Friday 27 February 2009

Master's degree in sound art at DI

EMS and Dramatiska institutet (DI), the Swedish university college of film, radio, television and theatre, offer a two-semester master's programme in sound art (60 credits) for active artists, sound designers, musicians, radio and television professionals etc., starting fall 2009. Last date for application: April, 2. More info in Swedish follows.

Dramatiska institutet
Ljudkonst 60 hp
En ettårig magisterutbildning med start höstterminen 2009.

Utbildningen vänder sig till verksamma inom radio- eller medieområdet, konstnärer, ljuddesigners, ljudtekniker, musiker och andra ljudintresserade som vill utveckla sina uttryckssätt med hjälp av/genom ljudkonst.

Sista ansökningsdag 2 april 2009

Vi undersöker möjligheterna i mötet mellan den experimentella ljudkonsten och berättandet. Vi utforskar också ljudkonstens relation till olika typer av rum, platser och bilder.

Utbildningen drivs i nära samarbete mellan Dramatiska institutet och Elektroakustisk Musik i Sverige (EMS). DI:s starka berättartradition genomsyrar utbildningen och förenas här med EMS tradition av elektronmusik och ljudexperiment.

Saturday 21 February 2009

Temp'óra call for projects

Temp'óra is issuing a call for projects, period 2010-2011. It is aimed at composers and soloists or ensembles involved mainly in contemporary music, permanently residing in Europe within EU or not.

The performing part of the project may incorporate electroacoustics. The pieces may also be of improvisational character.

The project must consist of an exchange between, at least, three different European countries. From these countries each ensemble will commission a piece from a composer of its own country.

The exchange is in form of a collaboration between these countries, so that each ensemble will play a programme including the new commission in the two or more other countries of the collaboration. The programme may be performed in one concert or consist of a tour. This part of the project takes place between 1st of September 2010 and 31st of December 2011.

Application form must be returned by 30th of June 2009.

About Temp'óra

"Temp'óra aims to encourage a better understanding between the cultures of the member states of the European Union by developing and organizing concerts and other musical events of today's music.

Temp'óra proposes to create a central network to bring together actors and sponsors of written and improvised music of the contemporary European music community. The aim is to promote interaction of musicians and composers, and exchange written, visual or audio documents.

[...]

Temp'óra is intent on promoting all the existing websites, institutions, centres and associations devoted to supporting today’s music."

The Experimental Music Studios of the UIUC celebrates 50th anniversary

The Experimental Music Studios of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has released an four CD set in celebration of their 50th anniversary. The music is freely available as mp3s.

There is also a paper on the history of the center by Emanuele Battisti: The Experimental Music Studio at the University of Illinois, 1958-68: Environment, People, Activities, and one can find more history-related stuff if one looks around the site.

Lejaren Hiller created and directed the studio during its first ten years. He left in 1968 when he was appointed professor of composition at SUNY at Buffalo, and his archive belongs to the SUNY Music Library. The inventory, together with a brief chronology and bibliography, is compiled by Pei-jung Wu (this resource will be added to the EAM meta-bibliography).

Via Synthopia.

Gramophone Archive

All issues of Gramophone magazine are now available online in full text (though one has to register for access to the PDF scans). One can search the archive and narrow the results down by decade and year. There are some 1500 results for electronic music and about 200 for concrete music. However, not all of these are reviews. The term electroacoustic music is only used in reviews from 1990 onwards, and 'acousmatic' not at all.

In the very first review of musique concrète, the reviewer, L.S., concludes: "To the intellectually curious, this disc will be of great interest: whether this is what we look forward to as the music of the future is another matter, not [to] be entered into here." The record reviewed is the Pierre Henry/Pierre Schaeffer Ducretet-Thomson DTL93090, containing Bidule en Ut, Schaeffer's 1955 Etudes, Henry's Le Voile d'Orphée and other works.

The overall tone of the review is a mix of condescension and prejudice: Neither Schaeffer nor Henry is counted amongst "real composers", unlike Boulez or Messiaen, despite the fact that Henry studied both with the latter and Nadia Boulanger, and the review begins with the usual science-fiction reference.

Well, at least something has changed for the better; I daresay reviews like this are more unusual today.

Thanks to InternetBrus for the tip.

Sunday 8 February 2009

DAFx 2009 call for papers

Digital Audio Effects Conference DAFx 2009
http://dafx09.como.polimi.it/

The 2009 edition of the DAFx conference will be held on September 1-4, 2009 in the beautiful city of Como, Italy, at the Conference Area of the Politecnico di Milano's Como Campus. DAFx provides an opportunity for experts and students of audio from all over the world to show their research achievements, present and attend tutorials, and exchange ideas on the most recent developments in the audio world.

Papers are solicited for, but not limited to, the following topics:

- Audio Effects
- Sound Synthesis
- Physical Models and Virtual Musical Instruments
- Virtual Analog Models
- Sound Representation and Sound Modeling
- Time-frequency & Spectral Processing
- Audio Coding
- Audio Analysis and Feature Extraction
- Synthesis, Reproduction and Perception of Spatial Sound
- Perception, Cognition, and Psychoacoustics
- Software and Hardware Implementations
- Audio-Based Music Information Retrieval Systems
- Automatic Transcription and High-level Features
- Space-Time Audio Processing
- Networked Audio and the Internet
- Compositional Issues, Sound Design and Sonic Interaction Design
- Audio in Mobile Applications

Prospective authors are invited to submit full-length papers before April 6, 2009 according to one of the following two papers formats:

- Oral: up to 8 pp. in the Proceedings, 20-min presentation
- Poster: up to 8 pp. in the Proceedings, recommended length 4 pp.

All submissions are subject to peer review. The accepted contributions will be published in the Conference Proceedings, which will be made freely accessible on the conference website.

Important dates

- Full-Paper Submission: April 6, 2009
- Notification of Acceptance: May 22, 2009
- Final Paper Submission: June 19, 2009
- Early-bird registration deadline: July 1, 2009

The event is organized by the Sound and Music Computing Lab of the Politecnico di Milano, Como Campus, and by the Image and Sound Processing Group, with the Help of the Conservatory of Music in Como.