15-16/60 - Bagict - Live by Daoud/Noguchi duo

As I said when announcing the premiere concert, the piece Bagict (15-16/60) is dedicated to both Ryan Banagale and Michael Cuthbert. Thank you for taking part in the 60/60 project!

Ryan chose the Illustrated History of Magic book, while Michael picked Milton Babbitt's Phonemena CD.

illustrated history of magicmilton babbitt phonemena

Because both presents came at the same time, and Ryan and Michael are almost colleagues, I decided to compose a piece inspired by both objects. The Illustrated History of Magic suggested me to base the composition on the idea of transformation. In the piece, the transformation of a musical material into another is realized/improvised/decided live by the performers. From Milton Babbitt, I stole the series of twelve pivot notes used in the melody and harmony of Phonemena's first couple of bars.

I recorded the premiere performance on a minidisc (in Bien, Switzerland, on August 15th, 2008). The excellent performers were Yuji Noguchi, clarinets, and Vincent Daoud, saxophones. Here are the links to the recordings available on last.fm:

Transformations

bagict act 1 duo clarinet saxophone score
Follow the score when you listen to Act 1

In the score for Act 1, you can see musical figures connected with arrows. The arrows represent interpolation, or gradual transformation, from one musical figure to the next. The performers choose their own way of interpolating between the written musical phrases.

bagict act 3 clarinet saxophone score

In Act 3, the performers complete the score themselves. They write in all of the missing details and interpolation paths they want to play.

Performance in Canada

The Daoud/Noguchi duo was invited in the Fall of 2008 by the Edmonton Composers' Concert Society (now with a new name: Tonus Vivus Society). They gave this concert in Edmonton on October 25th, 2008. I was honored that they featured this composition in their programme Daoud/Noguchi Duo: …vers un théâtre du son…

...vers un théâtre du son... that's really a title that suits this duo: I wish you can listen to, and watch them soon!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Max for Live: Extreme Time Stretching with Spectral Stretch

Image
In this post, I'm giving insights into the creation of the Spectral Stretch Max for Live Device . There are many ways to achieve audio time stretching without transposition . Some time-based methods build on Pierre Schaefer 's Phonogène . Another approach consists in processing the sound in spectral domain, using a phase vocoder . In this case, the audio samples are converted to spectral data through a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Then, even if we focus on extreme time stretching, the details of the phase vocoder implementation have important consequences on the sound quality and the tool's flexibility for live usage. Before introducing the Max for Live device Spectral Stretch, let's have a look at a selection of four possible algorithms: Paulstretch Max Live Phase Vocoder Interpolation between recorded spectra Stochastic Re-synthesis from a recorded sonogram Paulstretch Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch , also known as Paulstretch , is an algorithm designed ...
Read more

A Free Tutorial on Spectral Sound Processing Using Max/MSP and Jitter

Image
When I discovered electronic music during the Centre Acanthes 2000/Ircam , my favorite topic was real time sound processing in frequency domain. Hans Tutschku taught the wonders of AudioSculpt in Avignon, before Benjamin Thigpen taught Max/MSP in Helsinki. Now, the Computer Music Journal just published an article I wrote about spectral sound processing in real time and performance time ( whereas real-time treatments are applied on a live sound stream, performance-time treatments are transformations of sound files that are generated during a performance ). If you are interested in graphical sound synthesis, phase vocoder , and sonograms (or spectrograms) , I hope you will enjoy this tutorial. The great news is that you can download the article for free on the page of the Computer Music Journal, Issue 32, Volume 3 . Max/MSP/Jitter patches You can readily apply the described techniques in the development environment Max/MSP/Jitter . For a hands-on approach, make sure you download t...
Read more

GroundSwell 2020 Emerging Composers Competition

Image
Groundswell is a wonderful organization dedicated to the development of new music in Winnipeg and the Province of Manitoba, Canada. I've been invited to serve as a member of the committee for their first electroacoustic music competition, along with composer Margaret Schedel and composer William Brunson . It's been a fun and quite interesting adventure. We listened to more than two dozen compositions. I wish we could have included more than 5 finalists: there were a number of atypical nice compositions. To listen, head to the competition page . You'll find links to the finalists' music.
Read more