Study 2 (a.x.)                                                            Travis Ellrott

Travis Ellrott’s undergraduate work was done at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the College of Creative Studies from 1999-2003. Travis Ellrott’s teachers were Joel Feigin, Jeremy Haladyna, and Leslie Hogan. In 2003, he began my masters degree at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, in the Conservatory of Music. His teachers have been Zhou Long, James Mobberley, and Paul Rudy. “I would have to credit Paul Rudy with encouraging me to compose electronic music, after he noticed what a control freak I was with my acoustic music.” -- Travis Ellrott

Study 2 (a.x.) is one of an ongoing series of microtonal studies created from viola and trumpet samples. This particular study uses viola samples in which the performer, Erin Wight, played each open note sul ponticello while detuning and retuning each string with their respective tuning pegs. The intervals explored in this study were 25 cents and 75 cents. The sound world of this piece is an homage to Xenakis.

 

RezGliss                                                                    Don Malone

 

Don Malone aka Lone Monad has applied his lectromusing art in Carnegie Hall, the streets of Chicago and other venues. He is a professor at Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in Chicago, from which he will retire this year. To keep him off the streets of Chicago send him a ticket to come perform/lecture.

 

This electromusing, RezGliss is improvised using "aMente", software written by Don Malone in MAX/MSP.

 

Cosmic Insects                                                          Piotr Szewczyk

 

Piotr Szewczyk, born 1977, violinist and composer from Poland, currently a fellowship violinist at the New World Symphony in Miami Beach. Studied violin and composition at the University of Cincinnati. Prize winner at violin and composition competitions including: 1st prize at the 2004 University of Cincinnati Orchestral Composition Competition, 1st Prize at the 2003 UPBEAT-Hvar Composition Competition in Hvar, Croatia, 1st Prize at the Young Artist String Competition in Lima, Ohio. Fellowship violinist of the 2004 Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. Extensive output includes pieces in all genres from solo, through chamber to orchestral with soloists.

 

Every sound in Cosmic Insects comes from a single violin only. Motives of various length in a variety of violin techniques (arco, pizz, col legno, sul ponticello, bartok pizz, scordatura, percussive effects, etc.) were recorded and manipulated on a computer (time stretched/compressed, pitch shifting). For example, the opening low drone was done by tuning down G string much lower, and in addition pitch shifting the recorded low sound. When the sound clips were ready, they were layered in Logic as a multi track composition.

 

Clarinet Fantasy                                                      John Link

 

John Link is a composer and founding member of Friends & Enemies of New Music. He lives in New York City and is Professor of Music at William Paterson University, where he directs the Center for Electroacoustic Music.

 

Clarinet Fantasy is composed entirely of samples of Marianne Gythfeldt's clarinet playing which were mixed and layered using a computer. Except for the manipulation of volume level and pan  position, the clarinet samples are unprocessed.

 

non divisi                                                                  Ronald Keith Parks

Composer Ronald Keith Parks’ compositions have been featured at numerous venues including SCI conferences, the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, SEAMUS, ICMC. His honors include the Aaron Copland Award, the Winthrop Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, SCMTNA Commission, two Giannini Scholarships, the Chancellor's Award at NCSA, three Graeffe Scholarships, and the UF Presidential Recognition Award. His music is available on the EMF label. Dr. Parks is an assistant professor of music composition and Director of the Winthrop Computer Music Labs at Winthrop University.

 

non divisi is a ‘signature piece’ written for the 60x60 project. A pizzicato drone establishes a foreground against which a spectrally evolving arco gesture is explored. The sound world teeters between pitch and noise and tends toward complex spectra containing aspects of both the original arco cello sample and the processed sounds. Technically, the work features cello samples convolved against bowed cymbal sounds and altered via spectral accumulation and evaporation. non divisi was realized at the Winthrop University Computer Music Studio.

 

I’m not…                                                                  Rene Veron

Rene Veron, 26, started his musical career in his home town of Valparaiso, Chile. It was there he received his Bachelor in Music from Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso in 2001. During his college years, he began composing music for his band and performing before multiples audiences. In 2002, Rene became involved in the cultural development of Valparaiso –he directed a music education program. Moreover, he has composed music for documentaries and short movies, as well producing and performing. Currently. Rene is completing his M.M. in Music Technology and Composition at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA where he is a prolific composer engaged in traditional and electronic composition.

“I'm not... is a small experimental piece. This was composed over my girlfriend voice samples that I recorded, and it was manipulated and arranged using digital samplers. I tried to explore the possibilities that the manipulation of simple speech gave me.” - Rene Veron

 

All the Sounds                                                         Lisa Gasior

 

Lisa Gasior has been hearing since birth but started listening about five years ago. She received her B.A. in Communications and Journalism with a minor in Electroacoustic Studies at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada), and is currently pursuing her M.A. in Media Studies at Concordia. When Lisa isn’t working on her thesis project, Sounding Griffintown (funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada), she is a research and teacher’s assistant in advanced sound production and works on sound for film. Lisa hopes to introduce others to the joys of listening and find beautiful soundscapes wherever she goes.

 

A piece in the spirit of a composition by electroacoustic composer Francis Dhomont entitled "L’electro." To me, there is nothing more beautiful than the music of the earth. Many thanks to the friends who lent their voices and the support of Concordia University.

 

Can You Hear Me?                                                  Burnell, Paul

Paul Burnell is a British composer born in 1960 Ystrad, Rhondda, United Kingdom. He is a member of COMA, percussion quartet Brake Drum Assembly, and the Burnell-Hunt duo.  Studied music at the University of Exeter 1979-82. Works include 'Sin Song' at the 2004 Bath International Music Festival, 'Open Wide' for Chris Brannick  and 'Voices Losing Reality' for Frances M Lynch.  Some compositions are written on the moveable tiles of plastic puzzle trays - Musical Squares.  Many compositions feature on the album 'Leaving the Party on Pluto'

Can You Hear Me? is a plea for audibility; perhaps made by an assistant sound engineer losing touch with reality whilst testing a microphone prior to a concert.   All the sounds on the recording are vocal sounds made by the composer.

 

Aviary                                                                       John Biggs

 

John Biggs was born in Los Angeles in 1932. His father was organist Richard Keys Biggs, and his mother was singer Lucienne Gourdon. He was number 8 in a family of 11 children. During his youth he received training in acting, singing, piano, bassoon, and violin, and was a member of his father’s church choir. As a performer, he founded the John Biggs Consort, which specialized in vocal chamber music from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century.

NOTE: The composer's voice was the sole source of sound in this composition. A click track was set down at 120 per minute. Four basic metered bird calls were set down in a kind-of counterpoint to each other, all at the same volume. They were a  crow, a duck, a turkey, and a chirp. Over those four tracks, four more tracks were added using improvised, un-metered bird calls; two at one octave above vocal pitch, and two at two octaves above. The improvised tracks were faded in to the mid point, then faded out to the end, allowing the duck have a final "quack" alone.          

No, George, No                                                        Greg Bartholomew

 

Greg Bartholomew’s music has been performed across the United States and in Canada, Australia and Europe.  His Suite from Razumov, for clarinet and string quartet, was recorded by the Kiev Philharmonic for the Masterworks in the New Era CD series.  Capstone Records has released the Ars Brunensis Chorus recording of From the Odes of Solomon on their Society of Composers CD series.  The Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium commissioned his String Trio for George Crumb, which was premiered by the Third Angle New Music Ensemble and reprised by Accessible Contemporary Music of Chicago. 

 

No, George, No, first occurred to me as spoken text for a music composition in early 2005, and the words have only grown more appropriate with the passage of time.  I was inspired to use spoken text as a musical collage element by John Adams’ brilliant early work, Christian Zeal and Activity.  With the voice element as the starting point, I then created a backdrop musicscape.  The vocal parts were performed by two amazing Seattle attorneys.

 

Groovla                                                                     Katrina Wreede

 

Katrina Wreede has been a professional symphony musician, a jazz violist, a member of the Turtle Island String Quartet, a concert soloist, a belly dancer, a police fingerprinter, a non-denominational wedding officiant, a player of Tango Nuevo, Persian and Central European music and a composer for soloists, chamber ensembles, orchestras, film, and dance, sometimes collaborating with other artists to create works about social injustice.

 

Groovla is a contraction for "groovy" + "viola".  It uses over-dubbed viola tracks with various percussive string and bow techniques to create a percolating, groove effect.

 

Ay-ay                                                                        Myroslava Lashkevych

 

Myroslava Lashkevych was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, she is  28 years. Myroslava Lashkevych studied music and worked on Cinema and TV as sound designer. Now she is a postgraduate student of Kyiv National University of Theatre, Cinema and TV. As composer she works only a few years, from the moment she had a PC in her home and she writes for chamber ensemble (score) and sound miniature (without score). Myroslava Lashkevych likes to create sound to movie, specially to animation.

 

Ay-ay was made especially for 60x60 project on the 15 may 2005.

 

A Voice In A Kitchen                                              David Handford

 

Ravi has played kora since 1985; developed a stereo/electric/aluminum kora; released over fifteen albums; is a singer/songwriter,instrumentalist, composer and overtone singer as well as workshop leader; live & recording projects include: Kora Colours, The Afro-Indian Project, The Afro-Brazilian Project plus solo performances and a duet with kora player Bajaly Suso.

 

Born in Torquay, Devon, David Handford has been producing sonic work since 1992. From psychedelia with Vibe Tribe and electronica with Moduloss, he now produces various forms of leftfield music as dj Methodist and Ministry of Defiance on his label Post Office Records, as well as film and performance soundtracks under his own name. His hand built electronic sound devices and music have been commissioned for art projects, Escrapology, Ointment, and performances with Jo Shapland throughout Britain, Eire and Europe. A sound installation inspired by John Wyndham, From Below was at g39 gallery, Cardiff in April 2004, and his sonic sculptures Something For The Couple With Everything will premiere in Cardiff in autumn 2005. Presently he is working on his sonic/visual project The Sonology of Water, with shows planned in subterranean spaces around Britain in summer/autumn 2006.

 

A Voice In A Kitchen comprises of a simple multitracking of Ravi's raw vocal, A Voice In A Kitchen was recorded and mixed in a one day session as a quick collaboration between Ravi and Dave Handford. No meaning is inferred from this apart from the magic that can occur from limited time, equipment and the process of quick collaborative decision making. Recorded in an empty kitchen with minidisc and layered in Logic.

 

Jibberphonics                                                           Ensemble Ordinature

 

Ensemble Ordinature is a vocal, but not necessarily a singing, ensemble that is committed to performing unusual repertoire and material. Their focus is vocal works that do not fall naturally into any common genre of music or vocal performance. They discovered everything about themselves and each other in early spring 2004. André Cormier is the ensemble's artistic director.

 

The source material for the piece, Jibberphonics is spam email.  Spam never sounded so good.

 

Antipasto                                                                  Noah Creshevsky

 

"Imagine all the world's instruments, musicians and hemispheres lashed together into a giant mega-calliope, super-jukebox, or fantasmo-sampler.  As called to action by a hyper-caffeinated virtuoso, it might sound something like these works by Noah Creshevsky." --Arved Ashby, Gramophone

 

Antipasto's gastronomic title is meant to obscure the boundaries between eating and hearing, and to initiate a consideration of the possible implication of juxtaposing an Italian title with a clearly Asian-style composition.

 

Crips Qraps Krops                                                    André Cormier

 

André Cormier was born in Moncton, New Brunswick. He began making music with a guitar. In 1995, he gave up the guitar for good, left his native Acadie and began a BMus. in music composition at the University of Victoria, British Columbia (1995-1999). (John Celona, Christopher Butterfield and Michael Longton)  Then attended the California Institute of the Arts (2000-2002) where he received an MFA in composition. (James Tenney, Michael Pisaro and Morton Subotnick) He has also collaborated with visual artists, animators, writers, and choreographers.  He is currently working on several commissions including an opera with librettist Louise Brissette, chamber music for ensembles in Canada, Germany and the US.  He lives in Vancouver, Canada.

 

Crips Qraps Krops: “A whale suffers. Mankind is bad, very bad.” - André Cormier

 

Alternative Song                                                      Mike Swinchoski

 

Mike Swinchoski is a composer whose roots lie in the experimental aesthetics found in the progressive rock of the 1960's and 70's, as well as jazz from bebop to the present. The subject of many of Swinchoski’s pieces is abstractions of patterns he finds in nature, society, and technology. The works are also concerned with reshaping various aspects of musical form. His albums include Tomorrow(1999), Drawing Board (2003), and Waves (2004). (all available on his label Swinco Records). He currently works in the computer support field to make ends meet while continuing to refine his ideas and write new material.

 

Alternative Song is a pop song whose structure has been melted down to the rawest form I could think of, then reassembled. Midi instruments: Bass, Piano, Acoustic Guitar, and Clavichord each play a different  melody. Sections include: Introduction - rapid playing of melodies, Theme - melodies played at half speed of introduction, Development of Theme – the melodies are slowed down to different speeds, then reordered into two-second segments; Final section - introduction is repeated and stopped at random points, highlighting a resultant random chord. Each section is punctuated by key change.

 

Nanosymph                                                              Christopher Bailey

 

Born outside of Philadelphia, PA, Christopher Bailey turned to music composition in his late 'teens, and to electroacoustic composition during his studies at the Eastman School of Music, and later at Columbia University.  Recent performances of his music occurred in Munich, Germany, and in Seoul, Korea, where he was a 2nd-Prize recipient in the Korean International Competition.  Other awards include prizes from BMI and ASCAP,  and the Bearns Prize. 

 

Nanosymph is a 4 movement symphony in 1 minute.  Allegro,  Scherzo, Adagio Presto.

 

Taxonomia de un Error                                           Alexis Perepelycia

 

Alexis Perepelycia received her BA at the National University of Rosario, Argentina. She studied with Carmelo Saitta, Diana Rud, Dante Grela Zulma Cabrera, Gabriel Data Francisco Colasanto. Pedro Rebelo,amongothers.  Her piece appear on Gebr. Stark Musikverlag Leipzieg, Dreamland Recordings, Earphone, and Deep Wireless.  Her music has been premiered and performed on major festival throughout Argentina,  France, USA, Spain, Italy and Northern Ireland.  She is enrolled in the Masters program at S.A.R.C in Belfast Northern Ireland.

 

Taxonomia de un Error was conceived while working on a larger tape piece and was made with sounds from a collection of processed sounds of a church bell, originally conceived for that piece.  All the processes were made using specifically designed Max/MSP patches, implementing different kinds of noisy modifications to the sound source (i.e. saturation, clipping, feedback, granulation, bit reduction, etc) usually perceived as errors or mistakes within the music.

 

Elfin Tounguespeak                                                Kenneth Steen

 

In addition to composing concert music in many forms, Ken Steen has composed numerous works, both acoustic and electronic, for dance, theater, and documentary. He has received numerous awards for composition, including the 1992 ISCM Boston Composition Award for Looming, a string quartet, and an American Symphony Orchestra League New Music Project with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. He has also received grants from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts (1992 Individual Artist Grant), The New England Foundation for the Arts, Meet the Composer, the Roberts Foundation, the Margaret Fairbanks Jory Copying Assistance Program of the American Music Center and a fellowship to the Millay Colony for the Arts, among others. His music has been featured on concert and radio programs throughout the United States, Canada and Japan, and is available on the Vienna Modern Masters and CRI CD labels.

 

4x15>60                                                                    Kevin Ponto

 

Kevin Ponto is currently studying music at Santa Barbara City College. His questionable preoccupation with computer music arose at 12 when he discovered how to control a Casio keyboard via a Macintosh and coax from it an awful racket. Since then the racket has slowly become less awful, if only through familiarity. When asked what instrument he plays, he responds "The laptop", which of course is nonsense, though he hopes to eventually change that through the development of expressive control interfaces. He also wants you to know that microwaving a CD for a just few seconds is really neat.

 

4x15>60 is composed of a single looped piano note. It is played in fifteen simple four-voice chords. No other notes are triggered. The melody that is heard is a result of the individual notes of each chord looping as they decay. The higher the note is played, the faster is loops, like the raised pitch on a record playing at a higher speed. The chords chosen dictate the melody and influence it over the measures that follow. Change a chord or change the tempo and the melody rearranges itself. A maximum of fourteen notes is maintained to avoid cacophony.

 

Blessed are the Bassists                                           Michael Hopkins

Michael Hopkins composes pieces in orchestral, chamber, solo, electro-acoustic and popular styles. Hopkins' works are published by Alfred Music Publishing, Tunbridge Music, and Grand Mesa Music. He has received commissions from the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association, the Jackson Youth Orchestra, and Social Band. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Music at the University of Vermont, where he conducts the University Orchestra and teaches music technology, conducting and string techniques. Hopkins earned degrees in music from Colorado State University and the University of Michigan

Blessed are the Bassists is a piece for 10 double bass parts, that depicts the forthcoming musical rapture, when bassists will take over the world. In this new era, all orchestras will have 40 double basses assigned to various roles. Violinists will be largely relegated to counting rests and playing an occasional pizzicato note. Violas and cellos will be replaced by electric slap bass and synth bass sections, respectively. In this time of enlightenment, entire periodicals will be devoted to topics such as rosin potency and string length.

 

nysuca hanei                                                             Dennis Bathory-Kitsz

Báthory-Kitsz was born in the year that Richard Strauss died, the LP was born, and Silly Putty was invented. It was an auspicious time. Oxymoronically self-taught, Dennis has composed music for vaudeville shows, orchestras, sound sculptures, soloists, tape & electronics, dancers, multimedia environments, and performance events. Báthory-Kitsz is a composer who has been creating nonpop music for 40 year and he has co-hosted Kalvos & Damian New Music Bazaar for the past 10 years. Though he presently restores historical recordings, engraves music and edits technical articles, he has directed the Dashuki Music Theatre and Il Gruppo Nuke Jitters, heads the Vermont Alliance of Independent Country Stores, and has composed for orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists -- some of which have actually played his music.

An etude created for and on my VSTi emulation of the 1973 Ionic Performer synthesizer, it is an echo sonatina that lurches and staggers after leaping out of a strait forward rhythmic opening.

Flowing Guitar                                                        Martin Simon

 

Martin Simon is a composer, performer and digital media artist. Born in Slovakia, he has lived in New York since 1998 collaborating with musicians, dancers, poets, painters, video artists, film makers, television producers and computer scientists. His work includes acoustic and computer based compositions, live performances, multimedia installations and interdisciplinary projects. A part of his work is centered around ideas of open interaction. Among his favorites are works of conversational music, accidental art and anti-contextual poetry. Simon has been faculty at Pratt Institute since 2004. His master’s degree in music composition and advanced certificate in interactive arts are from Brooklyn College.

 

Flowing Guitar is a miniature etude for a detuned guitar and its processed (pitch shifted and delayed) twin sound image.

 

Father and Don Boogie                                          Benjamin Bierman

 

Benjamin Bierman is a composer, trumpet player, pianist, arranger, producer, and bandleader.  He has a very wide range of musical experiences and an eclectic aesthetic sensibility to match.  As a composer, his works have been performed both nationally and internationally. Ben was recently the Composer-in-Residence for the Goliard Ensemble, and his piece for orchestra (Proximities) was conferred the status of special recognition by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in their recent Synergy Project competition.  He resides in Brooklyn with his wife and three sons.  He loves being outdoors, and cannot resist a great groove.

 

Father and Son Boogie is a rhythmic free-for-all featuring the composer, Benjamin Bierman, on mouth percussion, and his son, Manny Bierman, on Udu.  Ben also gets to join in the fun by blowing some bluesy trumpet over the whole thing.

 

West of Topeka                                                       David Gunn

 

David Gunn studied composition at a big university not noted for its music department, but boy could they do football. Bitter at not making the marching band, he assembled the Well-Tempered Chamber String Band of Greater Columbus, which folded after one performance of his Crapsody. Trouble with his piano studies led to a ghastly haggis dependence and a penchant for wearing mismatched socks. His piano teacher, on the other hand, went on to a marvelous career in the pet food industry.

 

unhinged                                                                  Alex Shapiro

 

Alex Shapiro, born in New York City, 1962 has become one of southern California’s best known composers of acoustic and electroacoustic chamber music. Published by Activist Music, her works are heard weekly in concerts and broadcasts across the U.S. and abroad, and are found on many artists’ recordings. Educated at The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music as a student of Ursula Mamlok and John Corigliano, Alex’s awards include those from American Music Center, ASCAP, American Composers Forum, California Arts Council and The MacDowell Colony. Alex resides in Malibu and procrastinates on her next piece by updating her website.

 

There’s something dark in all of us.  There are doors that should not be opened, thresholds that should not be crossed.  Yet we are tempted, we enter, and sometimes... we unhinge our lives.

 

Eulogy for Bill Swanzy                                           Peter Swanzy

 

Peter Swanzy was born in Seattle, Washington in 1980. He earned his BFA in performance and composition from the College of Santa Fe. Swanzy's work has been commissioned by Santa Fe New Music, under John Kennedy, by UnHeard Of!, under Nina Carlson, and by Thomas Sewell for Enigma Of the Mill, a multimedia work in 2006. Mr. Swanzy has been featured as a multi-media composer, film-editor, and performer in northern New Mexico, Hawaii, and New York City, and has studied under John Kennedy, Steven Miller, David Dunn, and Oliver Prezant.

 

Eulogy was created using seven short samples of Shakuhachi Japanese flute of which the composer performed. Each of these short gestures were manipulated and distorted in time and space to form one overall gesture of breath, based within a predetermined algorithmic structure taken from Edo-period Shakuhachi pieces. My uncle Bill died on May 8th, 2005, and that is the date of composition and assembly for this piece.     

 

My Heart is Trembling                                            Eve Beglarian

 

"One of new music's truly free spirits," (Village Voice) and a "remarkable experimentalist," (NY Times) Eve Beglarian is a composer, performer, and audio producer whose music has been described as "an eclectic and wide-open series of enticements." (LA Times) Tell the Birds, a new CD of her music, will be released by New World Records in spring of 2006.

 

My Heart is Trembling uses a text by one of the founding brothers of Methodism, Charles Wesley, set to one of the myriad tunes it has been sung to over the years, and counterpoised with an electronicized fragment of a medieval Armenian song about trembling. It's a short exploration of how I might want to use Methodist hymns and songs in the Stephen King opera I'm working on.

 

[-(snow)]                                                                   Stan Link

 

Composer Stan Link is married to musicologist Melanie Lowe.  Somehow managing to put those traditional professional differences aside, they have produced one offspring, a two year old daughter named Wednesday, who is joyfully indifferent both to her father’s music and her mother’s research.  Nevertheless, her parents indulge her inexplicable lack of concern for anything but music’s vital pleasures and continue to support her by teaching at Vanderbilt. With the exception of his recent very loud ballet piece, LAPseDANCE, Stan’s music tends to keep to itself. His compositional goal: bringing ineffectuality to perfection. Turn Ons: aesthetic failure. Turn Offs: certainty.

       

[-(snow)] has my mother recalling childhood scenes with what can only be described as the lucid ambiguity that can characterize our present relationship to distant events as well as our own younger imaginations:  Something almost happens, while almost something happens. Musically, on the other hand, almost nothing happens at the same time that nothing almost does happen. That may sound like semantics, I know, but (the) confusion is real. Snow, the ostensible token of purity, usually obscures.  As a backdrop for events remembered and imagined, however, it clarifies and embodies at least one thing—their ineluctable trip into hiding.

 

Grotto                                                                       Doug Geers