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Showing posts from January, 2012

Ulrich Kreppein gets Composers' Prize

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I spent a couple of years with Ulrich Kreppein when we were in the Ph.D. program at the Harvard Music Department together. A great orchestral composer, Ulrich is also interested in writing opera and chamber music. Discover a part of his sonic world in the string trio Windinnres : Composers' Prize Ulrich Kreppein is one of the three recipients of the 2012 Composers' Prize, awarded by the famous Ernst von Siemens foundation . Congratulations, Ulrich! Of course, I do congratulate Ulrich's fellow composers: Luke Bedford & Zeynep Gedizlioglu !

Electro-chamber music: around Mantra

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The fourth session of my Electro-chamber music course was dedicated to Karlheinz Stockhausen 's classic Mantra . This composition for two pianos (with rind modulators, crotales, woodblock, and more) is a beautiful example of new soundscapes unveiled with live electronic music. It reminds as well that the artistic use of live electronic sound processing predates digital technology. Composing for a traditional instrument and live electronics During the class, the students explored crucial moments of the composition. In Mantra , Stockhausen found many great connections between the acoustic properties of the piano and the ring modulation process. For instance, at the top, the first piano's modulator frequency is set at 220Hz, the fundamental frequency of the A3 repeated in the melody ( musical formula , to use Stockhausen's lingo). With this setting, the piano sounds almost natural on the A3 note, and grows stranger and stranger the farther the note is from this central pitc