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Welcome

Welcome to Diffusion, the fortnightly online newsletter for members of Sonic Arts Network.

This special trial version has been made publicly available to all our website visitors, however, if you wish to receive these regular updates direct to your email inbox, then you will need to be a member.

Towards the end of this week we shall snail mail out letters to current members containing details of how to log in and use your new online members space. This is where you opt into receiving the online Diffusion, as well as manage other features of your membership such as the postal and email addresses we use to contact you, and the details of your CDs and work that you choose to add to the Members Directory. Also it is now easier than ever to submit your listings, opportunities, calls and reviews to Diffusion. Don’t forget for immediate dissemination our sonicartsnet email list will continue to run as usual.

SAN 25TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT – SONIC ARTS RESEARCH CENTER (BELFAST)


As part of our 25th Year Anniversary Simon Emmerson has curated a special concert for the 30 April in the stunning new Sonic Arts Research Centre in Belfast. We feel that Simon has selected a great program highlighting the diverse nature and high quality of our work over the years. The programme will include: Barry Anderson - Fanfare (electroacoustic 2 channel); Hugh Davies - Strata (for Concert Aeolian Harp and 4 channel electroacoustic sound); Kaffe Mathews - improvisation (laptops); Matthew Adkins - Symbiont (electroacoustic 2 channel + video); Steve Montague – Haiku (piano, tape, electronics); Javier Alvarez/Ian Dearden - Edge Dance (electroacoustic 2 channel); Simon Emmerson - Spirit of 76 (flute & accelerating tape delay, 2 channel); Jonty Harrison - Pair/Impair (electroacoustic 2 channel); Trevor Wishart - Vox 5 (electroacoustic 4 channel).

SAN AGM

Our AGM took place this Saturday (21 February) giving members the chance to meet and see/hear some of the organisation’s projects from last year as well as ask questions about the annual accounts. Many thanks to all who attended, especially those members who stood for election. There were two Board seats available and the votes were as follows: John Levack Drever (25), Jo Hyde (24), Ewan Stefani (19), Simon Waters (18), Salomé Voegelin (16), Robert Dow (15). 61 votes were received.

SILENCE CD

The first in our series of special themed CDs is currently at the manufacturers. Curated by Nic Collins and based around the theme of silence/absence we are aiming for members to receive this in two weeks.

HACKING

Our weeklong Hacking Workshop led by Nic Collins was hugely successful. We had stunning feedback from the 16 participants in Bristol. The workshop culminated in a performance/club night attended by nearly 250 people at the Watershed.

RESONANCE FM

Our Big Ears radio show continues to broadcast every Monday night from 8.30pm-10pm with resident presenter Tim Steiner (with occasional programmes presented by the SAN team). Recent guests have included Justin Wiggan (Dreams of Tall Buildings/Geography of Nowhere) and The Modified Toy Orchestra, plus a special on our forthcoming Silence CD.

BRITISH CONTEMPORARY PIANO COMPETITION

Congratulations to Daniel Becker who won the Sonic Arts Network Prize of £400 for his realisation of Jonathan Harvey’s ‘Tombeau de Messiaen’ at this years competition. As a result of this we have invited Daniel to perform Steve Montague’s ‘Haiku’ at SAN’s 25th Anniversary Concert as part of the launch of the Sonic Arts Research Centre (Belfast) in April.


 


Ongoing - 21 March
Rob Godman – Solid
(Sound Installation)
The Millennium Galleries, Sheffield
Rob digitally dismantled the sounds of glass into tiny constituent parts and reconstructed them into a self-generative and ever-evolving piece of music.
www.sheffieldgalleries.org.uk

Monday 1 March - Onwards (Artist Talk – 2 March)
Bill Fontana - Primal Soundings
(Installation)
City Art Gallery, Leeds
 Over the last twenty years, American sound artist Bill Fontana has been exploring the nature of music, sound and architecture. He has been invited to create a permanent sound installation inside and outside Leeds City Art Gallery, using the sounds and landscapes of Yorkshire as his inspiration. Join artist Bill Fontana and Dr Roger Clark for a discussion about the new work (2 March)
www.lumen.net/news/primalsoundings.html

Wednesday 3 March
Social Music. An Evening of Performance on Sound and Its Relation to Architecture.
(Talk and Performance)
Architectural Association, London
 What are the possibilities for sound and architecture to lend creative fuel to each other’s cultures of imagination and making? Addressing the sound-space potential, this evening features leading practitioners in the field of experimental sound. Speakers: Atau Tanaka, Achim Wollscheid and Justin Bennett, introduced by Brandon Labelle.
www.aaschool.ac.uk/lectures/index.shtm

Friday 5 March - Sunday 7 March
BEAST Present De Natura Sonorum with Guest Composer Bernard Parmegiani
(Performance)
CBSO Centre, Birmingham

www.beastmusic.co.uk

Saturday 6 March
Noisetheorynoise#1
(One Day Conference)
Middlesex University, London
 Noise is a barely charted continent compared to which everything we knows as music is a parochial backwater. Speakers: David Cunningham, Steve Goodman, Greg Hainge, Paul Hegarty, Wesley Phillips, Nick J. Smith. Plus noise installations by Brandon LaBelle and Achim Wollscheid.
www.mdx.ac.uk/www/CRMEP/events/noise.htm

Saturday 6 March - 28 March
Tony Kemplen - Snap Crackle & Pop
(Sound Installation)
Bloc Space, Sheffield

 The space is densely hung with bubble wrap curtains, and the visitor soon becomes immersed in the environment. An accompanying multi-channel soundscape consists entirely of processed samples of noises made by popping and squeezing bubble wrap.
www.blocspace.co.uk

Wednesday 10 March
Sprawl
(Club Night/Performance)
Lifthouse, London
 Club night of avant soundscape with live performances from Fibla, Rothko and Incite plus resident djs Iris Garrelfs and Si-Cut db.
http://dfuse.com/sprawl/



Gordon Parry Remembered

SAN member Gordon Parry who died in September 2002 has had his commitment to music and education recognised with a new sensory education centre named in his memory in Leeds writes Peter Denton, SAN Member & Senior Support Officer, Education Leeds Music & Arts.

Gordon who was active for over 20 years in YAMSEN (Yorkshire Association for Music & Special Education Needs) worked with an inclusive approach in mainstream and special schools long before it became popular to talk of Inclusive Education.

YAMSEN and Education Leeds have decided to commemorate Gordon's life by naming the new building The Gordon Parry Centre, which is situated alongside the Education Leeds Music & Arts Service's administrative base at West Park, Leeds. The suite of rooms at the Centre include a main teaching area, a library and a technology room which houses much of the equipment from Gordon's own home studio.

The Centre is now open and attracts visitors from across Yorkshire. Its uses range from individual tuition for students with specific needs through to a range of group based learning activities for people of all abilities. All SAN members interested in visiting the Centre, helping to build on its existing work or just finding out more are welcome to contact us from the details given below.

In addition to its support for the Gordon Parry Centre, Education Leeds has its own music technology/recording suite, offering courses in AS & A2 Music Technology for students at all Leeds schools. Additional services offered include composition workshops for high school pupils and a range of music technology related services for schools and youth music groups.

For further information:
Gordon Parry Centre T: 0113 278 6521
YAMSEN W: www.yamsen.org.uk
Education Leeds W: www.educationleeds.co.uk
Music & Arts T: 0113 230 4074 E: educ.lmss@educationleeds.co.uk



Monitor - Swedish Radio

Monitor is the new weekly slot for electronic music on the Swedish National Radio

Every Wednesday between 9-10 p.m. Monitor broadcasts works by Parmegiani, Henry, Stockhausen and Wishart as well as new international electronic music, electronica, ars acustica, live-broadcast of electroacoustic concerts from Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmoe, concerts from the GRM in Paris, debates and portraits of composers in the field of electronic music (Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Laurie Anderson, Natasha Barrett, Mathew Adkins, Tamas Ungvary etc.).

Monitor is always looking for new music to broadcast, so please send your music (on CD) to: Erik Mikael Karlsson, Producer, Monitor, Swedish Radio SE-211 01, Malmö, Sweden.

Xperiment>L

Xperiment>L is a series of events with emphasis on female electronic musicians/ sound artists

Each event will feature sound artists as well as film/video works. There are also plans for workshops/lectures and a symposium where the position of women in electronic music will be discussed & compared to their position in other art fields.

Styles we are interested in are: abstract or minimal electronica, old (analogue) & new (laptop), musique concete, soundscapes, electro-accoustic, breakcore, dub minimal, experimental techno, electro-pop, songwriting with electronics, improvisation, turntablism

Artists who feel they can contribute to this project are invited to drop a line and/or send some recent CD/tape/recording/texts to:Daniela Swarowsky, Wolphaertstraat 27B, NL-3082 BK Rotterdam, Holland. daswa@xs4all.nl

Flux Online Sound Gallery

'Flux' is an mp3 online project dedicated to present new and creative sound works

It functions as a open space with rotating curators and its aim is to document and facilitate the promotion of works that by nature fall outside visibility or genre and also to (re)organize new perspectives and directions.

Although based in Portugal, and having the mission to promote new Portuguese sound artists, this space ignores physical or aesthetic frontiers. We encourage all participants to curate or sending recordings, radio transmissions, performances, installations, sound sculptures, etc. www.granular.fm

Kingston University MA in Composing for New Media

1 year full-time (or 2-year part time) course designed for students wishing to work as composers in the New Media industries

As part of the course, students will learn techniques for composing music for sonified web sites, multimedia software packages, computer games and interactive performance and installation systems.

Students will learn programming techniques in Max/MSP/Jitter/SoftVNS and will use such hardware devices as the Infusion Systems I-Cube and Making Things Teleo system for building interactive projects. Opportunities for collaboration with programmers and artists at the University and throughout the London community are encouraged and supported. www.kingston.ac.uk or contact Dr. Howard Fredrics h.fredrics@kingston.ac.uk

Musiques & Recherches Presents The Third International Acousmatic Composition Competition

Deadline: 15 April 2021

Each participant can enter one work of a duration between 8 and 15 minutes. The work must be included in one of the two following categories:

Category A: concerns exclusively those acousmatic works by composition students or composers under the age of 28.

Category B: concerns all acousmatic works (even those conforming to the conditions for Category A, if the participant prefers to enter in category B). Category B is open to all composers under the age of 50.

The acousmatic works can be presented in two forms - stereo or multiphonic (3 to 8 tracks). The work presented may already have been played in concert. The work may not be included on any record, nor may it have been the recipient of any prize before April 15, 2004. There is no enrolment fee. The Prizes will be awarded at the end of the finalists' concert on October 20, 2004. www.musiques-recherches.org


Machinista 2004

DEADLINE: 28 FEBRUARY 2004

Machinista is a yearly unmediated open-submission online exhibition. Creative and technological practices including visual and software art, science and design projects, moving image, experimental music and performance are featured in various scales and stages of development ranging from documentation of prototypes and exploratory installations to fully operational systems.

Submissions for any of the following three themes are welcomed in all media:

1. "Art from the Machine: gleams of the inhuman" Works created completely or mostly by a machine or an artificial intelligence system.

2. "Artists Against Machinic Standards" Breaking, destroying, hacking, unexpected (non-utilitarian?) usage of customary programs as an art experiment.

3. "Full-Screen Robovision" Moving image works (experimental/scientific imaging, audiovisual code, short films, animation and VJ mixes) illustrating "the world as seen by machines". www.machinista.org

Sonic Network Analysis: Documenting And Reinterpreting Zones Of Critique And Escape

DEADLINE: 8 MARCH 2021

A multi-stage net.exhibition and live performance.

In cooperation with Version>04 InvisibleNetworks, a conference and festival taking place April 16 - May 1 2004, Stasisfield will present a multi-stage net.exhibition with live performance, Sonic Network Analysis.

The initial stage of the Sonic Network Analysis net.exhibition will consist of selected mp3 audio and digital photography. Artists are encouraged to submit a one-minute long field recording of a zone of critique or escape: art galleries, cafés, classrooms, performance spaces, places of worship, protests the sound of a place where groups of people commune to either critique or escape an increasingly chaotic world. A digital photograph of the place documented in the field recording should also be included in the submission. www.stasisfield.com/space/future

Organised Sound: An International Journal Of Music And Technology

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 5 APRIL 2021

Call for articles and works. Issue thematic title: Collaboration and Intermedia
Volume 9, Number 3. Date of Publication: December 2004. Publishers: Cambridge University Press

Submissions from composers, performers, artists and researchers working in the realm of digital media and sound are invited. Submissions related to the theme are encouraged; however, those that fall outside the scope of this theme are always welcome. http://uk.cambridge.org/journals/oso/ or email os@dmu.ac.uk

Res Musica

The Music Research Group (MRG) at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, is launching a new e-journal called Res Musica (RM) in Spring 2004. The journal will be dedicated to the dissemination of research of the highest quality and therefore submissions will be subjected to a rigorous process of peer review. Contributions from all areas of music research are welcome, including composition, particularly electroacoustic music, sonic art and related areas.

The initial issues will comprise a variety of articles which will be developed to create separate thematic strands running through future issues. Contributors will be encouraged to make full use of the enhanced capabilities offered by on-line distribution, especially multi-media applications.

Composers are encouraged to submit articles/works for consideration. Submissions from electroacoustic composers/sonic artists will be especially welcome. One possible method of submission might be a piece in audio format from a composer with accompanying analysis from either the composer or another person.

If you are interested in contributing please contact Dr Pete Stollery p.stollery@abdn.ac.uk with some info about your proposed submission and you will be sent further details about the journal and how to submit.


David Jisse - Mille Vingt Quatre

Jisse's CD is part of a series released by Musiques Inventives (who used to be known as the Collectif et Cie) under the title Collection Musiques Tracées. The uniting theme is memory and community, the specific place and sound as against the increasingly internationalised and ultimately bland sameness of our world.

The place depicted in this piece is a remote French hamlet of five houses which are over 150 years old and which stand at an altitude of 1024 meters (hence the pieces title and also, rather conceptually, duration - 17'06" roughly 1024 seconds).

Jisse's single movement composition encompasses all the usual clichéd source sounds - creaking of various sorts, bells, distant aircraft drone, birds, buzzing insects etc., but still manages to be an interesting piece. The compositional touch can be quite heavy for this kind of work, in terms of both editing and manipulation, there is certainly no attempt at producing a transparent seemingly untouched acoustic photograph, yet even at its heaviest the processing avoids crassness - drawing from the sound rather than mutating it into something alien to itself. The processing of buzzing insects, for example is quite witty, without being cartoon like or sounding strained in any way. The fades and intergration of materials are smoothly carried out, and the recording quality good as is the sense of contrast - large bells in the foreground with bells on animals in the distance.

In addition to the above mentioned sound sources Jisse also lets the inhabitants of the village speak in their own words without stage management, which lends them a certain charm, character and wit - although I am sure my typically academic knowledge of French (I read it much better than I speak or hear it) means I miss quite a lot of the verbal / sound interplay.

This use of language is in opposition to the misplaced romanticism which so often inhabits soundscape work - the original Vancouver Soundscape recordings of Henry George in Squamish Narrative stand out particularly in this respect - George's inability to remember words from his mother's native Squamish tongue to describe his activities highlight not a loss of his linguistic identity, but instead the artificiality of the situation where he has been deliberately asked to speak in a way which is unfamiliar to him to make a point: ''Yes it is', not 'that it be', we're not tourists you know", as Edmund Blackadder famously chided.

Ultimately Jisse's piece is slightly too long and has the misfortune of bearing comparison to Philippe Le Goff's classic Titakti, but, on the plus side, it does give a picture of the life of the hamlet in sound without crass preaching or documentary tedium. Ultimately whether this small French hamlet's soundscape is unique enough to warrant special attention is questionable - but at least there are no burger chains - yet.

CCRS

Composer, Philosopher, Office Worker