PROGRAM OF MUSICACOUSTICA-BEIJING 2018

22 Oct. 2019 (Tuesday)

20:00-21:20 (Recital Hall, CCoM)

Concert Series (1)

RADIANCE: The Opening Concert

■ Rustle and Shimmer – for Bamboo flute, percussion and electronics (9’00”/2019/World Premiere)

Composer/Sound distribution: Marc Battier (France)

Bamboo flute: LI Yue (China)

Percussion: Thierry MIROGLIO (France)

■ Hymn for Creators – for Bamboo flute, percussion and electronics (9’00”/2019/World Premiere)

Composer/Sound distribution: Marc Battier (France)

Bamboo flute: LI Yue (China)

Percussion: Thierry Miroglio (France)

The title comes from a poem of American poet Gary Snyder, a great scholar of Asian poetry and spirituality. The verse goes “Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters”. Snyder, who studied ancient Japanese and Chinese poetry, is constantly inspired by nature. It is the rhythm of Snyder’s poem and the visual and auditive images triggered by it which inspired the writing of this piece.

Rustle and Shimmer, for Chinese bamboo flute, percussion and electroacoustic layers, is dedicated to its two performers, LI Yue and Thierry MIROGLIO.

■ Historias De Dos Mundos – for Violin, cello and electronics (6’30”/2019/China Premiere)

Composer/Sound distribution: Diego LOSA (France)

Violin performer: LI Jingcan (China)

Cello performer: LI Wenyuan (China)

‘Two hemispheres, two worlds,

so different and yet the same.

The ocean in the middle, always seeking Something.

Exchanges of experiences, decoding

life and living,

we dream of again finding our ancestors’ path, the mystery of the unknown.

These are our boats crossing each other,

My lion-coloured river and your Seine as well. My home is there, over there, or nowhere.

This work was composed in the form of a trio, the two instruments and the recording communicating with each other by moving from soloist to accompaniment in equal proportions.

Historias de dos mundos is dedicated to its performers, David Simson and Alexis Galperine.

■ Desert songs – electroacoustic music (9’32”/2010/China Premiere)

Composer/Sound distribution: Bruno LETORT (France/Belgium)

“Desert songs” was composed for Alain Dupuy’s scenography designed for the inauguration of the site of Atturaif in the heart of the Arabian Penisula, north-west of Riyadh. Founded in the 15th century, it bears witness to the Najdi architectural style, which is specific to the centre of the Arabian peninsula. In the 18th and early 19th century, its political and religious role increased, and the citadel at at-Turaif became the centre of the temporal power of the House of Saud and the spread of the Salafiyya reform inside the Muslim religion.

The work explores the multiple timbres offered by the desert, from the most minimalist to the most maximalist, from the faintly perceptible to the thundering. Spoken voices, felted percussions, horse races, intoxicating winds, bubbling waters are all elements that have built “Desert songs” in an exercise that plays with memory.

■ Overlapping Strings – Live electronic music for Gametrak and Kyma (9’09’’/2019/China Premiere)

Composer/Performer: WAN Fang (China)

Overlapping Strings is an interactive composition for Gametrak controller, custom software created in Max/MSP and Symbolic Sound Kyma. Sound materials used in this piece are recordings of double bass, human voice, and bell sounds. By operating the Gametrak controller in different performative actions, the performer is able to trigger, control, and manipulate various sound events and musical parameters, such as the rhythm and tempo of the human voice, frequency and amplitude of each individual grain generated from bell sounds, in real time. Taking advantage of the large performance area of the 10-foot cube that the Gametrak controller provides, the performer initiates the entire body movements as an integrated part of playing the musical instrument. The overlapped sonic events generated from different sound materials and the overlapped strings generated from various performance actions correspond to each other sonically and visually.

■ Lotus’s Words – for Guqin, real-time painting and Interactive music (8’50”/2018/World Premiere)

Composer: WANG Hefei (China)

Chin performer: ZHENG Zihao (China)

(Supported by China National Arts Fund Project 2018)

The work is themed with the lotus flower known as “gentleman in flower”. In the form of interactive music, it combines the three artistic vocabularies of Gu Qin music, electronic music, and traditional Chinese painting, and draws a lotus flower picture by using KYMA to connect Wacom digital board.

The work is composed of three parts. The three timbre of “overtone, press tone and scattered tone” in the Gu Qin music respectively correspond to the brushwork of “point, trace, and render” in the ink painting. Aiming to show the artistic charm of Chinese traditional music and convey the outstanding and noble spirit of Chinese culture.

■ Blossom – multimedia (5’22”/2018 /China Premiere)

Composer: GUO Wenjing (China)

Video Animation Designer: Lampo LEONG (Macao, China/USA), Yves SONOLET (Macao, China/France)

Blossom: A Video Animation of Contemporary Ink is inspired by Haizi’s poem Peach Blossom: “The peach flowers are blossoming, like a prison cage running out of blood, like a pair of axes running out of blood, like a warrior running out of blood. Why are the flowers so red, like the magnificent flames of a snowy mountain? My prison cage is on fire; it is collapsing, with the burning chains and iron bars, casting towards the surrounding dark plateau.” Through incorporating animated imagery from the culturally coded contemporary ink medium, this animation and interdisciplinary performance aspires to evoke a transcendental experience of the microscopic world, a glimpse into the crucible of genesis. Lively ink drops signify the pumping of the blood, the pulsation of the heart, the reproduction of cells, and they symbolize physical, spiritual struggle and rebirth, just like the ever-blooming of the peach blossoms……The interwoven hybrid of water and ink conjures up an interlacement of highly dynamic and powerful brush strokes that bring into being a trilling tension of life and death, and a world of vastness where nowhere is to be found. To understand these illusionary spaces, the audience “travels” through and across different dimensions, time and space.

■ Visages peint dans les Opéra de Pékin II – Multimedia（13’50”/2008-2019/World Premiere）

Composer: ZHANG Xiaofu (China)

Video Designer: ZHANG Chao, ZHAO Hanqing, JIN Hengyan (China)

All the world’s a stage,

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts…

– William Shakespeare: As You Like It

In time-honoured Peking opera, there are four main types of roles which follow traditionally fixed patterns for specific types to highlight the disposition and quality in the personages so that the audience may immediately identify them:”sheng” is the positive male role, “dan” is the positive female role, “jing” is a supporting male role with striking character and “chou” is the comedian or clown. Apart from distinguishable vocal tessitura, every type has its telltale facial makeup and decoration pattern – i.e. the Lianpu, which clearly denotes the nature of each character.

The composer attempted in this work to revise the set of percussions – the soul of Peking opera music – into the classification of material criterion, i.e. leathern, bronze, wooden and clavier – these acoustic patterns are an interesting couplet (counterpoint) to the four facial makeup patterns: sheng, dan, jing and chou, as well as the four major vocal patterns in Peking opera: chang (singing), nian (reciting), shuo (speaking voice) and yunbai (rhythmical declamation). Electroacoustic methods are utilized in the transformation and synthesization of varius percussion and vocal sound. A completely new kind of “acoustic facial makeup patterns” is vividly portrayed. “Visages peint dans les Opéra de Pékin II” was a commission from the French government and IMEB in 2007, world premiered in MUSICACOUSTICA-BEIJING 2008.

23 Oct. 2019 (Wednesday)

Guided Film Music Concert

19:30-20:30 (Recital Hall, CCoM)

Concert Series (2)

【Electronic Music in Film】Guided Film Music Concert

Speaker: LIU Sijun (China)

The Unique Expression of Sound Transformation in Film Music

Speaker: QIAN Qi (China)

The Present Expression Context of Applied Electronic Music in Movie Music

Speaker: ZHOU Jiaojiao (China)

The Unique Language Architecture and Design of Electronic Music in Film Music

20:30-21:30 (Recital Hall, CCoM)

Concert Series (3)

【Electronic Music in Film】Guided Film Music Concert

Speaker: LIU Hao (China)

Using Electronic Music in Film Music Score – A Case Study of Confessions After Twenty Two Years

Speaker: GUAN Peng (China)

The expression of electroacoustic sound in film Arrival, Gravity and Chernobyl

24 Oct. 2019 (Thursday)

19:30-20:30 (Recital Hall, CCoM)

Concert Series (4)

【Sound Image · China】- A Concert of Chinese Composers

■ Neuro – Interactive music for celesta and Max (5’05’’/2019/China Premiere)

Composer /Performer: ZHANG Yinan (Zhejiang Conservatory of Music)

Inspired by the deformations of the steel piano, an interactive work mimicking neuron motions, fused with Max technology. This work is inspired by the percussion of various instruments. Different instruments interlace with each other in music, and light and shadow move with the rhythm, as if neurons receive stimuli from inside and outside of the body and transmit nerve impulses to the central nervous system. The terminals of neurons are either free or differentiated into cells or tissues that are specifically stimulated. Neurons are the most basic structural and functional units of the nervous system and one of the basic tissues of human beings.

■ Worm Cave – Multimedia (6’52”/2017/ World Premiere)

Composer /Sound Distribution: CAI Lifei (Hebei Vocational Art College)

Let things go their own way,

Like overlooking the sky.

Do not control each beautiful life,

Let them partly hidden and partly visible,

Emerge of itself and perish of itself.

Break into the cave,

The whole world is far away.

Experiencing

The most crazy flying.

Searching for

The most peaceful and unknown world.

■ The sound memory of yong brakang -Eight channels multimedia music (5’37’’/2019/China Premiere)

Composer /Sound Distribution: QIAO Yang (Central Conservatory of Music)

Located in the shannan region of Tibet, yongbrakang is the first palace in the history of Tibet and one of the earliest buildings in Tibet, and later became the Summer Palace of Songtsen gambo and princess Wencheng. The sound memory of yongbrakang has three movements. The first movement walk into yongbrakang is an eight-channel multimedia electronic music piece. Most of the sound materials of this piece come from the real samples of the composers, and strive to express the rich cultural deposits and original ecological beauty of Tibet.

■ Four Seasons – forMorin Khuur and electronic music (5’30’’/2019/World Premiere)

Composer /: XING Yinan (Jilin University of Arts)

Morin Khuur performer: BAO Xinyu (Jilin Qianguo County Ethnic Song and Dance Training Center)

This work is inspired by the ancient Mongolian folk song Four Seasons. Matouqin, a representative Mongolian musical instrument, is used as the main musical instrument，It also sampled and edited the art forms of Humai, harmonica and long tune with strong Mongolian national symbols in the early stage, inherited and promoted traditional culture and art with advanced digital media technology, carried out creative transformation and innovative development of traditional culture, and presented a magnificent grassland picture scroll. The whole song is divided into four parts, spring, summer, autumn and winter.

■ Bird song – 16 channels eletroacoustic (5’37’’/2019/China Premiere)

Composer /Sound distribution: SHEN Lin (Shanghai Normal University)

Bamboo flute performer: WANG Weijie (Bangor University)

Nature gives a new life,

Like a universe being born again and again.

We are the children of the earth,

grateful for the gifts of nature.

We worship nature, we revere life.

But a long time ago,

We began to transform our homes,

until the boundary between man and nature gradually blurred.

Can man and nature coexist harmoniously? Is there still time? This work uses the real sound of nature (including birdsong, ocean waves, wind, etc.) to form a counterpoint and interaction with the imitation of birdsong played by Chinese bamboo flute. The author depicts a picture of mixed reality and chaos, twisted and intricate. The author tries to ask: when will man stop conquering nature?

■ A Glove with Some Sensors – Interactive music (7’23’’/2018/China Premiere)

Composer /Performer: WU Yifan (University of Oregon School of Music and Dance)

A Glove with Some Sensors is an interactive composition for custom-made performance interface, custom software, and Symbolic Sound Kyma. The composer attempts to study and explore data-driven instrument through the process of building the interface, composition, and performance. The performative actions selected by the composer derives the control data include bending finger joints, contacting two fingers using different pressure, hand movements in 3D space. After mapping data through a software layer, the data is eventually routed to the sound synthesis environment – Kyma. During the performance, the control data is sent to Kyma in real-time so that the performer can control the sound’s timber, pitch, location, duration, and volume, which as the resonances reflecting in the listening environment.

■ On the Threshold of a Drizzly Reality – for cello, video and electronic music (10’04’’/2014/China Premiere)

Composer /Sound Distribution: Yuanyuan (Kay) HE (The University of Arizona)

Cello performer: LI Wenyuan (Central Conservatory of Music)

On the Threshold of a Drizzly Reality for cello and electronics attempts to describe a mixed world of both my ideals and the stone-cold realities of my life. Everyone and everything enters my life for a certain reason, and at a certain time. This piece, too, came into my life with a purpose. It is a soul-searching piece for me. It describes the powerful emotion of my beautiful mind and imagination, and also reveals the various hard aspects of the reality that intrude on my life all the time. Perspective – drowning in illusion or dancing on the threshold of the reality. The cellist is on the stage alone, which is the reality of how I individually exist in this world. The electronics, based on pre-recorded sounds of the cello, are the illusion. Processed cello reveals a mysterious world, which sings simultaneously with the live cello. They are tangled with each other. The audience is unable to distinguish what is real and what is the “illusion”. In the middle rhythmic section, the repeating notes travel through stage and surrounding speakers. The effect represents how fantasy and reality seem so interfused sometimes.

20:30-21:20 (Recital Hall, CCoM)

Concert Series (5)

FROM GESTURE TO OBJECT: Concert of saxophone and electronic

Proxima Centauri is sponsored by SPEDIDAM, SACEM and Henri Selmer Parie

Saxophone performer: Marie-Bernadette CHARRIER (France)

Sound distribution: Christophe HAVEL (France)

■ Gli atomi che s’accendevano e radiavano – for Baritone saxophone and electronic music (7’00’’/2009/China Premiere)

Composer: Andrea AGOSTINI (France)

Gli atomi che si accendevano e radiavano (the atoms that ignited and radiated) is an ambiguous piece: its surface is shiny and playful, an instrumental virtuosity clearly inspired by jazz dialogues with an essentially rhythmic use of electronics, whose bright and aggressive sounds are not afraid to look at the idioms of popular music. But there is rigor underneath, in the formalization of melodic structures, and the adoption of techniques of frequency analysis, pursuing a gray area between timbre and harmony, the ancient dream of the spectral movement. And then, everything runs towards catastrophe…

■ Sikuri I – for Tenor saxophone and electronic music (10’00’’/2012/China Premiere)

Composer: Juan ARROYO (Peru)

This instrument from South America inspired the composition of this piece by its form as well as by the modes of production of sound. The Siku can be played in two ways, the urban way with all the notes played by one musician, or the « peasant » way with two interdependent musicians, each having only half the notes, who answer one another. This technique requires less breath (very useful in high altitude), more synchronization between the two interpreters and it creates a stereophonic effect.

My researches on the sound of the Siku have made me fascinated by the quantity of sounds generated by the filtering made by the position of the mouth or the intensity of the breath. I therefore decided to proceed in the same way for the electroacoustic part, by using different filters that have an effect on the sound of the saxophone. This filtering lets me obtain a curtain that often masks the sound of the saxophone. It allows to imagine a whole hidden, distant world full of unknown or ignored sounds submerged in the unconscious and that only distance lets me dream of.

■ Après la mort – for Baritone saxophone and electronic music (8’00’’/2019/World Premiere)

Composer: Qingqing TENG (China), Tsu-Yao YANG (Taiwan, China)

« Where was it, how did I get there, from what was I dead ? I had no idea Anyway, it was after I died there, that I became aware of my new state….»

■ Zahir III – for Baritone saxophone and electronic music (8’00’’/2011/China Premiere)

Composer: Simone MOVIO (France)

Already a lot of attempts to put the same dream into action, as a sort of obsession. Just focus three versions in the multitude of possibilities.

At the beginning the memories look like strong and clear but afterwards the mind transforms the the logic–temporal connections and the dream takes its own life.

■ Scherzo – for Tenor saxophone, small percussions and electronic music (12’00’’/2019/World Premiere)

Composer: Christophe HAVEL (France)

“They had a worse belief: they did not doubt that God Almighty would have wanted to blind and lose some of His creatures. Their divinity became their fate: a destiny that would not be blind, but on the contrary terribly concerned by the loss of souls condemned even before their death” Mauriac, Life Of Racine

Generally presented as lively and mirthful music, the Schezo makes me think of the fatality of destiny, that leads its character towards an inevitable end. Thus mankind, carried away by its life cycles, irresistibly moves towards the only ending that is within its reach.

25 Oct. 2019 (Friday)

19:30-20:30 (Recital Hall, CCoM)

Concert Series (6)

3 seasons of Haiku: Spring,summer,winter: A Concert of Annatte Vande Gorne

Inspired by the shortness of time and the long imaginative resonance of the haiku, this piece evokes contrasting worlds of the four seasons and New Year’s Day, in a divided 16-channel surround sound space. Nature, its cycle of seasons and related human activities is an ideal playground for the soundscape, a genre specific to acousmatic that I had addressed in 1986 (landscape / speed). Here, a series by season of small paintings, arouses in each listener, from a selection of some classic and contemporary Japanese haiku, an imaginary, mental images, emotional memories and sensation. These are based on the same images and energy-movements offered by the Western classical repertoire, from Vivaldi to Schubert, Schumann, Berlioz, Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev, Hindemith, Poulenc, Messiaen, Ligeti, Dufourt, and even JM.Jarre, etc.

To the primordial quality of a haiku according to the disciples of Bashô: invariance and fluidity, the couple answers: permanence and variation of Schaeffer, the one that characterizes any Apollonian style “where everything is only order and beauty” (Baudelaire, an invitation to travel).

■ Haiku: Spring – for Original 16 channels (8’00’’/2016/China Premiere)

Composer: Annette Vande GORNE (Belgium)

Here, in the first stage, it is spring that is evoked by a series of three haiku: Bird games, water games, children’s games. These three paintings compare fragments of the classical repertoire -shakuhachi, Messiaen, Murray Shafer, Ravel, Debussy- and composed soundscapes.

Haiku: Printemps was realized in 2016 in the 16 channels studio “Métamorphoses d’Orphée” by Musiques & Recherches and premiered on October 9, 2016 at the Wallonie-Bruxelles center of Paris as part of the Ars Musica festival. The work was realized with the help of the federation Wallonia-Brussels, service of artistic creation, direction of music.

■ Haiku: Summer – for Original 16 channels (11’15’’/2018-2019/China Premiere)

Composer: Annette Vande GORNE (Belgium)

To Mario Mary

We imagine summer because games of insinuating insects disturb the torpor of a dream, a summer afternoon, a sort of motionless journey. In the summer, its warmth, brings out the extravagance, the crazy dance of the will-o’-the- wisps. Each painting has its sonic and spatial writing.

Haiku: summer was realized in 2018-19 in M & R’s 16 channels studio “Métamorphoses d’Orphée” , with the help of the federation Wallonie-Bruxelles, ministry of culture, service of the artistic creation, direction of the music. World premiere at the International Electroacoustic Music Meeting of Monaco 2019

■ Haiku: Winter – for Original 16 channels (14’02’’/2017/China Premiere)

Composer: Annette Vande GORNE (Belgium)

To Daniel Teruggi

Haiku: winter translates, by the choice of the pictorial themes of each painting, sensations of still time, monotonous silence, frost and warm cocoon related to our imagination of this season.

Footsteps in the snow, monotonous game, fireside game, sound game (tribute to Bernard Parmegiani) Haiku: Winter was realized in 2017 in the 16 channels studio “Métamorphoses d’Orphée” of Musiques & Recherches, with the help of the federation Wallonie-Bruxelles, ministry of culture, service of the artistic creation, direction of the music. Order of the INA-grm created on January 26, 2018 at the home of the amateur artistic practices in the concert of GRM “my companions” chosen by Daniel Teruggi.

■ Déluge et autres péripéties – for Original 16 channels (28’02’’/2013-2014/China Premiere)

Composer: Annette Vande GORNE (Belgium)

This leitmotiv is brutally assaulted in ten verses, which demonstrate, drawing on all human activities and sensations, with the evocative power and sensitivity of one of our most prominent French-speaking Belgian poets, that the only way out of the rebirth of our civilization under other auspices, is that of his death.

This terrible text challenged me. I had no choice but to reinforce it with “terrible” sounds too, constantly renewed in a chained series of small paintings that respects the structure of the text, in the spirit of the cantata-shaped hörspiel. At the same time, Françoise Vanhecke commissions me a work that highlights the singing technique she develops and which is the subject of her doctoral thesis at the University of Ghent: singing backwards, by inhalation. It seemed to me very emblematic of what the Poet says.

20:40-21:40 (Recital Hall, CCoM)

Concert Series (7)

L’heure bleue: A Concert of electroacoustic music pieces

Sound distribution: Annette Vande GORNE (Belgium)

■ Voyage-Mirages – Electroacoustic music (4’00’’/2018/China Premiere)

Composer: Marie-Jeanne WYCKMANS (Belgium)

For the piece “Voyage-Mirages”, I started from an excerpt from a poem that illustrates the relationship that acousmatics allows with reality and its multiple mirages.

“So, no stopping. The immortal matter

A single moment could not rest

Nature does, patient worker,

What to dissolve and recompose.

Everything changes in his active hands;

Everywhere the incessant and diverse movement,

In the eternal circle of fleeting forms,

Shaking the immense universe. »

“the cloud”, Louise Ackermann

Work realized in 2018 in residence in the “Métamorphoses d’Orphée” studio of Musiques & Recherches, with the help of a grant granted by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, culture administration, artistic creation department, music direction.

■ Metroïd – Electroacoustic music (11’37’’/2018/China Premiere)

Composer: Jean-Baptiste ZELLAL (Sweden)

While composing this music, some synthetic sounds reminded me of the Metroid video game. This one features a space hunter going to the planet Zebès to fight alien space pirates… the game was released in 1986. With the memory of this game, the strong impressions it made me came back. I played it with passion, completely immersed in this other world that animated my imagination and followed me once again the game extinguished in long dreams, games and drawings. That’s why I named this music Metroid, for the memory of the game and especially the strength of my childhood imagination.

■ Growl ! – Electroacoustic music (12’39’’/2014-2015/China Premiere)

Composer: Åke PARMERUD (Sweden)

Metal music is popular in Sweden. And since my youngest son plays in a metal band, there is no way to escape this tradition even if I wanted to. So I became fascinated by the vocal technique of his “screamers” or “growlers”, which consists of a kind of natural distortion giving the impression that the singer lacerates his vocal cords.

He made me want to do a song for “chorus of growlers”, something I had never heard before (and that few people have heard). My son found me four of the best growlers in my hometown for a recording session. I also asked one of them to write appropriate dystopic lyrics.

Metal aficionados vehemently defend the importance of lyrics, even if they are generally unintelligible. This is the case in Growl!, except for two lines that I chose to highlight: “Hell is us / Die we must”. This sentence, typical of metal dystopia, seems to me to be particularly relevant in the face of climate change, international political crises and the problem of overpopulation.

Growl! turns out to be a mixture of metal, electroacoustics and electronica.

■ La mer, émeraude – Octophonic electroacoustic music (11’36’’/2018/China Premiere)

Composer: Joao Pedro OLIVEIRA (Portugal)

The sea, emerald

Imagine a small invented world, a micro universe where everything exists… matter, energy, spirit, mysteries, telluric movements, natural and supernatural forces. This micro universe is complete and by far, whoever looks at it sees it as a living ocean.

Piece composed in the Music & Research studio.

■ L’Heure bleue – Octophonic electroacoustic music (16’38’’/2017/China Premiere)

Composer: Elizabeth ANDERSON (USA/Belgium)

To my mother

L’Heure bleue: renaître du silence addresses the re-awakening of the human being and its environments which are illustrated through acousmatic sound.

The barely audible beginning represents the human perception of the re-awakening of the senses and the recognition of surrounding life and civilization as it also comes to life at l’heure bleue. The re-awakening of the physical body takes place through the simplicity and happiness of solitary play, and this joyous energy later expands to a societal level. Following, is the perception of the larval stages of nature which unfold to herald the re-awakening of nature. The work concludes with the psychological and, finally, spiritual re-awakening of the human being.

Years of experience in modern dance informed the compositional process. Initial sound material for the work was recorded in the countryside and seaside in Wissant (France), in the Cathedral of St Michael and St Gudula and the Foire du Midi in Brussels (Belgium), as well as in the city of Istanbul (Turkey).

26 Oct. 2019 (Saturday)

19:30-20:30 (Recital Hall, CCoM)

Concert Series (8)

BAYIN: A Concert of Composers from Coventry University

■ Flipbook Taxi Ride – Video and fixed electronic music (5’00’’/2019/China Premiere)

Composer: Adam COLLIS (UK)

All the source material, the sounds and images, were captured using a smartphone. The images are made with sequences of long exposure photographs which, when combined, form a time-lapse video. The sound in this work derives from audio recorded in a taxi. Outside the taxi there was a heavy rain shower and the sound of the rain bouncing off the taxi combined with the repeated “call outs” from the dispatcher over the radio made a very interesting and evocative soundscape.

To combine the sound with the visuals, I use a process where the average pixel intensity of a portion of the screen is mapped to a position in the audio recording. This process is repeated across the screen to give a complex, multi-layered soundscape featuring simultaneous versions of the original audio file twisted into new shapes to give new perspectives of the original recording.

■ A Shadow That Falls – for Amplified unpitched percussion and fixed media (9’40’’/2019/China Premiere)

Composer: Tom WILLIAMS (UK)

A Shadow that Falls is composed for the French percussionist Thierry Miroglio. The work focuses sonically on the timbral and gestural capabilities of the snare drum. The electroacoustic fixed media is composed as a backwash to the live and is composed solely from manipulated snare drum sources using Kyma and GRM Tools. The inspiration for the piece comes from the poem ‘Shadow’ by the British poet Alice Oswald and her descriptions of the shadow at dusk that is ‘crippled over things’ with a ‘shiver of something’.

■ Exchanges in Pace – for Percussions and electronic music (10’00’’/2019/ China Premiere)

Composer: Adam STANOVIC (UK)

Inspired by Henri Pousseur’s Scambi (trans: Exchanges), this piece explores the idea of fragmentation; Exchanges in Pace consists of a series of short phrases and fragments, of varying durations, that must be randomly ordered to produce an instance of the work. As with Scambi, this produces something akin to an ‘open’ work. Unlike Scambi, however, the various fragments are not a work in their own right. Rather, they are intended to stimulate live acts of improvisation from a performing musician, or group of musicians – although first performed using Vibraphone, any instrumentation may be selected. Since the various fragments vary in pace, the improvising musician is thus challenged to create a meaningful exchange between instrument and fixed-medium, work and performance, performer and audience. The title, Exchanges in Pace, refers to this challenge.

■ Imaginem Mundi, Per Orbern Sonus Saturatiorbis – for Percussion and electronic music (12’00’’/2003/ China Premiere)

Composer: Benoit GRANIER (France)

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery (Aldeous Huxley)

Imaginem Mundi – Per Orbern Sonus Saturatiorbis is a composition for percussion and live electronics. The piece is written for one percussionist – the composition is commissioned by the Music acoustic festival (Beijing) and French percussionist Thierry Miroglio.

The composition is written in a cyclic way – every cycle is made up with Alkusiotte and Et Harmuni Mundi – Alkusiotte represents the building up of a tension and focus on more classical notation where Et Harmuni Mundi represents a resolution of the musical tension by creating harmonies sound and spectral countour. The performer should take a great care in differentiate the two sections by playing differently both Alkusiotte and Et Harmuni Mundi in different manners. In general Alkusiotte will focus on sound saturation compression with high level, where Et Harmuni Mundi will present a music that is more gentle and much more harmonic, using drone and repetitive fashion.

■ Le Retour à la Raison – for Percussion solo with live electronic music (5’50’’/2015/China Premiere)

Composer: Samuel HAYDEN (UK)

This composition was written to accompany Man Ray’s surrealist film Le Retour à la Raison (1923). The music consists of three clear sections, each involving different groups of percussion timbres. Different kinds of complex rhythmical materials are intercut in a non-narrative, semi-randomized manner that mirrors the rapid film editing techniques of the film. The percussion sounds are also processed live using a MAX patch which samples then plays back processed versions of the percussion sounds, so each performance will be somewhat unique: random coincidences between sound and vision are intended. There are two different performance options: the three sections of music can be performed as separate pieces, or, the three sections of music can run together as a continuous piece. In the latter case, the first and third sections of music act as an introduction and coda, respectively, to the film, which appears with the second section.

■ STELE – for Percussion solo and electronic music (5’00’’/1995/China Premiere)

Composer: Gerard GRISEY (France)

How to let emerge the myth of duration , a cellular organization of a flow obeying other laws? How to sketch in conviction and on the edge of silence a rhythmic inscription that is at first indiscernible and finally hammered into an archaic form? In composing an image came to me: that of archaeologists discovering a stele and dusting it up to update a funerary inscription.

The solo version of this piece was realized for Thierry Miroglio

20:30-21:30 (Recital Hall, CCoM)

Concert Series (9)

Red Arc Blue Veil: Concert of flute, percussions and electronic pieces

Flute performer: Giovanni Trovalusci (Italy)

Percussions performer: Scott Deal (USA)

■ NOTTURNO SOLE/FRAGMENTS – for Solo amplified flute and fixed media with multi-channel spatialization (7’20’’/2018/China Premiere)

Composer: Nicoletta ANDREUCCETTI (Italy)

A fragment of the On the Nature of Things by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius, a text that will gradually emerge along the course of the piece, through the whisper of the flutist into the instrument, builds the image (and metaphor) around which the form of the piece develops. On stage two narrative spaces that contrast dialectically, organically and interactively through the multi-channel spatialization of acoustic and electronic sounds. The first is an inner landscape that gives life to a mobile, living, organically shaped reverberation by the gestural sounds of the performer. The second is an external landscape, a digital flow almost deafening, ‘seen’ through the inwardness: the gestures of the acoustic instrument once again ‘recall’, from time to time, the electronic materials, moving them in space, as an alter ego antithetical of the performer.

■ Grani di ricordi nel tempo – for Bass flute and electronic music (7’08’’/2017/China Premiere)

Composer: Walter PRATI (Italy)

Project built on the dialogue between flute sounds and granular synthesis. Live sound samples are recorded by the algorithm and re-synthesized in different ways and always in relation with the specific ways in which the sound of the flute is proposed live.

The granulator is equipped with dynamic controls implemented live or timed: grain size,percentage variation of grain size,grain separation,percentage variation of grain separation, grain transpositionspercentage change of grain transposition reverse of the grains,breadth of stereo distribution.

27 Oct. 2019 (Sunday)

20:00-21:20 (Recital Hall, CCoM)

Concert Series (10)

RADIANCE: Closing Concert of MUSICACOUSTICA-BEIJING 2019

■ Soaring Waves-II – for Computer video and 8 channels (6’27”/ 2018/World Premiere)

Composer: WANG Xinyu (Zhejiang Conservatory of Music )

Video: LIU Zhiliang (China Academy of Art)

Wave is one of the souls of water, one important component of traditional Chinese cultural images, and may associates with images like cloud and wind. The composer adopts computer graphical techniques with multi-channel sound processing and delivery, present a combination of visual image and choreography of spatial sounds to the audience. The piece is sponsored by the 2018 academic research project of Zhejiang Conservatory of Music, Hangzhou, China.

■ The Iron Rose II – Electroacoustic music (5’21”/2019//China Premiere)

Composer/Sound Distribution: LI Junzuo (China Conservatory of Music)

This is second piece in the composer’s “rose” series. Rose is a common plant in nature, but it contains many different temperament; the temperament of fortitude, stubbornness, erosion, gentleness, enthusiasm and mystery seems to appear in this plant, she has just The combination of softness and harmony, this feature also attracted the composer. In this fixed-media piece, the composer creates the concept of “Holophony” proposed by the Greek composer Panayiotis Kokoras, trying to effectively integrate a variety of different sounds, and also in the gesture of the sound. The texture and the timbre shape are shaped and use the concept of “Cinema for the Ears” to organize the sound to reflect the theme to be expressed. This piece was completed by Lisbon, Portugal’s Lisbon Incomum studio.

■ ZHENGZHENG – for Guzheng and Electronic Music (9’04”/2018/World Premiere)

Composer/Sound Distribution: XUE Huixin (Shanghai Conservatory of Music),

Guzheng: HOU Yi (Conservatory of Music )

In this piece, I try to show distinct pitch and style characteristics through two different tuning Guzheng. I also try to use different playing methods and various tools to play Guzheng, with electronic music to further tap the timbre. Two Guzheng on the stage are played by one performer, expressing the process of “dialogue” between two Guzheng in which they imitate, oppose and merge each other.

■ Unsteadiness – Multimedia electronic music (3’25”/2018 /World Premiere)

Composer/Video/Sound Distribution: XIANG Kexin (Xi’an Conservatory of Music)

Radiation is spread all over the world, and the factors of instability are around us. If one day the balance is broken, how small we are when we face destruction compared with the vast universe and everything. Edited by Adobe Premie and Resolume Arena, this work is generated in a powerful hybrid mode. Pictures and music merge into a special effect, which makes the works mysterious, illusory and full of reverie.

■ Chain – Electroacoustic music (5’31”/2018/Beijing Premiere)

Composer/Sound Distribution: SHI Yiyang (California College of the Arts)

The Chain in the microcosm are kind different from what we expected. In the macro world, the chain is just a combination of metal materials, but in the micro world, we will find that the essence of the chain is constantly breaking down and growing. This piece is divided into three parts, each part will gradually expand and grow, each growth will start from a minimum motivation, with us gradually entering the world of the chain.

■ Song from the North – for Guzheng and electronic music (9’04’’/2019/World Premiere)

Composer/ Sound Distribution: ZHOU Yuan (Xi’an Conservatory of Music),

Guzheng: WANG Shihan (Xi’an Conservatory of Music)

By integrating diversified sound, this works samples original sound of folk songs in northern Shanxi province and Guzheng, and sorts out distinctive and developmental audio material, which can not only realize the reprocessing and recreation of sound, but also achieve the integration of electronic acoustic music language. The natural appeal of traditional music is preserved and technology and creativity are manifested in the the final audio works as well. It combines the local musical language of northern Shanxi and electronic acoustic music with non-music as the main language in a harmonious way.

■ The mirage of starry sky – Multimedia Electronic Music (7’10”/2019/World Premiere)

Composer/Sound Distribution: LI Yanwei (Central Conservatory of Music)

Beautiful stars in the sky, dots of stars like jewels, set in the huge black velvet-like curtain, shining. Every star is full of emotion, it is like a naughty child, watching the world, every flash seems to be telling a wonderful myth story. This work takes the glass collision sound as the original sampling material, and through the processing of electronic technology means, it constitutes an auditory electronic music work. Through the designer’s video creation and the constant modification of electronic music, this multimedia electronic music work was finally formed.

■ Two-step Chan Machine – Electroacoustic music (7’28”/2019/China Premiere)

Composer/Sound Distribution: QI Yixin (Central Conservatory of Music)

The intention of the work Two-step Chan Machine is taken from the Buddhist thought of “getting Chan by touching Chan”. The Avenue is often hidden in the millimeter range, which can not be obtained with intent, and can be occasionally acquired with ingenuity. This work adopts the form of three-part body and ending in the structure of the musical form. The works express a process of gaining Tao and Enlightenment of Zen, from the confused blank at the beginning to the occasional surge of opportunity, then to the calm and penetration at the end of the real enlightenment, just like the journey to the west of Sanzang, you can see Buddha and Zen in every road you walk, every flower you see, every tree, and the hurried look of pedestrians on the roadside. Everywhere.

■《后土·尘归》- for Bamboo Flute, Percussion and Interactive Multi-channnel Electronic Music (8’29”/2018/World Premiere)

Composer: SUN Ning (Shanghai Conservatory of Music)

Bamboo flute: 待确认????? Percussion:待确认

■ Three Life of Floating – Electroacoustic music (8′30′′/2019/World Premiere)

Composer/Sound Distribution: HONG Lu (Central Conservatory of Music)

If you are a dream, what is your geometry? The Three Life of Floating Suite is an auditory-like electronic music suite. There are three movements – Silent, Think and Empty. The Chinese musical instruments are blown, played, sung and combined. The three most important attitudes in a person’s life.

Silent quiet, peaceful, lonely, deep atmosphere, mapping the attitude of life is lonely.

Thinking is confused and profound….

Empty shows a mysterious and unpredictable space scene, and the cry of the theme vocals is a review of this life.

Zhuang Zikai: The void and inaction are the highest realm of life. It is easy to stay in this situation.

■ Mandala – Multimedia (8’50’’/2017-18/China Premiere)

Composer/Video/Sound Distribution: Jiayue Cecilia WU (College of Arts and Media at University of Colorado Denver)

The word “Mandala” comes from Sanskrit, meaning “circle.” It represents wholeness and can be seen as a model for the organizational structure of life itself. As part of a spiritual practice, mandalas are createdwith colored sand. The creation of a sandmandala often requires days or weeks to complete. When ﬁnished, people gather in a colorful ceremony, chanting in deep-tone throat singing as they sweep the Mandala sand spirally back into the mother nature. This symbolizes the impermanence of life and the world. Mandala, a multimedia audio-visual piece that explores the use of body movement and virtual imaging to enrich musical expression. This project combines an interactive 3D bimanual interface with a computer imaging application designed to graphically render and physically simulate the interactive construction and deconstruction of the ancient Mandala sand art. Mandala, an agent of ancient arts and contemplative philosophy, uses technology to lure the younger generation into traditional cultural practices, disrupting the boundaries between ancient arts and leading-edge interactive imaging technologies.

■ Sublimation – for Percussion and Electronic Music (8’50”/2019/World Premiere)

Composer/Sound Distribution: Chih-Fang Huang (Taiwan China), Percussion: Thierry MIROGLIO (France)

The piece attempts to use a new way of composing, combining Chinese traditional elements and world music, mixing with contemporary music experiment styles, and improvising performances with percussion instruments and dance, hoping to create a multi-style fusion composition for electronic music creation. The piece is divided into three parts: from the electro-acoustic music prompts and the percussion performances, the short initial Guqin and other timbre prompts, the percussion and dance improvisation began to match the electronic music with a high degree of contrast. It also has a full blend of timbre and texture to gradually present different levels of sublimation, suggesting that people are rich in emotions in life, and that images are still resting. Then more rhythms and timbre change correspond to electronic music, competing and merging with each other, electronic sounds immersing in the gradual sublimation of thoughts, percussion and dance improvisation return to the original timbre and rhythm, and towards the end into a warm situation. The end of the piece is the atmosphere of the integration of the game and the mood.