structure and become resources for further development.
Richard Pressley (USA)
Richard Pressley has enjoyed performances of his music in the U.S., Europe, even Brazil and Australia. He began his musical career in rock music in his early teens, playing and touring with rock and punk bands. He then attended Butler University, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Minnesota (Ph D); with post-doctoral study at the Karlsruhe Musikhochschule and Darmstadt in Germany. His composition instructors include Wolfgang Rihm, Sandeep Bhagwati, Dominick Argento, Judith Lang Zaimont, Alex Lubet, Daniel Chua, and Michael Schelle. He lives in Charleston, South Carolina where he is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Charleston Southern University.
"...ailes sans plume"
Memory reorders, it is not chronological, and has its own rules of time; it changes our impressions of the past — and affects us in turn. It distorts, blurs, omits, juxtaposes, exaggerates, alters, fades, and is unfaithful. It is ephemeral — an alchemy. This piece remembers five works of mine (acoustic and electronic) from the past eight years — or does it?
Ruud Roelofsen (USA)
Ruud Roelofsen, *16-11-1985 Rhenen (NL), studied percussion in Arnhem (NL), Münster (D) and Brussels (B). He received masterclasses in composition with Dmitri Kourliandski, Martijn Padding, Richard Ayres, Carola Bauckholt, Hanna Hartman, Ted Hearne, Tristan Murail, Mark André and Hèctor Parra. Since the fall of 2018 he is a PhD candidate in Music Composition at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music studying with Jay Alan Yim, Hans Thomalla, Alex Mincek and Chris Mercer.
On intimacy II
'On intimacy' is a series of pieces in which I explore the sound world of ASMR; something I myself am very sensitive to.
Dimitrios Savva (Cyprus)
Dimitrios Savva was born in Cyprus, 1987. He received his Bachelor degree (distinction) in music composition from the Ionian University of Corfu and his Master degree (distinction) in Electroacoustic composition from the University of Manchester. In January 2015 he started his fully funded PhD in Sheffield University under the supervision of Adrian Moore and Adam Stanovic. His compositions have been performed in Greece, Cyprus, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Belgium, France, Mexico, Chile, Brazil and USA. His acousmatic composition Erevos won the first prize ex aequo in the student category of acousmatic composition competition Metamorphoses 2012 and his composition Balloon Theories has been awarded with the Franz List residency-scholarship and the public prize at the composition competition Metamorphoses 2014.
Stous Theous
Stous Theous (To the Gods) is a journey initiated from a prayer, a calling to the God. Momentarily the prayer opens for the devotee that prays a higher cosmic dimension. Within this dimension the devotee experiences a deja vu of himself before becoming a human, when he was part of the cosmos, part of his calling God.