improv@CIRMMT
Benjamin Lavastre performs "Premise for an Instrumental Interaction"

improv@CIRMMT

A special edition of improv@CIRMMT, as part of the CIRMMT-OICRM-BRAMS Student Symposium.

Please note that this concert is a part of the CIRMMT-OICRM-BRAMS Student Symposium and our international conference, Le son du futur / Le futur du son

Although seating is reserved for COBS and conference participants, there may be extra spots available for those who show up 15 minutes before the concert. Please note that we can not guarantee seating for the general public. 

Program & Notes:

FURNAS

Nicola Di Croce (composer)

Furnas” is part of a collection of field recordings dealing with the concept of affective atmosphere and human/listener positioning within the environment. The series was first conceived in 2020 during an on-line residency at NUB, in the framework of the residency program Licheni (online platform and virtual research laboratory for sound and art). The composition is realized using recordings taken in the Azores in 2017 and further re-edited in 2021.

Bio : Architect, musician, sound artist, and scholar, he completed his PhD in Regional planning and public policies at Università Iuav di Venezia, Italy, and is currently Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at Iuav and McGill University’s School of Information Studies, Montreal. His research deals with the relationship between Urban Studies and Sound Studies. He is interested in collaborative and participatory approaches to urban policy analysis and design through sound-oriented methodologies and Sound Art practice.
www.nicoladicroce.com


PREMISE FOR AN INSTRUMENTAL INTERACTION

Benjamin Lavastre (composer & performer)

Premises for an Instrumental Interaction is a piece for karlax, a kind of digital "vase" to be filled with sounds and gestures. In the end, the piece is a phantasmal instrumental interaction, like a ventriloquism.

Benjamin Lavastre is a composer, researcher and guitarist. He is currently working on a PhD at McGill University on the interactions between digital instruments (especially the Karlax) and acoustic instruments.


THE TEXT SCORE DATASET 1.0

Jennifer Walshe (composer/collector)
Performers :
Yuval Adler (https://adler.audio/)
Émilie Fortin (https://emilie-fortin.tumblr.com/)
Pat McMaster (https://www.patmcmaster.com/)
Valentina Plata (https://soundcloud.com/vaiu-sounds)
Lily Koslow (https://soundcloud.com/lilykoslow)
Ashar Mumtaz
Kai Kubota-Enright (https://kubotaenright.com)



We will perform a small selection from The Text Score Dataset 1.0, which are scores generated by artificial intelligence. The group behind the project is led by Jennifer Walshe, who describes her role as collector rather than composer, with more than 3,000 works in the database used to train the AI models. For more about the project: http://milker.org/text-score-dataset

Composer and performer Jennifer Walshe (http://milker.org/jenniferwalshebiography) was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her music has been commissioned, broadcast, and performed all over the world. She is currently a professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Stuttgart.


BtFrq–Improv@Feedback Saxophone

Greg Bruce (composer & performer)

BtFrq – Improv@Feedback Saxophone
In this improvisation, Greg explores the phenomenon of beat frequencies through his feedback saxophone system. In playing with subtle shifts in positioning, finger movement, and dynamics, the saxophone and feedback tones weave between tension and release.

Greg Bruce is a saxophonist searching for new sounds through the forgotten opportunities of analogue technology. Through a breath-powered instrumentarium – a saxophone augmented by state of the art, lo-tech – Greg seeks to investigate the human/machine dialectic and invoke a post-digital future.


LANDSCAPE WITH CIGAR SMOKE AND GREASEWOOD

Erich Barganier (composer & performer)

Landscape with Cigar Smoke and Greasewood is a piece written and performed by Barganier for electric guitar, fixed electronics, video and GuitarAMI gestural controller. The work takes inspiration from “Landscape With Sex and Violence,” a collection of poetry by Lynn Melnick that focuses on how sexual violence has become such an entrenched part of North American culture, it can no longer be separated from physical landscapes. The composition relies on gestures and unrelenting electronic soundscapes to create a sonic response to this piece of writing.

Erich Barganier is a composer and multi-instrumentalist hailing from St. Petersburg, Florida. He writes chamber, orchestral, film, solo instrumental and electronic music that explores experimental technology, the edge of noise, improvisation, generative processes, and new forms of notation. Barganier's works have been presented by Bang on a Can, The International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), Mostly Modern Festival, The New Music Gathering, National Sawdust, Le Poisson Rouge, Diffrazioni Festival, and more.


COLLECTIF MYRIADE

Kevin Gironnay (composer)
Performers :
Mélanie Cullin, piano
Ivan Bamford, drums
Julie Houle, tuba
Kevin Gironnay, prepared electric guitar
André Parmentier, electric guitar

This improvisation is the result of a period of research in a musical exploration laboratory, last fall, during which, the musician-improvisers performed improvisations for two non-practicing music lovers around the theme of isolation. The objectives of these laboratories, propelled by the Myriade collective, were the search for a new connection between the performers and their audience as well as the development of a common creative vocabulary, at the frontiers of soundpainting and graphic score.

Collectif Myriade was created in 2015 to foster spontaneous interdisciplinary exchanges between music and different art forms. The collective bases its research and work on collaborations with artists of all backgrounds taking the form of laboratories where, in a shared freedom, we explore and develop a common language.