ACTOR
Timbre and Orchestration
Summer School

About

The Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration (ACTOR) Project is pleased to announce the first ever Timbre and Orchestration Summer School, held at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), July 8–12, 2023. The Summer School is held in conjunction with TIMBRE 2023: the third International Conference on Timbre (hosted by the School of Music Studies and the Sound and Music Technology Lab at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), July 10–12, 2023.

In foregrounding the interdisciplinarity of timbre and its application as an important parameter in orchestration, the Summer School engages with research questions related to musicology, music theory, composition, acoustics, digital signal processing, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, highlighting empirical, theoretical, and computational research approaches.

What to Expect

The first two days of the Summer School (July 8–9) involves 2-hour tutorial sessions on each subject, held as a single group, on the following topics:

• July 8th:

  • Perception of orchestration | About this session

  • Vocal Timbre and (Shifting) Power | About this session

  • Timbral archetypes / metatimbre: approaches in composition | About this session

• July 9th:

  • Timbre and audio content analysis | About this session

  • Timbre semantics | About this session

  • Analysis of timbre and orchestration | About this session

The final three days (July 10–12) are embedded in the TIMBRE 2023 conference program. In addition to attending conference papers and keynotes, students participate in informal sessions where they discuss—with the Summer School instructors and facilitators—concepts, ideas, and issues emerging from the conference program. More practical information for students can be found here.

1. Logistics/Technical Information:

• All Summer School events will occur in the Telioglion Foundation for Arts building, unless indicated otherwise. Details regarding Telioglion can be found here: https://timbreconference.org/timbre2023/venue/

• If you have a Macbook, we encourage you to bring it, as one of the tutorial sessions will require them (students will be placed in groups, ensuring that at least one student per group has one). Instructions for downloading the OrchView software (required for the tutorial run by Stephen McAdams) will be available in Google Classroom.

• Especially if you’re coming from North America, be sure to check Greece’s plug types and supply voltage, and make sure you have the proper adaptors for your electronic devices (most modern devices convert 110V/220V by default, but do be sure to check)

• Wifi will be available via the eduroam network. If you do not have access to this network for any reason, please notify us immediately.

2. Hospitality:

• Lunches during each of the five days are provided by the Summer School. 

• Dinners are not provided, and students are free to make their own arrangements.

3. Schedule:

The Summer School will take place over five days.

Friday, July 7

• 19:00: Informal meetup at Tabya. Address: Kon/nou Melenikou 14, Thessaloniki 546 35, Greece.

Saturday, July 8

• 8h45 – 9h00:  Welcome and information session

• 9h00 – 11h00: Tutorial 1 – Perception of orchestration (McAdams)

• 11h00 – 11h30: Coffee break

• 11h30 – 13h30: Tutorial 2 – Vocal Timbre and (Shifting) Power (Eidsheim)

• 13h30 – 14h30: Lunch Break

• 14h30 – 16h30: Timbral archetypes/metatimbre: approaches in composition (Soden and Gutierrez Martinez)

• 16h30 – 20h00: Free time

• 20:00 - 22:00: Welcome reception for the Summer School. Drinks & DJ set by Marcelo Caetano

Sunday, July 9

• 09h00 – 11h00: Timbre and audio content analysis (Caetano)

• 11h00 – 11h30: Coffee break

• 11h30 – 13h30: Timbre semantics (Reymore and Wallmark)

• 13h30 – 14h30: Lunch Break

• 14h30 – 16h30: Analysis of timbre and orchestration (Hasegawa and Duinker)

• 16h30 – 17h00: Summer School / Conference bridging event (Hasegawa and McAdams)

Monday, July 10, Tuesday, July 11, and Wednesday, July 12

Timbre 2023 Conference, including summer school Roundtable on the final day. The summer school participants will follow the conference schedule, which can be found here:

https://timbreconference.org/timbre2023/schedule/

4. Schedule Specifics:

We wish to draw your attention to two events in the schedule:

• Summer School / Conference Bridging Session (July 9): This session will orient students for the three-day conference, during which students will be required to ruminate on the theme of consilience between the arts, humanities, and sciences (see learning materials section below) and generate questions that will form the basis of the conference’s final roundtable (see below). Details regarding how students can submit these questions will be provided during this bridging session.

• Final Roundtable (Wednesday, July 12): This 90-minute roundtable is part of the conference schedule but is primarily for and by the Summer School participants. Five panelists and three student representatives will discuss the topic of consilience. The discussion will be centered around questions solicited of the students (see above).

5. Communication:

The Summer School Slack channel can be found here: https://timbresummerschool.slack.com/ You will be invited to join the Slack channel via the email you provided when registering.

6. Learning Materials:

All required readings, listenings, discussion prompts, and other preparatory materials can be found in the Summer School Google Classroom, to which you will be invited via the email you provided when registering. Please peruse each of the topics for details regarding the preparatory work you should do before arriving in Thessaloniki.

7. Submitted Questions for Summer School Roundtable:

Per point 4 above, students will be encouraged to submit questions and discussion points for the roundtable. This will occur during the first four days of the Summer School (July 8–11). Submissions can be made via this form: https://airtable.com/shrY1g2Ve6lnong8B