Friday-Saturday – Interactive Listening Room – Electronic Music Composition Studio – Wood 003A
Misprints
David Q. Nguyen
This piece is conceived using string sounds to emulate the different worlds of poem and prose. In Misprints, I attempt to sonically resemble the contrast between poetic and prose structures in terms of having music material phrased as a pseudo-poem that resolves as well as abruptly changes to different environments, versus music material phrased as proses, which sonically resemble a continuous flow of iterations. The iterations of string sounds become less apparent to their sources and dissolve into a texture of gestalt spaces. As the piece progresses, the flow is interrupted by a constant change of different sound environments with delayed reverbs imitating sounds of the cinema, in which case the cinema is a misprint of reality. Both poem and prose become “textures interlinked” to develop a “web of senses.”
Born in Virginia, David Q. Nguyen holds a BM from Old Dominion University. During his undergraduate studies, he studied with Andrey R. Kasparov and Mark Chambers. He has received his Masters and is currently a Doctoral student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where his primary teachers are Eli Fieldsteel, Sever Tipei, and Scott A. Wyatt.
Sk(etch)
Leah Reid
Sk(etch) is an acousmatic work that explores sounds, gestures, textures, and timbres associated with the creative process of sketching, drawing, writing, and composing.
Leah Reid is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. Her primary research interests involve the perception, modeling, and compositional applications of timbre. In her works, timbre acts as a catalyst for exploring new soundscapes, time, space, perception, and color. Her works are frequently performed throughout Europe and North America, with notable premieres by Accordant Commons, Ensemble Móbile, the Jack Quartet, McGill’s Contemporary Music Ensemble, Sound Gear, Talea, and Yarn/Wire. Reid received her D.M.A. and M.A. in music composition from Stanford University and her B.Mus from McGill University. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia. Additional information may be found at www.leahreidmusic.com.
I’m The Expert
Jason Fick
In 2014, the city of Denton, Texas, successfully banned fracking. Hydraulic fracturing has become a lucrative venture, and a number of sites are rapidly increasing worldwide. However, research shows that the effects of fracking can lead to earthquakes, numerous health-related issues, and extreme noise pollution for those that live in close proximity. The Denton fracking ban, as one of the first in the United States, was considered landmark, and the story received international publicity. Shortly after, the city outraged over the Texas railroad commission’s overturning of the ban. This composition shares some of the stories of Denton’s residents and the effects of fracking on their lives.
Jason Fick, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Music Technology at Oregon State University, is an active composer, audio engineer, and researcher. His music has been performed at international, national, and local events, including the International Computer Music Conference, the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States, and the College Music Society. As an engineer, he has recorded classical, jazz, and popular music in live and studio contexts, audio for film, and dialogue for various commercial projects. His present research pursuits are in computer music, interactive systems, and the pedagogy of music technology.
Jason Fick’s participation in this event is supported by funds from the Oregon Arts Commission.
unterströmung
Sea Heikes
In July 2017, seah dropped a small hydrophone down her throat and attached another one to her body. Then submerged herself in the Baltic Sea. During a residency at AARK, in Korpo, Finland, seah edited both recordings and played one from the top of the stairwell and the other from the bottom of the stairwell.
seah investigates relational techniques for posthuman articulations of the landscape within the structures of video, sound, and performance. Current “techno-naturalbody” experiments involve wearing multiple cameras and contact mic’s on the body while physically interacting with the immediate environment. The movement language has evolved from decades long research in Butoh, Body Weather Laboratory, Noguchi Taiso, and Somatic Movement, as well as extended periods of time spent in remote wilderness areas. seah spends a great deal of time tracing waterways. The ongoing body of work titled “Fluvial Traces” follows rivers using feet, bike, or paddleboat and has included the Mae Nam Ping in Chiang Mai, Thailand as well as the Detroit River, and a river in Saas-Fee, Switzerland whose name is currently unknown. The larger arc of “Water
Tracings” includes sites such as various waterways in San Francisco/Oakland,
Venice, Italy, and the Finnish Archipelago.
Use of technology references the conundrum of being housed in a body that is
already made to sense the world, while also playing host to myriad technologies
created to “enhance” our ability to interface with it. seah’s particular scope and
vision embraces a posthuman experience that simultaneously acknowledges both this growing desire for technological interface/stimulation AND the innate
intelligence of materiality (raw matter), which includes human and nonhuman
bodies.
As of April 2019, seah will have received her MA from the European Graduate
School in Philsophy, Art, and Critical Thought. Her MA thesis was supervised by Elie During and is titled “AnthropoThing”.
Shallow Hold, Falling Low
Kevin Zhang (sound), Maya VanderSchuit (video)
Shallow Hold, Falling Low, (2018)
Pre-recorded acousmatic sound.
Digital video projection on loop, dimensions variable.
Kevin Zhang’s work combines notated music composition, electronic media, field recording, and site-specific and acousmatic sound installation with his interests in language, psychoacoustics, and perceptual thresholds to reimagine alternative temporal realities and geographies of materials and resources. He received a PhD from the University of California, San Diego, and serves on the faculty of the Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music at Chapman University, where he teaches courses in music psychology and electronic music.
Maya Vanderschuit’s recent work uses the surfaces of digital video projections and iridescent materials to explore the body’s ontological relationship to real and virtual spaces. An MFA candidate at the University of California, San Diego, VanderSchuit has exhibited at San Diego Art Institute, Calit2 Theatre, UCSD’S Visual Arts Gallery, Birch Aquarium, La Jolla Playhouse, IKO Studios in Los Angeles, Aratoi Gallery in New Zealand, and the Heritage Space in Vietnam.
Shoreline
Ben Fuhrman
Ben Fuhrman/Composer
I recently spent some time flying along the West Coast. Looking out the window of the plane, I spent a lot of time looking at the shore and watching the flocks of gulls from the air. This led to thinking about the migratory patterns of birds, fish, whales, and other species that live in the ocean and above or along it. Shoreline is an attempt to recreate some of these thoughts through gull and whale sounds created entirely on an analog synthesizer with occasional scraps of human interference breaking through the surface of the piece and changing the soundscape. It’s a reflection on the landscape through purely electronic means – a study in synthetic ecology.
Born in Lansing, Benjamin Fuhrman is a graduate of the doctoral program in music composition at Michigan State University, where his principle instructors were Dr. Ricardo Lorenz and Dr. Mark Sullivan. He also holds a master’s degree in music composition from Michigan State University, and a bachelor’s degree in violin performance from Hope College, where his principle instructor was Mihai Craioveanu.
He has had works commissioned from a number of performers and has been performed throughout the world.
He teaches at Oakland University in Rochester, MI. For more information check out www.benfuhrman.com