Art and Soundscapes: Barry Truax
Time: 18 March 2009, 13:30 - 16:00
Location: RHB 167, Richard Hoggart Building
"Interacting with Inner and Outer Sonic Complexity: from Microsound to Soundscape Composition"
It is possible to think of the two extremes of the world of sound as the inner domain of microsound (less than 50 ms) where frequency and time are interdependent, and the external world of sonic complexity, namely the soundscape. In terms of sonic design, the computer is increasingly providing tools for dealing with each of these domains, such as granular synthesis and multi-channel soundscape composition. The models of interaction involved with the complexity of each of these domains are instructive, and will be presented with sound examples.
Website: www.sfu.ca/~truax
The talk will include performances of several multi-channel compositions.
Biography:
Barry Truax is a Professor in both the School of Communication and the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University where he teaches courses in acoustic communication and electroacoustic music. He has worked with the World Soundscape Project (WSP), editing its Handbook for Acoustic Ecology, and has published the book Acoustic Communication dealing with all aspects of sound and technology. As a composer, Truax is best known for his work with the PODX computer music system which he has used for tape solo works and those which combine tape with live performers or computer graphics. He releases many of these works on the Cambridge Street Records label which he founded in 1985. In 1991 his work Riverrun was awarded the Magisterium at the International Competition of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges (France), a category open only to electroacoustic composers of 20 or more years experience. He is also the recipient of one of the 1999 Awards for Teaching Excellence at Simon Fraser University. Barry Truax is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) and a founding member of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC) and the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE).
Organised by the Unit for Sound Practice Research
Art and Soundscapes: Murray Schafer
Time: TBC
Location: Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre, Whitehead Building
R. Murray Schafer will present and discuss his compositional work.
Biography:
R. Murray Schafer has achieved a national and international reputation as a composer, an educator, environmentalist, scholar and visual artist. Born in Sarnia, Ontario in 1933, he was raised in Toronto. After receiving his Licentiate Royal School of Music at the Royal College of Music London, he studied at the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatory of Music for a short period of time. He then pursued autodidactic studies in literature, philosophy, languages, music and journalism in Austria, Italy and Britain. During the five years in Europe, Schafer drafted three books, E.T.A. Hoffmann & Music, British Composers in Review, and Ezra Pound & Music. All were later published.
Returning to Canada in 1961, Schafer became director of the Ten Centuries Concerts series. After 1965, he taught for ten years in the experimental Communications Centre at Simon Fraser University, developing two areas for which he is internationally recognized: music education and "soundscape" research. His most important book, The Tuning of the World, documents the findings of the World Soundscape Project, which he founded.
Through his teaching years and since, Schafer has composed prolifically. He developed graphic notations, to the extent that pages of some scores have been exhibited by art galleries. He has composed more than 70 works. Many of these are environmental and/or dramatic works which create opportunities for greater audience participation and awareness, aurally and visually. Works of more conventional form, the three string quartets, for example, stand among the most important of the contemporary repertoire.
Throughout his career, Schafer has received an impressive number of awards and commissions. He is the only North American recipient of the Prix Honegger (1980, String Quartet No.1). He also received the Fromm Foundation Award (1972, Gita), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1974), P.R.O.'s Wm. Harold Moon Award (1974), The Canadian Music Council's annual Medal (1972) and its first "Composer of the Year" award (1976) plus the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music (1977, String Quartet No.2). In 1980, he received an honorary LL.D. from Carleton University, Ottawa. Most recently, Schafer was the first to be awarded the Glenn Gould Prize for Music and its Communication (1987).
Murray Schafer's visit to the UK is co-sponsored by the Noise Futures Network.
Art and Soundscapes: Hildegard Westerkamp and Peter Cusack
Time: 20 April 2009, 14:00 - 18:00
Location: Great Hall & Small Hall, Richard Hoggart Building
Composer and acoustic ecologists Hildegard Westerkamp and Peter Cusack will present and discuss their compositional work.
11am:
A number of sound installations on campus to experience. More details on the day.
2pm: Great Hall, Richard Hoggart Building
Concert of multi-channel soundscape compositions by Hildegard Westerkamp.
3.30pm: Small Hall, Richard Hoggart Building
Peter Cusack: Sounds From Dangerous Places
4.30pm: Small Hall, Richard Hoggart Building
Hildegard Westerkamp will discuss her compositional work related to soundscape studies.
6.00pm: Senior Common Room
Reception
This event is co-sponsored by the Noise Futures Network and Sound Practice Research.
Biography:
Hildegard Westerkamp emigrated to Canada in 1968 and gave birth to her daughter in 1977. After completing her music studies in the early seventies her ears were drawn beyond music to the acoustic environment as a broader cultural context or place for intense listening. Whether as a composer, educator, or radio artist most of her work since the mid-seventies has centred around environmental sound and acoustic ecology.
She has taught courses in Acoustic Communication at Simon Fraser University (1981-1991) in Vancouver (BC) and [is giving lectures and] conducting soundscape workshops internationally. She is a founding member of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE, 1993) and was the editor of The Soundscape Newsletter between 1991 and 1995 and is now on the editorial committee of Soundscape Journal of Acoustic Ecology, a new publication of the WFAE.
Her compositions have been performed and broadcast in many parts of the world. The majority of her compositions deal with aspects of the acoustic environment: with urban, rural or wilderness soundscapes, with the voices of children, men and women, with noise or silence, music and media sounds, or with the sounds of different cultures, and so on. She has composed film soundtracks, sound documents for radio and has produced and hosted radio programs such as Soundwalking and Musica Nova on Vancouver Co-operative Radio.
Peter Cusack, based in London, works as a sound artist, musician and environmental recordist with a special interest in environmental sound and acoustic ecology. Projects move from community arts to research into the contribution of sound to our senses of place to recordings that document areas of special sonic interest, e.g. Lake Baikal, Siberia, and Xinjang, China's most western province. Recently involved in 'Sound & the City' the British Council sound art project in Beijing 2005. His current project 'Sounds From Dangerous Places' examines the soundscapes of sites of major environmental damage, e.g. Chernobyl, the Azerbaijan oil fields, controversial dams on the Tigris and Euphratees river systems in south east Turkey.
He initiated the 'Your Favourite London Sound' project that aims to discover what Londoners find positive in their city's soundscape, an idea that has been repeated in other world cities including Beijing and Chicago. He produced 'Vermilion Sounds' a monthly environmental sound program on ResonanceFM radio, London, and is a Senior Lecturer in 'Sound Arts & Design' at the London College of Communication. Recently appointed research fellow on the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council's multidisciplinary 'Positive Soundscapes Project'.
As a musician he tours regularly at home and abroad. Musical collaborators include Clive Bell, Nic Collins, Alterations, Chris Cutler, Max Eastley, Annette Krebs and Viv Corringham. Available recordings include "Where is the Green Parrot?" (ReR PC1 - solo CD, "Your Favourite London Sounds" (Resonance), "Operet" (Rere121) with Viv Corringham, "Day For Night" (Paradigm) with Max Eastley), and "Baikal Ice" (ReR PC2) This event is co-sponsored by the Noise Futures Network.