Sounds Electric

Major International Comtemporary Music Festival to be held in Maynooth

Sounds Electric ’05 is a 3-day festival of electro-acoustic and instrumental music taking place at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth from 2-4 December 2005. This will be the biggest festival of electro-acoustic to be held in Ireland

The festival will bring a host of leading international composers and performers to Ireland for the first time ever in a diverse series of concerts, workshops and seminars. A major focus of the festival will be the Csound programming environment. Csound is an incredibly powerful and versatile software synthesis programme that can transform a personal computer into a high-end digital audio workstation, creating an environment in which the worlds of sound-design, acoustic research, digital audio production and computer music composition combine to form the ultimate musical instrument.

World-renowned authority on electronic music, Dr. Richard Boulanger will speak at the festival. Boulanger is Professor of Music Synthesis at the Berklee College of Music (USA), the world’s premier institution for the study of contemporary music, and has recently published the definitive textbook on computer music, entitled: The Csound Book.

Featured guests include the internationally acclaimed electroacoustic composers Rajmil Fischman, Jim Hearon and John ffitch. Rajmil Fischman is a contributor to the Composers’ Desktop Project, conductor of the Keele Philharmonic Society, and Professor of Composition at Keele University. Jim Hearon, composer, jazz performer and programming, and conductor of The California Wind Ensemble has made several recordings of computer music in his own right. Using computer-based instruments he performs with dancers and filmmakers. He currently lectures in Music Technology at the University of Hawaii. Mathematician and computer scientist, John ffitch is Chair of Engineering, in Mathematical Sciences at the University of Bath. He won the Adams Prize for Mathematics and is an active contributor to Csound.

“This year&acutes Sounds Electric will be the highlights of the new music calendar in Ireland and will have a lasting impact on Irish contemporary music.” (Victor Lazzerini)

For further information contact Fergal Dowling, Sounds Electric Press Officer Email contact@nullear.ie or telephone 01 8575159

Festival Programme

FRIDAY 2nd December
CONCERT I – EAR Ensemble, The EAR Ensemble in concert, playing works for ensemble and live electronics by Fergal Dowling, Victor Lazzarini, David Stalling, Rory Walsh and Elaine Thomazi Freitas, Aula Maxima, NUI Maynooth, 8.00pm, €15, €10 (concession)

SATURDAY 3rd December

Keynote Speech
10:30 R. Boulanger (Berklee College, USA)
Csound Seminars I
2:30 Victor Lazzarini (Ireland), “TclCsound, a Csound Frontend and Tcl/Tk Wrapper”
3:00 Simon Schampijer (Germany), “RAViC — Real-Time Audio Visualisation in Csound5”
3:30 Alan O Cinneide (Ireland), “Introducing PVSPITCH: A Pitch-Tracking Opcode for Csound”
Talk
4:30 Rajmil Fischman (Keele University, UK), “Real and Virtual landscapes in Electroacoustic music”

CONCERT II – CSOUNDBITES
Music selection from submissions in response to an open call for works using the Csound language, Music Department, NUI Maynooth, [time tbc], €8, €5 (concession)

CONCERT III – Dance and Multimedia Improvisation

This exciting encounter between different art forms in response to the use of technology in a performance environment, will bring together international artists working with various media to improvise, in an adventurous crossover between discipline, and will create a unique and stimulating audio-visual experience. Aula Maxima, NUI Maynooth, 8.00pm, €15, €10 (concession)

SUNDAY 4th December

Csound Seminars II
2:30 Steven Yi (USA), “The blue Composition Environment”
3:10 Rory Walsh (Ireland), “ICE: the Integrated Csound Editor”
3:40 Adalberto Vidal (Argentina), “‘Strings Formulas&acute and their Application in Csound Score Generation”
4:10 James Hearon (USA), “Csound in Realtime Performance
using the pvs and fltk Opcodes”

Talk
5:00 John ffitch (University of Bath, UK), “On the Development of Csound 5” CONCERT IV – Selected Works
Second concert of ‘tape&acute music selected from open call for works, Music Department, NUI Maynooth, [time tbc], €8, €5 (concession)

CONCERT V – Interactive performance & Live Diffusion

Electronic concert of interactive music by Richard Boulanger and live diffusions by Rajmil Fischman, Aula Maxima, NUI Maynooth,8.00pm, €15, €10 (concession)