Emilio Adasme (Chili)
Bachelor of music at Universidad Católica de Chile with double major in composition and musicology. He is an active member of the Electroacoustic Community of Chile [CECH], producer of the international electroacoustic music festival AI MAAKO and producer of Café con Cables: electronic arts fair in Santiago de Chile. His works range from electroacoustic, modern classical to noise. He is also an active member of the composed-theater company “Oído Medio”. He has participated at multiple festivals in Chile, Argentina, USA, Belgium, Austria, UK, Spain and Taiwan. He currently works for the archive of the National Chamber Orchestra of Chile.
Mini-rage
This miniature is a representation of the whole process of mirage perception. Three moments are depicted in this piece: the sighting of an unusual element on the ground, the illusion of water, and the rapid disappearance of it. This miniature was composed specifically for this occasion.
Erich Barganier (Canada)
Erich Barganier (b. 1991) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist hailing from St. Petersburg, Florida, who currently resides between New York City and Montreal. He writes chamber, orchestral, film, solo instrumental and electronic music that explores microtonality, extended techniques, improvisation, generative processes, the perception of noise and new forms of notation.
Data Morgana
In nature, a Fata Morgana is a complex form of superior mirage that significantly distort the object or objects on which they are based, in many cases to the point that the object reflected is completely unrecognizable. Often, a Fata Morgana changes rapidly, while being comprised of several inverted and erect images that stack on top of one another. In the piece Data Morgana, I took inspiration from this phenomenon and crafted an audiovisual work where a series of videos become distorted and merge into each other through the use of data bending and damaging the video code. This creates a similar effect to Fata Morgana of a constantly shifting object that appears familiar yet distorted simultaneously. I paired the visuals with an algorithmic musical track made in Supercollider that strives to accomplish the same effect sonically. familiar sounds are distorted through mathematical processes to become unrecognizable, quickly shifting back to the familiar again.
Jules Bryant (United Kingdom)
Jules Bryant is a sound artist working with a range of instruments and sound sources. Much of his work has a visual element that combines with the sound to create a single piece of artwork. He works with a variety of media including photography and video and occasionally uses sight specific locations as the visual stimulus to his art. His audio work could be described as minimalist, using simple structures and effects to draw out and uncover interesting features within. His pieces make use of the quality of instrument sounds and as the composer he seeks to frame them appropriately for presentation to the audience.
Aural Refraction
A mirage is visual effect caused as a result of the variation in refracted light through air segments at different air temperatures. This phenomenon was interpreted in a audio sense through the reversal of a sound clip and the subsequent mixing in parallel of this clip to the original. The result is a piece that appears to shimmer as the notes play off against one another.
Nathan Corder (USA)
Nathan Corder is an Oakland-based composer of works for electronics, objects, and arrays of people. His work heavily focuses upon the development of emergent properties and structures developed through feedback processes, physical computing, and improvisational strategies. Corder’s research has recently culminated in the publishing of “Determining Conditions: Towards an Aesthetic of Emergence in Electronic Music”. Active as a composer and improviser on custom designed electronics and guitar, Corder has collaborated with artists such as Roscoe Mitchell, Jaap Blonk, Tatsuya Nakatani, William Winant, Jack Wright and Barbara Golden. His discography includes releases on Cleanfeed, Flaming Pines, Amalgam, SEAMUS Records, Noise Pelican, and Coup Sur Coup. He is an active member of the groups TONED, monopiece, Jitters, and Nude Tayne. Nathan is pursuing a PhD in Composition at UC Berkeley.
Sine Study (when the ear is coupled to the eye by a tongue that moves the body)
A transducer fixed to the back of a mirror drives a sine wave (from 0-20Hz) through a mirror, altering the mirror's image and physical stability. The mirror acts as the embodiment of both sources of sound and vision, collapsing the two modes of expression into a singularity.
*This event was captured using a stationary video camera placed in front of the mirror.
Zuriñe F. Gerenabarrena (Spain)
Zuriñe F. Gerenabarrena studied composition with C.Bernaola and Franco Donatoni.
International forums: Contemporary Music FBBV, Quincena Musical, SINKRO, Bernaola Festival, PHONOS, Festival Synthése, BKA Theather. Pyramidale, Sonoimágenes, Visiones Sonoras, EMU Festival, Elektrophonie, Wealr 09 Fullerton, Musica Viva, Borealis, Musiques & Recherches, eviMus, “Down the Dori” (TWSTokyo), EAM Festen Frost, 7º Musica Electric Nova, MUSLAB, NYCEMF 2017, BIFEM 2017, Noh X Contemporary Music, SICMF 2018 (Seoul), Matera/Intermedia 2018 (Prize Acousmatic), Musica Nova 2018 (Honoray Mention), San Francisco Tape Music , Mise-En Music Festival 2019, (ICMC/NYCEM 2019 (NY), Atemporánea Festival, Helicotrema Festival,Ecos Urbanos (2019)… several Cds. Artist in residence: LEC (Lisbon), USF. Bergen (Norway), VICC, (Sweden), Tokyo Wonder Site (Japan), Shiro Oni ( Japan), ZHdk, ICST (Zurich), EMS (Stockholm), NOTAM (Oslo). Professor of Counterpoint and Harmony at MUSIKENE. www.zfgerenabarrena.com
BihotzBi
"BihotzBi” is the title formed by the union of the two words in Basque language Heart and Two (Bihotz-Bi), and in turn the word Bihotz contains the words (two-voice, Bi-Hotz).
In this case the work refers to the sound of childhood and nearby sounds, collected as a learning in the transit of life.
The word is treated as an illusion built on the reality of the sound object, the alphabet as a childhood dream linked to the utopia of trying to recover that state.
Superposition of layers, extension of phonographic memories that sway in howls of a second, covering the 4 rooms where life wakes up every day.
Konrad Handschuh (Poland)
Konrad Handschuh (composition/video/sound) 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. 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. His current work includes developing new ways of producing sounds, using live electronics, designing sound installations and creating video art.
Aleksandra Olkiewicz (Poland)
Aleksandra Olkiewicz (choreography/lights) is a young choreographer and a dancer. She graduated her Master degree in Eurhythmic from the Academy of Music in Poznan. During her studies she took part in many choreographies and performed on several eurhythmics conferences in Poland (lately on the 4th International Conference of Dalcroze Studies in Katowice, 2019). The choreography for T.O.U.S.E.F.O.O.L. was created for her Master diploma.
T.O.U.S.E.F.O.O.L.
T.O.U.S.E.F.O.O.L. poses a question. Who are you in technology chain? A tool? A user? Or maybe just a fool? Question in itself is not the end of trouble, because we live in a world where boundaries between those links are very difficult to determine. Even the world (or worlds) seems to be refracted.
Composer used NATO phonetic alphabet to create rhythmic patterns. The recorded speech was subjected to spectral analysis which provided the basis for creating melodic themes.
T.O.U.S.E.F.O.O.L. can easily illustrate confusion accompanying the mirage. The sense of image and sound comes from waves. Some of them are warped, some mean something different. Without a code you cannot understand words. Without a wide context you cannot define yourself. Maybe you are in control, you are the user. Maybe you think you have control, but you are just a tool in someone’s hand. One thing is certain. Every time you experience this kind of mirage you will see (and hear) different things and just wonder.
Nicolas Hermansen (Belgium / Spain)
Nicolas Hermansen is a multidisciplinary artist working in performance, sound and visual arts. He’s the founder of la [SIC], a live performance arts company. His work, as a solo artist or with La [SIC] has been presented in many European countries and the Americas. He presented 'And suddenly an engine started' at the In-Sonora Festival (ES), collaborated with Mischa Kuball for the piece ‘‘Res·o·nant’ – Jewish museum – Berlin (DE), and in the International Performance Festival 2018(DE), in Cyprus Buffer Fringe Festival and in Mute Festival(BE) with his performance ‘Après la Chronique’. In 2019 he presented ‘Après la Chronique’ at Acud Theatre, Berlin (DE), Presente/Futuro Festival (IT) (was awarded - Premio Presente Futuro, Critic’s Choice Award and Cobas Award) and Altofest in Naples. He also took part in File Festival(BR) and his sound installation ‘D-Days’ was presented during Radiophrenia – Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts (UK).
Another Term
'Another Term' uses the concept of aliases as its compositional process. It uses the Nyquist theory to develop aliases based on a main oscillating sound.
If 'undesampled', Nyquist theory states that in the AD/DA process, ghost frequencies will appear as not enough sample points were used to correctly reproduced the sampled frequency. Aliases are like mirages, we can see them or in our case hear them, but they're not part of the initial set-up. To compose 'Another Term', I've use various downsampling method to create a nest of alias frequencies which then inter-modulates an initial tone, giving as a result a constant 'moving' or modulated sound composition based on 'mirage' frequencies.
Brian Mark (USA)
Award winning composer Brian Mark has had works performed by ensembles such as the BBC Singers, Atlas Ensemble, Choral Chameleon, Ensemble Signal, Chelsea Symphony, the Ligeti quartet, members of the London Symphony Orchestra, and at festivals including Bang on Can, London Contemporary Music Festival, June in Buffalo, and Spitalfields. He has held residencies with the Chelsea Symphony, I-Park Artists’ Enclave, and Ucross Foundation. His symphonic work The Persistence of Time received an honorable mention from the 2015 American Prize in Orchestral Composition. In addition, he was appointed as an Associate Member with the London Symphony Orchestra’s Composer Soundhub Scheme from 2015-2017, which culminated of a video installation performance comprising of members from the LSO. He completed his PhD at the Royal Academy of Music, studying with Gary Carpenter, and is also a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Berklee College of Music, and Boston University.
Frozen in Ecstasy
Frozen in Ecstasy, for solo piano, was written for David Conte’s 60th birthday celebration. Conte is Chair of the composition faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and had requested twenty-four of his former students to pick a piece from Chopin’s sets of preludes and write their own short prelude for piano. I decided on the Prelude in E Major Opus 28. No. 9. Frozen in Ecstasy takes excerpts of bars from Chopin’s prelude and places them in the background, intertwined through various improvised techniques with the foreground key centre of E major. Therefore, the title is a reference to a timeless state of euphoria, transcending generations of musical development. Frozen in Ecstasy was premiered at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concert Hall on 1 November, 2015, performed by Keisuke Nakagoshi. The video installation premiere had taken place at Ensemble in Process... "Migration in Sounds" event at the Areté Venue & Gallery on 19 January, 2020.
Giovanni Paris (Italy)
Composer and sound artist. Master degree in electronic music at the University of Rome "Tor Vergata. Professor of new technologies in film music at the Conservatory G.B.Martini of Bologna. Member of the experimental collective "E.t.e.r.e.", featured in different festivals and museums like Maxxi Rome, Macro Rome, Artefiera Festival Bologna, Retina videoart Festival Rome, Doctorclip film poetry festival Rome. Art director of the music section of the festival "Shamans of the digital era", featuring experimental musician such as My Cat is an Alien. Resident composer for the multiartistic collective "Tropique Noir", (Paris, France) and the theatre company Palamente. As a composer, he scored original music for movies, documentaries, TV shows, advertising for brands such as Biotherm, L'Oreal, YSL, Bnp Paribas, Nokia. His film music was showed at the David di Donatello festival (2015), Mostra del Cinema di Venezia (2011) and Cannes.
www.giovanniparismusic.com
Strata (Inferior/Superior)
Strata is a musical vision of the scientific knowledge about mirages, featuring different sound synthesis techniques to achieve the sonic result and to sonically represent the travel of light through cold and dense/warm and rarefied air strata, imagined as clusters of frequencies.
In the first part (Inferior), like in an inferior mirage the cold air/high frequencies below the line of sight intermingle with the rarefied warm air/low frequencies, while an analog glissando sonically reinterpret the travel of the ray of light and it's deformation, causing the creation of an apparent reality.
In the second part (Superior), the lower frequencies are moving, interacting with the more stable and rarefied high frequencies, floating above the line of sight like in a superior mirage.
The use of long textures project the listener in the apparition of the unseen, while metallic gongs remember the timing of the entrance/exit of a ritual of altered consciousness state.
Dimitris Savva (Cyprus)
Dimitris 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. 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. In 2019 for his composition Moments of Liberty II: Falling Within he received a “mention” in the acousmatic composition competition Metamorphoses 2018, the 4th prize in the SIME 2019 International Electroacoustic Music Competition and the 3rd prize in the Iannis Xenakis International Electroacoustic Composition.
Noise Triangle
Infant cries become the mirage for the perceiver. A mirage that stands for the distorted image of perception that cannot tolerate the cries and their signification of tragedy. A distortion that as it becomes increasingly intense forms a new mirage, that of noise. Noise expands and evolves leading to a new mirage, that of sinusoidal (sound) waves. What does all these mean the perceiver wonders? If these are "glimpses of the unseen", what could this "unseen" be?
David Snow (USA)
The compositions of David Jason Snow have been performed in concert by the Ensemble Intercontemporain at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Banda Municipal de Bilbao at the Euskalduna Palace in Bilbao, The New Juilliard Ensemble at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and many other artists and ensembles internationally. His fixed media audio and visual works have been performed at the Musinfo Journées Art & Science Festival in Bourges, the Festival Exhibitronic in Strasbourg, the Festival Internacional de Video Arte y Música Visual in Mexico City, the Sound Thought Festival in Glasgow, Echofluxx in Prague, and the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium. Snow has been the recipient of awards and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Council, the ASCAP Foundation, and BMI, and he has been an artist resident at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York, and the Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, New York.
The sum of all differences
The sum of all differences is an 8-channel sound work that exploits the phenomena of sum and difference frequencies to generate "mirage" tones that are not present in the source recording. The 8 channels are organized as 4 stereo pairs, each pair identical except that pairs 2, 3, and 4 are pitch shifted up by 50, 100, and 150 Hz respectively relative to stereo pair 1. The resultant interaction of sound waves in the air generates deep low frequencies and shimmering high frequencies in real time during performance.
Yun Ming Tai (Malaysia / Singapore)
Year 2 undergraduate at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (YSTCM), National University of Singapore (NUS)
Tesseract
This piece is my exploration of ways to portray trength, the spatial representation of the fourth dimension known as space-time. The first clue of the fourth dimension came in Einstein's law of relativity. Though mathematically true, 4D is still unable to be experienced in our physical realm. Hints taken from experiments still prove that this dimension Is beyond our reach, as we are 3D beings temporally trapped, just like our music. However, scientists have devised a physical model of this higher dimension called tesseract or hypercube. The trength of a tesseract is the dimension perpendicular to a cube that revolves over time. Theoretically, 3D objects cast 2D shadows; 4D objects would cast 3D shadows. What would a musical shadow of a tesseract be?