This section lists projects and awards funded by the ACTOR Project

• Research-Creation

• Strategic Projects

• Student Exchanges

• Satellite Meetings

• Collaborative Student Project Grants

• Composition Commissions

Research-Creation Project Funding

2021-2022

Round 1 (September)

• Robert Hasegawa (McGill University) [PI] with Carmine Cella (University of California, Berkeley), Pedram Diba, Jonas Régnier, Anqi Liu(UCSD), Jeanne Côté, Charles-Eric Fontaine (McGill University), and external collaborators Alex Huyghebaert (McGill University), Matias Perenetti-Piniagua (McGill University), Éric Bourgeois (McGill University), Paul Celebi (McGill University), William Boivin (McGill University), and Seungwoo Han (McGill University). Space as timbre (SAT).

• Gilbert Nouno (Haute École de Musique de Genève) [PI] with Carmine Cella (University of California, Berkeley), and Kit Soden (McGill University). Computer-assisted orchestration, machine learning, creation, and orchestration pedagogy.

2020-2021

Round 1 (September)

• Robert Hasegawa (PI), Jimmie LeBlanc, Isabelle Bozzini, Stéphanie Bozzini, Alissa Cheung, Clemens Merkel – Orchestration for the String Quartet: Workshop and Concert with the Quatuor Bozzini

• Malte Kob (PI), Martha de Francisco, Caroline Traube, Jean-François Rivest, Michael Sandner – ODESSA IV: New orchestra recordings – measurements – systematic analysis

• Pierre Michel (PI), Philippe Lalitte, Nicolas Medero Larrosa - The hybrid space in music composition: The use of tactile transduction devices to develop new interactions between the acoustic instrument and the electronic

• Shahrokh Yadegari (PI), Jeanne Côté, Pedram Diba, Min Seok Peter Ko, Sang Song, Tiange Zhou, Berk Schneider, Florian Grond - Musicians Auditory Perception (MAP) Project

Round 2 (March)

• Gilbert Nouno (PI), David Poissonnier, Luis Naon - Short geometric pieces (A geometry of sound and music)

• Caroline Traube (PI), Martha de Francisco, Jason Noble, Steve Cowan, Denis Martin, Simon Rouhier – Recording of an album for guitar and electronics in 3D audio, with a 3D video for one of the tracks

Strategic Project Funding

2021-2022

Round 1 (September)

• Eliot Britton (University of Toronto) [PI] with Anthony Tan (University of Victoria), and external collaborators Nolan Hildebrandt (University of Toronto), and Steven Webb (University of Toronto). A quick-start guide for combining electronic and instrumental orchestration.

2020-2021

Round 1 (September)

• Martha de Francisco (PI), Andrew Grey, David Cronkite, Michael Sandner, Margaret Tobin - Path of Miracles – A multitrack recording in 3D audio to recreate choral blend during the pandemic

• Malte Kob (PI), Martha de Francisco, Fabien Levy, Caroline Traube, Christopher Soden – Online-guide to room acoustics for musicians

• Zachary Wallmark (PI), Charalampos Saitis – Metaphors we listen with: Neural correlates of timbral brightness investigated by pitch-timbre interference and fMRI

Round 2 (March)

• Lindsey Reymore (PI), Nicole Biamonte, Matthew Zeller, Leigh VanHandel, Ben Duinker, Jade Roth, Jeremy Tatar, Christopher White – Interactions of timbre, genre, and form in popular music

 2019-2020

• Jason Noble (PI), Caroline Traube, Martha de Francisco - 3D Audio and Video Recording of Jason Noble’s fantaisie harmonique for Two Guitar Orchestras

• Robert Hasegawa (PI), Guillaume Bourgogne, Jonathan Goldman, Pierre Michaud, Jean-Michaël Lavoie - Orchestration special sessions at IRCAM Forum "hors les murs" (Montreal, April 2-5, 2020)

• Victor Cordero (PI), Clement Power, Gilbert Nouno, Luis Naon, Michael Jarrel, David Poissonnier, Samuel Albert, Malte Kob, Stefanos Ioannou, Kit Soden – ODESSA II: Orchestration and re-orchestration

• Jeffrey Boyd (PI), Friedemann Sallis, Martin Ritter, Hans Tutscjku – Evaluating spatio-timbral features using higher-order ambisonic recordings in the music of Hans Tutschku

• Zachary Wallmark (PI), Jason Noble, Caroline Traube, Charalampos Saitis – Orchestral timbre semantics validation study and database

2018-2019

• Martha de Francisco, Jean-François Rivest, Caroline Traube, Malte Kob, Stephen McAdams – ODESSA: Orchestral distribution effects in sound, space, and acoustics

Satellite Meeting Funding

2019-2020

• Jason Noble – Society for Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC), NYU (New York)

Student Exchange

2019-2020

• Emily McCallum – University of Toronto – McGill University

Student Presentations

2021

• Anqi Liu (University of California, San Diego) - A psyche space—possibilities of incorporating psyche into compositional process

• Jorge Ramos (Royal College of Music) - Technology and timbre — An autoethnography on the influence of electronics on the composer’s orchestration practice

• Joshua Rosner (McGill University) - Timbre and orchestration of big bands and jazz orchestras

• Showan Tavakol (Université de Montréal) – Cross-cultural orchestration in contemporary music : adaptation of traditional Middle Eastern playing techniques to Western instruments

• Victor Rosi (IRCAM) – Acoustic and perceptual characterization of subjective sound attributes using best-worst scaling

• Jithin Thilakan (Detmold University of Music) – Evaluation and reconstruction of a blended string ensemble: Recent developments & findings

• Kathleen Zhang (McGill University) – The anatomy of a mix: Creating sound recording pedagogical material for TOR from ODESSA musical excerpts

 2020

• Yuval Adler (McGill University) – Emergent Form Through Timbre in a Contemporary Aleatoric Composition

• Eliazer Kramer (Université de Montréal) – Timbre Possibilities in Virtual Orchestration

• Ioannis mitsialis (University of California, San Diego) – Analysis of timbral junctions conceived for the CORE class at UCSD

• Victor Rosi (IRCAM) – Uncover the meaning of four semantic attributes of sound: Bright, Rough, Round and Warm.

• Jithin Thilakan (Detmold) – Blending of musical instruments: listeners’ rating and signal analysis of a violin ensemble

2019

• Nicolas Farmer (Southern Methodist University) - Seeing new colors: Devices of Scriabinian and post-Scriabinian orchestration

• Dorothea Lincke (Detmold University of Music) - Acoustic characterisation of concert halls illustrated by the Salle Claude-Champagne

• Louis Pisha (University of California, San Diego) - Advancing the state of the art in real-time acoustic modeling and reconstruction for source separation

• Kit Soden (McGill University) - Orchestrational prolongations and transformations in operatic and symphonic music

Collaborative Student Project Grant

2021

• Martin Daigle (McGill University) & Gabriel Couturier (Université de Montréal) – Research-Creation: Masque de Fer

• Lena Heng (McGill University) & Mengqi Wang (Université de Strasbourg) – Sounding the interaction of cultures: Orchestration techniques and perceptual effects

• Kathleen Ying-Ying Zhang (McGill University) & Jithin Thilakan (Detmold University of Music) – An investigation of choral blending through soundfield capture, acoustic evaluation, and perceptual analysis methods

ODESSA Project

2021

The ODESSA IV research team is pleased to announce and congratulate Pablo Andoni Gómez Olabarría (Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig) as the winner of the ODESSA IV Composition Competition for ACTOR Student Members. His piece "Discanto II, theme and variations for violin ensemble" will be recorded at the Detmold University of Music sometime between March and May, 2022. 

Olabarría is a Spanish composer and conductor currently based in Leipzig, Germany. His compositional style can be defined as instrumental drone music, influenced by various sources like the music of composers Giacinto Scelsi or Phill Niblock, as well as other traditions not related to new music such as early medieval music, Georgian polyphonic singing, or drone metal. Read more

November 2021

September 2021

July 2021

June 2021

April 2021

ACTOR Director Stephen McAdams awarded new SSHRC Insight Grant

ACTOR Director Stephen McAdams is Principal Investigator on a Canadian federal SSHRC Insight Grant for 2021-2026 entitled "Analyzing orchestration practice in ensemble music" with co-investigators at McGill (Nicole Biamonte, Martha de Francisco, Robert Hasegawa, plus Christoph Neidhöfer) and the Université de Montréal (Pierre Michaud, Caroline Traube) and collaborators at McGill (Guillaume Bourgogne, John Hollenbeck, Lindsey Reymore, Kit Soden, John Sullivan, Matthew Zeller), University of British Columbia (Keith Hamel), Université de Montréal (Jean-Michaël Lavoie, Jimmie Leblanc, Jason Noble), UCSD (Roger Reynolds, Rand Steiger), and University of Toronto (Eliot Britton). Three axes of research will comprise 1) conducting timbre and orchestration analyses from the perspectives of orchestration aims and functions, orchestration techniques, and the perceptual grouping principles through which timbre acts a structuring force in music, 2) engaging in specific analyses applying the developed methodologies to student compositions and performances resulting from collaborative composer-performer orchestration research ensembles (CORE) and 3) using the analysis results to enhance the teaching of orchestration and to integrate timbre and orchestration considerations into the music theory curriculum.

ACTOR Associate Director Robert Hasegawa awarded new FRQSC Team Support Grant

ACTOR Associate Director Robert Hasegawa is Principal Investigator on a Québec provincial FRQSC Team Support Grant for 2021-2025 entitled "Analytical, perceptual and technological approaches to musical orchestration and its pedagogy" with co-investigators at McGill (Nicole Biamonte, Martha de Francisco, Philippe Depalle, Catherine Guastavino, Stephen McAdams, plus Christoph Neidhöfer) and the Université de Montréal (Caroline Traube) and collaborators at McGill (Lindsey Reymore, Matthew Zeller), Detmold University of Music (Malte Kob), IRCAM (Philippe Esling, François-Xavier Féron), University of Pavia (Ingrid Pustijanac), Université de Montréal (Jean-François Rivest, Jason Noble), and Aix-Marseille Université (Etienne Thoret). The program is organized around four research axes. An ongoing focus of the team is A1: Perceptual and grouping structure in orchestration, which continues the development of an orchestration theory founded on perceptual principles. A2: Analysis of orchestration in twentieth and twenty-first-century music builds on substantial advances in theoretical tools from A1 that allow us to expand beyond the familiar symphonic repertoire to address experimental and modernist music as well as popular music genres (jazz, rock, pop, and hip-hop). This repertoire expansion responds to recent calls for diversity and inclusion in research. A3: Performance, acoustics, and timbre examines performance nuance in ensemble playing through audio analysis and the close study of practical music making. Finally, A4: Space, recording, and orchestration perception considers the role of spatialization, room acoustics, and recording techniques in our experience of orchestration effects.

Winter 2021

ACTOR represented at the IX Composition Competition in Portugal

Jorge Ramos' composition 'Impasto' for large wind orchestra is a finalist in the IX International Composition Competition of the Portuguese Symphonic Band. The event took place at the Casa da Música in Portugal and will be concluded in the winter of 2022.

September 2020

Jorge Ramos was awarded 1st prize for his work - Point of Departure - for symphony orchestra in another Composition Competition.

The work will be premiered on the 26th of September 2020 by the Calouste Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon and live-streamed by Antena 2/RTP (Portuguese National TV and Radio). It was was composed using the latest Orchidea version.

https://www.spautores.pt/comunicacao/noticias/vencedores-do-premio-de-composicao-spa-antena-2-2020

June 2020

Jorge Ramos awarded an Honourable Mention at the II International Composition Award "Pedro de Araújo" (in Braga, Portugal, 2020) with the work Flux for the two historical organs of Sé Catedral in Braga.

In this work Jorge explores the correlation between orchestration and spatialization while bearing in mind the fixed disposition of the organs. http://www.facebook.com/festivalorgaobraga/posts/1542809659259680

November 2019

Jorge Ramos receives Honourable Mention at the Francisco Martins Composition Prize 3rd Edition by Orquestra Clássica do Centro with the work Moving Sources for classical symphony orchestra

“In this work, I - the composer - explore the role of spatialization and timbre blending as the main driving force to influence my orchestration approach. My departure point was to translate the concept of wind-chimes as a physical instrument and its properties to orchestral music. All of the pitch material was extracted from a sample recording of this instrument and then laid out in order to achieve a flowing harmonic progression that would take over the pitch development throughout the piece. Furthermore, wind-chimes is an instrument that if left alone it can be played by himself (with the natural stimulus of the wind) in a constant and almost in generative ambient-like style. In addition to this, there is also a very important spatial property where each bell/chime is in constant movement and also in a whole, all the bells move between themselves. In the end, this resulting harmonic progression and the idea of the movement of parts but also as a whole had a huge impact on my writing of this specific work. This is my first musical composition written under my doctoral research project at the Royal College of Music in London funded by the Doctor Knobel Fund Award and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.”

The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music, receives the AMS Ruth A. Solie award.

The 2018 collection, The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music, co-edited by ACTOR member Zach Wallmark, received the AMS Ruth A. Solie award at the national conference in Boston last week. The Solie prize is one of the AMS’s three annual book awards (for best edited collection of the year). The authors and editors are thrilled and humbled to receive the award, and heartened to see work on timbre being recognized by the largest North American music scholarship society.

September 2019

University of Toronto ACTOR student member Emily MacCallum is the first recipient of ACTOR Student Exchange Funding.

Emily MacCallum (MA, Musicology, University of Toronto), student of Sherry Lee, is the first recipient of the ACTOR Student Exchange funding.  She will visit McGill University in Montreal, Canada to participate in graduate seminars on the perception and analysis of timbre taught by Professors Stephen McAdams and Robert Hasegawa.

Jithin Babu P. Thilakan is to begin a new post at Hochschule für Musik Detmold.

Hochschule für Musik Detmold has hired a new scientific co-worker, PhD student, Jithin Babu P. Thilakan, for 3 years to work on ensemble sound within the Marie-Curie funded VRACE project.

June 2019

Eliot Britton (Assistant Professor, Composition, Music Technology & Digital Media, University of Toronto) won a Dora award for best Music / Sound Design in a dance production.

Eliot Britton (Assistant Professor in Composition, Music Technology & Digital Media University of Toronto) won a DORA award for his work on  TRACE produced by Red Sky

Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière (DMus, Composition, McGill University) was awarded the 2019 “Prix d’Europe en Composition.”

Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière (DMus, Composition, McGill University) has been awarded the 2019 “Prix d’Europe en Composition” from l'Académie de musique du Québec, providing him with funding to study in Oslo with Professor Lasse Thoresen over the coming year. His thesis piece, Dériver, for sextet, was premiered on April 3, 2019 by Ensemble Paramirabo in Montreal and uses many of the dynamic form principles elaborated by Thoresen in his book Emergent Musical Forms. In addition, Gabriel has been commissioned to write a work for ensemble in the framework of the 2020 ECM+ Generation program, to be premiered and toured starting in October-November 2020.

May 2019

Philippe Macnab-Séguin (DMus, Composition, McGill University) won the 2018-19 Andrew Svoboda Memorial Prize for Orchestral Composition.

Philippe Macnab-Séguin (DMus, Composition, McGill University) has been awarded the 2018-19 Andrew Svoboda Memorial Prize for Orchestral Composition. His orchestral piece will be premiered by the McGill Symphony Orchestra in the 2020-2021 season.

April 2019

Jeux de Chromes by Dominique Lafortune (DMus, Composition, McGill University) was premiered by the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble.

Under the direction of Guillaume Bourgogne in Montreal on April 12, 2019, McGill’s Contemporary Music Ensemble premiered Dominique Lafortune’s Jeux de Chromes for 20 musicians. The piece was written on the basis of Lasse Thoresen’s work on form-building patterns, processes, and transformations as laid out in his book Emergent Musical Forms.