Unassisted Fold, which is Flavio Virzi, guitar, and Sonja Horlacher, flute, have just made a version of my "Flutes Guitars Celli" from 2014, and they've done a wonderful job with it. "Flutes Guitars Celli" is a 30 minute recording made with the Novation Launchpad, where I improvise a mix of recorded microtonal melodies played with flute, guitar and cello samples. This recording is then to be used by a chamber ensemble to improvise with. Flavio and Sonja assembled a 5 minute recording of various bits from the tape, and then improvised with it, and the results are, I think, splendid. They call their version "flute, guitar and recording," and it will eventually appear on a forthcoming album of theirs. Flavio has performed my music in the past. He's played my "Fast Random Walk on a Microtonal Fingerboard" for guitar, and then in 2013 performed a guitar and percussion version of my "Bourbaki Two" which was originally written for violin and percussion. So it was a delight to hear from him and to hear the recording of their realization of my piece. Many thanks for them, and also thanks for letting me share this recording with you. Enjoy!
And for those of you without access to a Flash Player (meaning you can't see the player above this sentence), you can download the piece HERE.
The Bent Leather Band (Joanne Cannon, contra-monster; Stuart Favilla, light-harp; and Dale Chant, extended guitar, invited me to improvise with them at the OZCHI conference at Melbourne Uni on Dec 10, 2015. We had all just given presentations at a panel discussion on new interfaces for musicians. Catherine was there with her cell-phone and grabbed this 4 and 1/2 minute excerpt from the proceedings, which were noisy, and a lot of fun. I especially enjoy some of the audience interaction here. Stelarc, who had just given a lovely keynote address, is of course, documenting things, and I enjoy the statue of (is that?) Athena standing impassively behind us, or maybe she's doing a kind of extremely minimal post-modern dance. (grin) Here's the video:
Second semester 2015 sped by in a blur, and lots of things happened, but I didn't have time to write about them on this blog. Several friends have asked me to make a mailing list to let them know about things I'm doing, but I haven't had time even to publicise the events I'm in. Man was that semester BUSY.
Making a small amount of amends, here's a listing and description of 10 events I or my music was part of since early September, with lots of links to them, etc.
1) Soundbytesmag.net Articles Sept and Nov 2015
http://soundbytesmag.net/musicontablets201509/ From the September Soundbytes Mag, a review of the music notation program Notion, in the iPad version, and then reviews of Midimux and Audiomux, and Audiobus Remote, interesting utility programs for connecting the iPad to the computer environment.
http://soundbytesmag.net/musicfortablets201511/ And from the November Soundbytes Mag, a review of Studiomux, the upgraded version of Audiomux, and MusicIO, another utility program to connect the iOS environment to the computer (Mac or PC) world. These programs suddenly increase the possibilities for both the computer and iPad environment quite a bit. A most welcome development.
2. Louise Devenish plays Chromophone for pre-recorded sounds and percussion, Perth Sept 17, 2015
On Sept 17, 2015 in the Astor Theatre Lounge in the Astor Theatre in Mt Lawley, Louise Devenish gave a program of Electro-Acoustic Music for Solo Percussion. One of the pieces she played was my Chromophone (2014) for pre-recorded sounds and improvising percussionist. There were not one, but TWO reviews of the concert!
And the concert was recorded by ABC-Classic FM and has just been released as a podcast. It has a great interview with Louise by Stephen Adams, and the pieces are all really interesting as well:
Chromophone begins about 6:40 into the show and lasts for 9 minutes, if you're pressed for time. Otherwise, listen to the whole show. I did, and found it really interesting. Many thanks to Louise for her very wonderful realisation, and I hope she gets the opportunity to perform it again (and again!).
3) A Mention on Ellen Waterman's Sounds Provocative Site, with a video from 2006!
Ellen Waterman, musicologist, flautist and improviser, has a great website called "Sounds Provocative: The Ecology of Experimental Music Performance in Canada. On this website, she has now included a video of Catherine Schieve and I performing Catherine's "Rock and Light Tracing" at the Sound Symposium in 2006 in St. John's, Newfoundland. (almost 10 years ago now!) It's a very nice video, and I was enchanted by the whole website. It's the beginning of what looks to be like a very important documentation site, and a very interesting exploration of experimental music performance.
4) Adam Simmons' 100:25:1 project. A month of improvisation. 2-30 November, Conduit Arts, Fitzroy
I was honored by Adam Simmons to be asked to be part of his mammoth 100:25:1 project, which took place at Conduit Arts in Fitzroy during November 2015. This was a project where Adam picked 100 people he would like to improvise with, from all sorts of different musical styles and areas, and then improvised with 4 of them a night, on 25 successive nights. I improvised with him on Tuesday Nov 24. I was improvisation number 80. Here's a photo of my rig that I performed with that night. On the left is an iPhone5 running Noatikl2 and Thumbjam, and AudioShare. On the right, the iPad was running a whole raft of software, and I was continually changing what was playing. One of the sources was the patch from my piece "A Plethora of Polys" which I premiered at the ACMC Conference at University of Technology, Sydney, the previous week. Accompanying the silicon performers are Baby Wombat and Frog Fone Case, cloth collaborators who have accompanied me on previous gigs. Adam, my inspiring partner for this duet, is sitting in the background, surrounded by his plethora of woodwind instruments. Yeah, verily, even unto a plenitude is his collection of sound sources.
And here's a link to the audio recordings (by Myles Mumford). Mine is in Day 20, Tue 24 Nov, and is the first one listed: http://www.100251.com.au/audio/
Here's a collection of all 100 recordings: https://fatrain.bandcamp.com/album/100-25-1. Stay posted on this site - Adam will soon be selling collections of these to benefit the Melbourne Music Map project he's part of, and of which this project forms an early part.
5) Finnegans Wake Meets the World's Longest Prime as part of 60x60 Dance, New York, October 23, 2015
I've been associated with the 60x60 project, led by Robert Voisey, for years. To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the project, a version of 60x60 Dance was organized and performed on Oct at Arts Brookfield, at the Winter Garden, on Vesey St in New York. 60 one minute pieces were then choreographed by 60 choreographers and danced one after the other. Choreographer Katie Rose McLaughlin used my piece, Finnegans Wake Meets the World's Longest Prime, for a dance by Emily Pacific and Mary Kate Sickel. Here's a link to the description of the whole event: http://artsbrookfield.com/event/60x60-dance/.
Here's a YouTube video of Katie Rose McLaughlin's choreography, danced by Emily Pacific and Mary Kate Sickel. Finnegans Wake Meets the World's Longest Prime begins about 50" into the video:
And here are two photographs of the dance in action. (Photo: Darial Sneed, courtesy of artsbrookfield).
Thanks to Arts Brookfield, Rob Voisey, 60x60, Darial Sneed and Katie Rose McLauglin for all their work on this.
6) Colour Fields 2015, a new video and sound composition.
I've had to post a copy of my new video and sound work Colour Fields 2015 on YouTube for various showings which I've applied for it to be part of. So I might as well share it with you as well. The text accompanying the video on YouTube is the standard information required by showing organizations. The graphics were made with ArtWonk, edited in Vegas, and the sound was made with 2C Audio's Kaleidoscope. Enjoy:
7) WB on The Sound Barrier with Ian Parsons Nov 12, 2015
Ian Parsons, new musicologist extraordinaire, runs a weekly new music show on radio 3PBS-FM in Melbourne. The show is on Wednesdays from midnight to 2am, but is fortunately available on podcast and streaming audio world wide 24/7. On Nov 11, I went to PBS in the evening to pre-record the show with Ian, and he then broadcast it at the witching hour. The show was all my music, and Ian interviewed me. A good time was had by all. The playlist and audio of the show are here:
It's a two hour show, and there are a couple of places where, for reasons that mystify us both (and the 3PBS technical staff) some of the interview has disappeared, but you'll get the gist of the interview in any case, and the music is all intact. Enjoy, and many many thanks to Ian for having me on his show, and I hope we get to do this again someday soon.
8) A Plethora of Polys - Artist's Talk and Performance at ACMC2015 in Sydney, Nov 20, 2015
As part of this years Australasian Computer Music Conference, held this year at the University of Technology, Sydney, and organised wonderfully by Jon Drummond, Ian Stevenson, Sophea Lerner and Donna Hewitt (thanks guys!), I gave te premier performance of a new composition for iPad apps, "A Plethora of Polys." A copy of my artist's talk can be found here:
It was a great conference, and I had a great time, and I'm sure the other participants did as well. Looking forward to next year in Brisbane!
9) "Elegy" performed by Astra Choir in Carmelites Church, Middle Park, Nov 29, 2015
The Astra Choir, conducted by John McCaughey, performed my 2013 a capella choir piece "Elegy" on a wonderful concert at the Carmelites Church in Middle Park, one of Melbourne's most beautiful churches and wonderful acoustics. The choir performed the quite difficult piece admirably, and John McCaughey's conducting and phrasing decisions for the piece were spot on. I found the performance transporting, and it was just one element in a really stunning concert. Here's a link to the Astra website describing the concert:
Michael Hewes recorded the concert for Astra. This is a good sign, as he's a fantastic engineer (and a wonderful composer as well). Once I get in touch with him, if the recording of the concert came out well, I'll endeavour to post the performance here. The choir and ensemble's TWO performances (opening and closing the concert) of Feldman's rarely heard Swallows of Salangan were fantastic. I remember back in the late 1960s, Joel Chadabe, my teacher, waxing eloquent about Feldman's work, and finally, 45 years later, I got a chance to hear it. It was every bit as beautiful as he described it, all those many years ago. The concert was, for me, one of the musical high points of my concert going in 2015. Beautiful works, lovingly performed, in a beautiful environment and a wonderful acoustic. And the calimari at the Beach Hotel in Albert Park afterwards was superb as well.
10) WB contribution to the soundtrack for Duende Physical Theatre's production of "A Ridiculous Dream" in Athens, 29 November - 2 December, 2015.
And then I heard from my old friend and collaborator John Britton, director of Duende Physical Theatre, of a performance his group gave in Athens, Greece from 29 November - 2 December. It was called "A Ridiculous Dream" and included, as part of the soundtrack, an excerpt from my XI records release, "The Animation of Lists and the Archytan Transpositions": http://www.xirecords.org/130.shtml. Here's a video of Duende preparing for the performance. The music for this video is not by me, but by Elias Kotzias.
Looks like it was a great show. Pity the TARDIS is getting repaired at the Quantum Mechanic's, otherwise I would have been there.
11) UPCOMING EVENT: WB to be on Panel Discussion at OZCHI 2015, Dec 10, 2015
Finally, an upcoming event report! This coming Thursday, Dec 10, 2015, I'll be appearing on a panel discussion on "Liveness: Interaction, Interfacing, and Performance" at OZCHI 2015, the Australian Computer Human Interface conference, being held at the University of Melbourne. The panel is organized by Joanne Canon, and includes myself, Dale Chant, Stuart Favila, and Marcelo Wanderley. Here's a link to the description of the panels for the conference: http://www.ozchi.org/2015/program.html#panels. The conference will be held at the Melbourne School of Design on the Melbourne Uni Campus. I'm looking forward to it!
Whew! What a lot of stuff! Hopefully, I won't wait 3 months before posting things to this blog again!
Voiceprints 15 is a new CD of Melbourne Sound Poetry. Produced by Sjaak de Jong for F..tloose Productions, with mixing and mastering by the ever capable Harry Williamson, it's a delight. The tracks are superb, and they are superbly sequenced. There's a lovely cast list to the album, too. Here it is:
Poetry, close to the edge and beyond, featuring :
Peter Murphy, Santo Cazatti,Jeltje Fanoy and Sjaak de Jong, Eddy Burger, Ashley Higgs accompanied by Richard Stringer and Nat Grant, Ania Walwicz, Warren Burt, UQ with guest vocalist Jaap Blonk, Harry Williamson, Razor Hope, Mar Bucknell.
If you're in Melbourne, you can get your copy from:
Collective Works Bookshop
Level 1 Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston Street, Melbourne 3000
Phone (03) 9654 8873
And if you're out of town, just go to the F..tloose website:
for a link for ordering from interstate and overseas.
I have a track on the album. Here's how I made it:
A text was written with the algorithmic composing program ArtWonk. I then read this text while wearing binaural microphones on my front porch. Lots of good traffic sounds! I then processed that recording through AudioMulch and Glitch2, which produced the rhythmically changing distortions on the voice. I used Glitch2's "randomization" feature to make the presets, so that I would force myself into kinds of voice modifications I wouldn't normally use.
Here, as a teaser for the album, is my track:
And if you can't see the Flash Player above, just download the file HERE.
On Open Day at Box Hill, Tim Opie brought his Reactable to display to the public. I showed up with my iPad, and Novation Launchpad. During the day, we jammed together, occasionally, and in the mid-afternoon, when there was no one around, I made a little polyryhthmic piece using several different rhythms on the iPad, and a rock drum loop or two on the Reactable. All in different tempi, of course. I was able to change the tempo of the rock beat by moving the cube on the Reactable's surface, and change which loops were playing on my iPad. Simultaneously, I was filming this withone hand, while performing with the other. This is probably taking DIY a bit too far, but what the heck? I hope you enjoy this little 2 and 1/2 minute exploration!
Sunday, January 17, 2016 at 11:34AM 
