Newsletter no. 34
Newsletter no. 34
Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration Project
Dear ACTOR community,
As we approach the end of the calendar year, we want to thank everyone for their contributions to and their engagement with the ACTOR project in 2023. The ACTOR community is still growing! This year, ACTOR admitted 34 new students members and 5 collaborators. It was a year full of activities and productive exchange and we are really excited about what we have planned thus far for next year!
From ACTOR, we wish everyone a restful winter break and all the best for the upcoming year. Stay tuned for our next newsletter coming in February!
TOR Spotlight:
New TOR modules
Several ACTOR-Funded projects have drawn to a close, and their final reports / TOR Modules will soon be online. Check out the Timbre and Orchestration Resource each Monday in December as each new project is published.
December 4: Timbre in Popular Song (PI: Nicole Biamonte)
December 11: Dance and Timbral Exploration (PIs: Bob Pritchard & Keith Hamel)
December 18: Online Guide to Room Acoustics for Musicians (PI: Malte Kob)
More reports to come in early 2024!
EduFilm 5
EduFilm 5 is now live! Co-written and narrated by Jay Marchand Knight and Ben Duinker, with animation and sound design by Patrick Hart, this film explores connections between timbre, gender, and the human voice, specifically how we form perceptions of voice based on physical appearance.
Check all ACTOR EduFilms here.
Creations & Productions
Universe of Sound
The ACTOR project collaborated with astrophysicist Dr. Kimberly Arcand at the Smithsonian Institute and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory for astronomy in the musical auralization of astronomical images. The composition was created by a former composition student at the Schulich School of Music, Sophie Kastner, and was performed by an ensemble directed by Charles-Eric Fontaine with many former and current Schulich students. The piece was recorded in CIRMMT's MMR space and was released by NASA on November 15, 2023. Read more
Publications
Musimédiane
Check out the latest issue of the online resource by Musimédiane on the interpretation of "Les Espaces Acoustiques" by Gérard Grisey. The audiovisual publication features several ACTOR collaborators.
Musimédiane 13 (2023), Interpréter Les espaces acoustiques de Gérard Grisey / Performing Gérard Grisey’s Les Espaces Acoustiques
Éditorial : Interpréter Les espaces acoustiques de Gérard Grisey / Performing Gérard Grisey’s Les Espaces Acoustiques, by Pierre Michel & Nathalie Hérold
Remerciements / Acknowledgments, by Pierre Michel
Entretiens et répétitions / Interviews and Rehearsals, by Pierre Michel
Du signe au son : dans la forge d’un chef d’orchestre / From Sign to Sound: In the Forge of a Conductor, by Ingrid Pustijanac
Avant-Garde on Record
Publication of a new book by Jonathan Goldman, ACTOR member at University of Montréal
Avant-Garde on Record: Musical Responses to Stereos, published by Cambridge University Press, in the Music Since 1900 series.
Book description
An innovative contribution to music history, cultural studies, and sound studies, Avant-garde on Record revisits post-war composers and their technologically oriented brand of musical modernism. It describes how a broad range of figures (including Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Henri Pousseur, Toshirō Mayuzumi, Claire Schapira, Anthony Braxton and Gunther Schuller) engaged with avant-garde aesthetics while responding to a rapidly changing, technologically fuelled, spatialized audio culture. Jonathan Goldman focuses on how contemporary listeners understood these composers' works in the golden age of LPs and explores how this reception was mediated through consumer-oriented sound technology that formed a prism through which listeners processed the 'music of their time'. His account reveals unexpected aspects of twentieth-century audio culture: from sonic ping-pong to son et lumière shows, from Venetian choral music by Stravinsky to the soundscape of Niagara Falls, from a Buddhist Cantata to an LP box set cast as a parlour game.
Reviews
‘Carefully researched, intelligently handled, and enjoyable-to-read … an invaluable contribution to research on postwar modernism'.
Eric Drott - University of Texas at Austin
Presentations
In Search of Interpretive Styles of Baroque Piano Repertoire
Doctoral defense in musicology by ACTOR student member Viktor Lazarov
Thursday, December 7, 10 a.m., room B-520
Faculty of Music, Université de Montréal
Thesis title:
In Search of Interpretive Styles of Baroque Piano Repertoire:
Qualitative and quantitative analysis of performance parameters and proposal of a working method for the development of an informed and exploratory artistic approach to interpretation.
Evaluating committee members:
Michel Duchesneau - Committe chair and spokesman
Caroline Traube - Research advisor
Sylvain Caron - Research co-advisor
Mathieu Lussier - Committee member
Gilles Comeau - External examiner
Abstract
The work presented in this thesis concerns the characterization of Baroque music performance styles on the piano. Romantic, modern and rhetorical styles were analyzed in two experimental studies. The first, an auto-ethnographic study, aimed to develop a protocol for qualitative and quantitative analysis of the interpretation of a work by Bach (extract from the last movement of the Partita in C minor BWV 826) according to the rules defining the three styles (Haynes, 2007). The second experimental study is a case study describing the various stages of a working method aimed at developing an informed and exploratory artistic approach to interpretation.
Speaker Series - Leyla McCalla
The recording of Leyla McCalla's talk - How the cello became a vehicle for arranging Haitian songs - presented on October 5 as part of the ACTOR Speaker Series: Afrological Perspectives on Timbre & Orchestration is now available on our website.
Check out all presentations from the Speaker Series on our website.
ACTOR student members Leïla Barbedette and Viktor Lazarov, of the Université de Montréal, and their research supervisor Caroline Traube, will take part in the symposium "Paroles de musiciens aux XXe et XXIe siècles - L'interprète en question, questions d'interprètes", to be held in Paris on December 14 and 15, 2023. Full conference program
The presentation by by Leïla Barbedette, Claudia Fritz and Caroline Traube is titled:
"Deciphering the timbre and voice of the violin in communication between violin makers and violinists".
The presentation by Viktor Lazarov and Caroline Traube is titled:
"Giving shape to a Baroque work by exploring piano performance styles. Results of a case study".
The research projects are part of the activities of the "Timbre semantics" workgroup.
"Flou, flash, lucide" by Jonas Régnier
24 December
Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Thailand
ACTOR student member Jonas Regnier's composition "Flou, flash, lucide" will be premiered on December 24 by the Tacet(i) Ensemble at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre for the IntAct 2023 festival in Bangkok, Thailand.
The first draft of this piece was composed for the "Space as Timbre" research-creation project sponsored by ACTOR. The main goal of the composition was to explore how different spaces can be created in a sound with an acoustic ensemble. This piece is an extension and a re-orchestration of the piece originally written for the Space as Timbre project. Read more
Timbre Geeks Networking (TGN)
19 January | 12:00-2:00pm EST
Online - Zoom
ACTOR's Training and Mentoring Committee is pleased to announce our annual Timbre Geeks Networking (TGN) event, which will be held online on January 19, 2024, 12h-14h EST. This year's TGN is slightly different: we invite any ACTOR student who is interested in applying for the Y6 Student Presentation Award in Vancouver (https://www.actorproject.org/funding/student-workshop-presentations) to deliver a 2–3 minute lightning talk on their proposed project. Fellow ACTOR students and members of TMC will offer feedback on each talk in service of helping students develop competitive proposals for the Y6 presentation award.
Students who wish to apply for the Y6 Presentation Award are required to present a lightning talk at this TGN event. If you cannot attend but still wish to apply for the award, you can submit a video of your talk in advance. If this scenario applies to you, please contact ACTOR Postdoc Ben Duinker (benjamin.duinker@mail.mcgill.ca) to arrange submission of your video.
NOTE: students will not be evaluated for their Y6 presentation award proposals via this lightning talk, which is for training and development purposes only.
All are welcome, but registration is required if you wish to present.
Registration link
Zoom link
Speaker Series - Ayọ̀ Olúrántí & Braxton D. Shelley
18 & 25 January | 12h00-13h15
Online - Zoom
The Sub-Saharan Africa & Afro-Diasporic subgroup is pleased to announce the third and fourth presentations in the "Afrological Perspectives on Timbre & Orchestration" speaker series. Dr. Ayọ̀ Olúrántí will give a talk entitled "Yorùbá Language Tonality as Basis of Orchestration" on January 18, 2024 from 12:00-1:15pm EST. The following week on January 25, Dr. Braxton D. Shelley (Yale University) will present his work entitled "Playing in Tongues: The Hammond Organ and Black Pentecostal Instrumentality" again from 12:00-1:15pm EST. As always, the presentations will be held over Zoom, are free, open to the public, and do not require registration. The series has been organized by ACTOR student members Jason Winikoff, Danielle Davis, Joshua Rosner, Chidi Obijiaku, and Jay Marchand Knight.
Speaker Series - Ayọ̀ Olúrántí & Braxton D. Shelley
18 & 25 January | 12h00-13h15
Online - Zoom
The Sub-Saharan Africa & Afro-Diasporic subgroup is pleased to announce the third and fourth presentations in the "Afrological Perspectives on Timbre & Orchestration" speaker series. Dr. Ayọ̀ Olúrántí will give a talk entitled "Yorùbá Language Tonality as Basis of Orchestration" on January 18, 2024 from 12:00-1:15pm EST. The following week on January 25, Dr. Braxton D. Shelley (Yale University) will present his work entitled "Playing in Tongues: The Hammond Organ and Black Pentecostal Instrumentality" again from 12:00-1:15pm EST. As always, the presentations will be held over Zoom, are free, open to the public, and do not require registration. The series has been organized by ACTOR student members Jason Winikoff, Danielle Davis, Joshua Rosner, Chidi Obijiaku, and Jay Marchand Knight.
Zoom link
Timbre & Orchestration Summer School 2024
12-15 July
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
The Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration (ACTOR) Project is pleased to announce our second Timbre and Orchestration Summer School, held at the University of British Columbia’s School of Music in Vancouver, Canada, July 12–15, 2024. Building on the success of the first edition (Thessaloniki 2023), the second edition again foregrounds the rich and interdisciplinary world of timbre and orchestration research, engaging with questions related to musicology, history, music theory, composition, cognitive neuroscience, and acoustics. The Summer School is designed for graduate students (or advanced undergraduate students), postdocs, and early-career researchers in any field of music-related research with keen interest in timbre and orchestration.
We are thrilled to introduce our tutors:
Caroline Traube (Université de Montréal) - Acoustics / Music Perception / Psychoacoustics
Anthony Tan (University of Victoria) - Composition
Daphne Tan (University of Toronto) - Theory and Analysis
Michael Tenzer (University of British Columbia) - Ethnomusicology
Emily Dolan (Brown University) - Musicology
The application deadline is February 15, 2024, with results communicated no later than March 15. Spaces are limited, so apply early! For more information regarding the application process, schedule, guest tutors, and logistics visit - TOSS 2024
Resources
ACTOR Virtual Office Hours
Got questions about upcoming ACTOR-related funding and professional opportunities?
Stop by the ACTOR Virtual Office Hours for ACTOR student members and ask ACTOR Postdocs Andrés Gutiérrez Martínez and Ben Duinker.
Held every Thursday from 12:00-1:00pm EST, the initiative aims to inform ACTOR student members about upcoming ACTOR-related events in which students can present their research.
Zoom Link
Zoom Meeting ID: 830 9179 5949
Motion Graphics Template
We are happy to announce that a new motion graphic template has been made available to all members for the editing of ACTOR-related research footage. The template is compatible with Adobe Pro and includes a series of overlays to provide a more professional result to the edited material. All files are available in the ACTOR Repository - Video Template. For an example of a short video prepared with the aid of this template, check: Example_AMiT_StephenMcAdams1.mp4
Nicholas Shea
Nicholas Shea is an assistant professor of Music Theory at Arizona State University since 2020. He currently co-leads the CACTUS Lab and is director of the Graduate Certificate in Music Theory Pedagogy program. When not music-ing, he enjoys DIY projects around the house, leading Pathfinder campaigns, and playing with his two cats, Bucky and Sushi. PhD Ohio State University.
Nick researches popular-music performance practice through a variety of cross-disciplinary approaches, including corpus studies, motion capture, and music-theoretic analysis. Through his work, he aims to clarify how popular-music artists and general listeners understand musical organization through physical movement, in an effort to expand traditional conceptions of musical expertise.
Jorge Ramos
Jorge Ramos (b. 1995) is a Portuguese multiple award-winning composer, electronics performer, sound artist, and researcher based in London. He has written solo, chamber, symphonic, mixed, electroacoustic, live-electronics, film, stage, installations, and advertisement music for festivals, orchestras, ensembles, and soloists across Asia, the Americas, and Europe, while also collaborating with other artists and/or institutions on artistic contributions and computer music design. Commissioners and partners for Dr. Ramos’ work extend beyond the concert hall to major international soloists and bodies.
Jorge Ramos holds degrees from Conservatório de Música Calouste Gulbenkian de Braga, Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, and a Doctorate in Music granted by the Royal College of Music London. He currently serves as a collaborator and mentor in The ACTOR Project. He is an ENOA —European Network of Opera Academies Artist.
ACTOR Student Presentations Funding
Student members of ACTOR are invited to apply for an opportunity to present their research at the Y6 Workshop which will be held in a hybrid format (in-person/online) July 15-17 in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada). The deadline to apply for the ACTOR Student Presentation Funding is 5:00pm (EST) on February 15. Selected participants will have their travel, lodging and meals funded by ACTOR.
Please note that this year applicants will be required to participate in the TGN event on January 19, 2024 via Zoom in order to be considered eligible for this funding. Registration for the event is required and has to be completed by January 12, 2024. If the applicant is not able to attend the event, a pre-recorded presentation of approximately 2 minutes may be submitted to benjamin.duinker@mail.mcgill.ca by January 12.
For additional information and to access the application form, visit - ACTOR Student Presentations.
