Newsletter / Bulletin #29
Facebook/ Instagram: ACTOR'S June newsletter is now out! Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with all of ACTOR'S research, projects and upcoming events about TOR.
Publication: Zachary Wallmark's Video for "What is timbre ?"
Do you know what timbre is? Click the link or watch the video down below to hear Zachary Wallmark, Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Oregon, "break down the layers of timbre and what draws listeners to a particular sound.” Let us know what you think in the comments!
Timbre and Orchestration Writings: Seven Beginnings
Revisiting Jason Noble’s article about his composition, Seven Beginnings, commemorating through music the birth of Noble’s daughter. While examining the intricacies of the piece, it is also “far from being a technical étude, it is a very personal piece with a very specific motivation behind its materials and methods.” Follow the link in our story or down below to learn more!
Seven Beginnings: Fourth Beginning
Check out Jason Noble's Forth Beginning, as part of his work, Seven Beginnings! Click the link below to hear more about how Noble composed this piece using recordings of his daughter during her “babbling stage.”
Seven Beginnings: First Beginning
Click the link below to learn more about "the First Beginning," the first segment of Nobel's piece, Seven Beginnings. Jason Nobel’s work commemorates his daughter, Lily, as “the First Beginning,” explores the sensations a well-developed baby feels before birth. Noble writes, “The first beginning was noise, and it was as a liquid, suffusing and subsuming, filling every crevice, and of silent space there was none.”
Speak Web
SpeaK seeks to improve our knowledge about sounds in relation to auditory expertise and is calling on experts of music and sound to use the new web version to “create and share sound lexicons associated with a specific corpus of sounds.” Follow ACTOR to keep updated with projects such as SpeaK!
Stephen - Royal Society
Congratulations to ACTOR director Stephen McAdams who has been elected Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada! This is an outstanding accomplishment and is the highest recognition granted to the individual in the arts & social sciences by the RSC.
Lovin’ You — by Minnie Riperton
Learn more from Michelle Sulaiman about Minnie Riperton's unique, incredible whistle tone and technical style in Lovin' You.
Unveiling the Mystery of Timbre
As part of ACTOR’s series of Timbre Stories, “Unveiling the Mystery of Timbre”, explores what makes timbre so complex, yet fascinating. Click the link below or in our bio to read more from this anonymous author on his journey to understanding timbre!
ACTOR Speaker Series
SAVE THE DATE! The Sub-Saharan African and Afro-Diasporic subgroup of the Diversity working group are pleased to formally announce the Speaker Series: Afrological Perspectives on Timbre and Orchestration. The series, spearheaded by Jason Winikoff, Joshua Rosner, and Jay Marchand Knight, will take place over the 2022-23 academic year and will launch with a talk by Dr. Bibian Kalinde entitled, “Unraveling timbre in the music of the marriage ceremony of the Chewa and Bemba in Zambia.” Other invited guests include Kevin Holt, Andile Khumalo, Joel Larue Smith, Marvin McNeill, and Stephanie Shonekan. Bibian Kalinde’s talk will take place on Friday 30 September 2022 from 12:00pm-1:15pm Eastern (6:00pm-7:15pm in Zambia) and will be given over Zoom. Information about links to attend the event will be sent out closer to the date of the event.
Ilshin Composition Prize
Congratulations to ACTOR member Sang Song on receiving the prestigious Ilshin Composition Prize awarded by by the Ilshin Foundation in Korea! While this prize is typically awarded to mid-career composers, Sang was selected by a panel which included Unsuk Chin despite being a graduate student. Alongside a cash prize of 10 million Korean Won (approx. US$9,000), Sang will be writing a new piece to be performed at the award ceremony.
Musical collaborations, timbre, and recorded sound
Calling all pianists and orchestra lovers! Click the link below or in our bio to read more from Viktor Lazarov’s interview with the esteemed Professor Martha de Francisco. Together they explore recording processes, unique sounds, timbral differences, and so much more! Lazarov notes, “Martha relates specific experiences, notably, recording and discussing timbre with Alfred Brendel, the great Austrian pianist.”
Pour l’image- Philippe Hurel
Learn more about Philippe Hurel’s Pour l’image! In this piece, Linglan Zhu explores the musical transitions in the opening of Pour l’image. Zhu notes, “Two large-scale transitions happen consecutively within the first 60 measures of this piece, each of which showcases a set of different orchestration techniques that effectively modulate listeners’ perception.”
Musicians Auditory Perception (MAP)
ACTOR partners UCSD and McGill University have teamed up for the Musicians Auditory Perception (MAP) Project! MAP focuses on the creative process during musical collaboration, as 3 duos were selected to “document their collaborations while creating with binaural recording devices, adopting the concept of ‘sonic boundary objects”
"Jusqu'à peu" by Fabien Lévy
Enjoy Fabien Lévy’s composition, "Jusqu'à peu.” His piece builds on the crises currently facing the world, as Lévy notes, “Written for one of the most sophisticated instruments in human music, the piece remains on the symbolic level of these different crises, but follows the form and spirit of this emergence and decline."
The many facets of musical listening
Explore Lena Heng and Mengqi Wang’s work under the ACTOR Collaborative Student Project Grant. Through analyzing two musical pieces, they find that “successful orchestration is built upon the fact that regardless of the instruments used or the musical or cultural connotations of the music, they adhere to universal mechanisms of auditory perception and cognition.”
Masque De Fer
Check out Gabriel Couturier & Martin Daigle’s project on drum kit instrumentation, Masque de Fer. Couturier & Daigle contend that “Masque de Fer was a good research opportunity to expand the extended drumming library while generating great material for musicians.”
ACTOR Y4 Workshop first overview
ATTENTION ACTOR COMMUNITY! ACTOR’S Y4 workshop is just around the corner. The workshop is being hosted by the School of Creative Performing Arts of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Don’t worry if you can’t make it in person, a HYBRID FORMAT is being offered this year (online/in person). Click the link below or in our bio to learn more about the Y4 Workshop! Follow us for more updates on ACTOR and our Y4 Workshop!