Abstract
The conductor’s baton is a ubiquitous gestural technology for musical expression. Conductors manipulate traditional musical parameters by using their wand-like baton to shape tempo (time), dynamics (volume), expression (emotion), density (orchestral color/timbre) and inspire unity (sense of ensemble). It is an intuitive human interface that is both familiar and effective.
SpatWand, a gestural controller for immersive audio, allows the user to “conduct” sound movement in and through the SPACE which musical creations unfold. It is specifically designed to expand intuitive musical expression into the spatial dimension and to allow users to conduct the trajectory and projection of sonic objects in any acoustical environment. Currently designed to interface with the IRCAM Spat~ object set for Max8, the hardware controller may have broad applications in audio engineering, AR/VR sound design, real-time immersive sound design, and gestural control for gaming. This seminar will discuss the basic aesthetics of composition for immersive audio and the application of this new tool for the creation of complex sound-object pathways through any audio reproduction format.
Biography
Arlan N. Schultz is a Canadian composer, music educator, and music technologist. His composition teachers include Michael Matthews, Brian Cherney, Roger Reynolds, Chinary Ung, and Brian Ferneyhough. In 2004 he completed his Ph.D. in composition at the University of California, San Diego where he held the Kurt Weill Fellowship.
Dr. Schultz's music has received several international awards including the BMI and Godfrey Ridout Awards for Quartet Opus 10 and the large-scale oratorio Edifice respectively. The Canada Arts Council awarded Dr. Schultz the Robert Fleming Prize in composition also for Edifice. He was the recipient of 2nd Prize in the International Mozart Competition, Salzburg for PLI which was subsequently published by Universal Edition, Vienna. He has also received numerous grants and commissions from the Canada Arts Council, the Quebec Arts Council, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the University of Lethbridge. He is a gifted and innovative composer, deeply concerned with the complexities of human experience and the role music plays in the expression of our inner life. His music is multifaceted and challenging for performer and listener alike and is characterized by rich pitch-fields and colorful harmonic tapestries, masterful contrapuntal webs and constructions, daring orchestrations, and imaginative formal architectures. His most recent work has been concerned with themes surrounding rituals and expressions of death, mourning, longing, transcendence, and acceptance. His String Quartet No. 2 was recently nominated for the Grawemeyer Prize for achievement by a living composer.
Dr. Schultz is also fascinated with the spatial placement of sound resources in unique and expressive configurations. This stems from early childhood exposure to phasing effects produced by night insects as heard by the composer on evening strolls down rural roads. Myriads of whirring, mobile insects on one side of the road would be slightly out of phase with those on the other side. Differences in location, pitch, and rhythm, would produce marvelous sonic curtains of ever changing, immersive insect-song. All his work in music technology is focussed on the creation of software and hardware tools for the realization of these types of immersive audio experiences. His recent interactive installation, Manjushri Cathedral, created for the grand opening of the new $250M Science Commons facility at the University of Lethbridge, transformed a simple classroom into a 17th century cathedral using an immersive audio speaker array. Here, visitors could perform with the space by using Schultz’s new gestural control technology to situate a choir of praying Buddhist Monks (from the Drepung Gomang Monastery) anywhere in the acoustic environment they wished. Transforming the spatial dimension of sound into a performance parameter proved to be endlessly engaging for visitors to the installation. This preoccupation with space extends to his acoustic work as well, where often musicians will be “spatialized” in real-time as they perform, enhancing the audience’s immersive experience.
Schultz’s music has been broadcast on radio and featured on podcasts in North America and Europe and has received performances around the world. He has been commissioned by the Penderecki String Quartet, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the McGill Concert Choir and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Winds, the Stuttgart Wind Quintet with Canadian pianist Louise Bessette, Hungarian violinist János Négyesy, Canadian pianist Sandra Brown, Ensemble Resonance, and New Works Calgary among others. Currently, he is head of the composition and digital audio arts areas at the University of Lethbridge, in Southern Alberta, Canada, where he is associate professor and chair of music.