The Royal Irish Academy of Music

Just to let you all know that I will be giving a talk at the RIAM in November (19th) 2009. If you are in Dublin or somewhere close by, do come and join me.

STeT Lab

I am excited that I am going to be playing at STeT Lab in Cork on the 10th of November 2008. A venue that celebrates "the practice of improvisation in all its diversity, complexity and, perhaps, contradictions"... no better to place to be!

Silly Movie

DRHA 2008

Just back from the DRHA 2008 where I presented "SL'Étude" which was originally supposed to be a performance. This didn't work out as it was technically a bit complicated. Instead, I talked about the project, and Chris Chong came for the presentation to talk more about the hard-core programming.
Some short clips from the presentation:


- LED lights for gesture tracking of performer -


- SL object interaction with MAX -

ICMC - more Photos

A few more Photos from the last few ICMC days
(also courtesy of Christopher Chong):



(Ivan and Elisabeth - Whitla Hall)







(John Kenny - Whitla Hall)







(Roots Ensemble - Oosterveld piece)







(Roots Ensemble - Weixler piece)







(Ivan and Franziska - Weixler piece)







(Roots Ensemble - Oliveros network piece)







(Last gig of ICMC08: Trad night - Mandela Hall)

ICMC 2008 is over

ICMC 2008 is behind us. We are all relieved and have had our one day post-ICMC depression. Now back to our daily jobs...
Here are further photos on flickr from the entire ICMC week.
(Photos below courtesy of Christopher Chong)

Photos:

New CD is out "May there be..."

Our new CD on the creativesources label is out. It features Pedro Rebelo on piano, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello, Ernesto Rodrigues on viola and myself on soprano saxophone.

Listen to Track 8: May there be ... space (7mins)

Network Performance ICMC/NYU/CCRMA

Today we will be testing/rehearsing the piece for next week's ICMC network performance. Exciting news is that we will be using Curtis Bahn’s vibrobytes.
We will be joined by two other ensembles in Troy/New York:
Tintinabulate (directed by Pauline Oliveros, Jonas Braasch and Curtis Bahn of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute):
Curtis Bahn - dilruba
Jonas Braasch - soprano sax
Pauline Oliveros - accordion
Dan Valente - violin
Holland Hobson - ?
Anne Guthrie - horn
Bobby Gibbs - clarinet
Doug van Nort - laptop

In Palo Alto/California by SoundWire (directed by Chris Chafe, director of CCRMA at Stanford University):
Chris Chafe - Celleto
Juan-Pablo Caceres – synthesizer

In Belfast from SARC The Roots Ensemble (directed by Franziska Schroeder):
Franziska Schroeder - saxophone
Pedro Rebelo - piano
Alain Renaud - laptop
Gascia Ouzounian - violin

Next week, we will also be joined by:
Laoise Kelly - Traditional harp
Ivan Goff – Pipes
John Kenny – trombone

The piece we are doing is entitled "Tele-Morphosis". It is an improvisation for three co-located music ensembles and telematic live-electronics. In this work the relationships between co-located musicians and their interactions across different acoustic and virtual spaces are explored.

ICMC 2008

The upcoming ICMC (International Computer Music Conference) is very, very close.
It is taking place in Belfast this year and we are all flat out with organising. I have taken on the artisitc direction of the Roots Ensemble, which will be playing the opening concert of the ICMC on Sunday, the 24th of August, 7pm in the Whitla Hall. The Roots Ensemble will be playing throughout the conference in various formations. I have been able to recruit some amazing players and if you are nearby you can hear performers such as German based Flautist Carin Levine, Portuguese Percussionist Pedro Carneiro, UK-based Pianist Philip Thomas, Trombonist John Kenny from Scotland, and Cellist Su-a-Lee, Violinist Roman Mints, Concert Accordionist Denis Patkovic from Germany, Irish born (New-York based) Piper Ivan Goff, Irish Harpist Laoise Kelly, Bass Clarinettist Deirdre O'Leary, US-based Clarinettist Esther Lamneck and my humble self on saxes.

Braço De Prata -Lisbon 2008

Had our free improv gig end of July at the Braço De Prata.
It was a really great gig. I will upload a few samples soon.
Over dinner we talked politics and music and the treatment of musicians in general. There was this sense by the Portuguese based people that musicians are really at the bottom of the 'creative pool'; that they often appear "in brackets".
So, I liked this very much and we decided to call our quartet, which had its second get-together, exactly this - In[brackets].

SL'Étude (click for Flickr Photos)

SL'Étude is a series of pieces for SecondLife (SL) and a RealLife (RL) performance space capable of sound spatialization.
The RL and the SL space have a very similar layout - see diagram above.
SL is explored in a two directional fashion. It engages the avatars by allowing them to spatialize sounds in RL by positioning specifically designed objects in SL.

I recorded these sounds objects. They are solo saxophone snippets that explore the timbral possibilities of one sound (note) on the saxophone. The idea of this one note exploration was derived after talking to Joan La Barbara In March 08 at the Sonic Arts Research Center about her work entitled “One-Note Internal Resonance Investigation for voice alone” - cool piece, and she left me a copy of the score to have a look at.

What Happens?
For example, if an avatar picks up object 1 he/she will hear the one note exploration linked to that object. The avatar may then place the object closer to one of the loudspeakers in the SL space which will result in sound spatialization in the RL space. The saxophonist in the RL space will then interact with the avatars’ compositional strategies.

What Else?
The RL performer is equipped with LED lights in order to track her gestures while playing. In this way the performer’s movements can be mapped onto a SL avatar or a more abstract representation of a humanoid figure, thus enabling a two way interaction of movement and sounds.

How Far Is This?
We are in the process of setting up the SL space with the objects.
The installation has been up and running on the SARC SL space on the European University Island (http://slurl.com/secondlife/European%20University%20II/134/130/27)
since early May 2008.


First Performance?
The first performance tests were carried out at the beginning of June 2008.
The RL space was the Sonic Arts Research Center (SARC) in Belfast, UK.
Here is a short youtube overview of what we did.

Uff. Long Blog, this one.

July Gig at the Fábrica Braço de Prata - Lisbon

I am very exciting about a follow up gig from last sommer's Goethe Institut free improv gig with cellist and improvisor Ulrich Mitzlaff,and guitarist and improvisor Nuno Rebelo plus Pedro Rebelo on prosthetic piano.
On July 26th 2008 we will be playing in the:
Fábrica Braço de Prata:
Rua da Fábrica do Material de Guerra, nº1
Lisbon Portugal

Net vs Net - recording

5th of June 2008 SARC - Stanford:
I will be recording "Net vs Net", the piece I played in the US in April 08.
Also, a new work by Justin Yang with Justin on sax.
Involved: Alain Renaud, Juan-Pablo Caceres and Justin Yang.

Caressing the Skin - mobile devices and bodily engagement

A paper on the skin and mobile devices. Recently given at the Mobile Music Workshop conference in Vienna (13-15th May 2008): Conference link.
A shorter version of this paper will be appearing in the 4th edition of Stimulus Respond: SKIN.

Concert tonight - CCRMA Stanford

And tonight, Pedro Rebelo and myself are playing at CCRMA in Stanford. CCRMA Stage, 8pm.
Program: similar to last night at CNMAT in Berkeley, but I am also playing a network piece by Alain Renaud (who will be in the UK at SARC) and Juan-Pablo Cáceres (who will be at CCRMA) entitled "Drony Feeds Back" (yes, I know not the best title in this world!!!).

Pedro (piano and feedback) and I (sax) will be presenting a new feedback improvisation called "Over Hear".

Also, I will be playing an improvisation for solo sax that looks at the possible interruptions of the human body with the instrument and at the a-synchronicities of certain body parts (i.e. tongue and fingers are not synchronized or the breath tries to interfere with the air column of the instrument). I have called this "Étude".

Link to some Flickr Fotos.

Concert tonight - CNMAT California

Tonight, I am playing at CNMAT, Berkeley California. Pedro Rebelo and myself are doing a SARC showcase concert and I will be playing "Fragmentos" for soprano sax and electronics by Pedro Rebelo. This is a US premiere.
In the second half, we will be doing an improv and will be joined by David Wessel and Michael Zbyszynski.
Amongst the pieces played will be a new work by Pedro Rebelo, entitled "Netrooms: The Long Feedback".

MUSICKING THE NETWORK: THE BODY AS DISTURBANT

One of my forthcoming publications that investigates the network as a site for music performance; in particular, the net’s performative conditions with the tightly linked notion of community that become exposed through the medium of music as an intrinsic social practice.
In this paper we examine the scattered viewpoints that characterize the network and question the idealized view of an all-connectedness. We position the human body as an interrupter of the network, and argue for a framework that, contrary to the often holistic approach to performing in the net, favors glances, fragments and desires....

Schroeder, F. and Rebelo, P. (2008, forthcoming). MUSICKING THE NETWORK: THE BODY AS DISTURBANT. Accepted for the Dispersive Anatomies issue in the Leonardo Electronic Almanac.

Research Seminar - SARC

On December, 12th 2007 I gave a research seminar to staff and postgraduate students at the Sonic Arts Research Center about network performance.
The seminar gave insights into the cultural implications of the network as a site for performance, and discussed vital issues which arise when playing music with others in disparate sites. (Sorry, the keynote file is too big to upload).

Disparate Bodies- a multi-site networked performance

As part of a three year European Culture network project CO-ME-DI-A
(directed by IRCAM with partners here in Belfast as well as in Graz, Prague, Genoa, Budapest and Hamburg), we have just completed a huge network performance (29th of November 2007).

The performance took place in Belfast - SARC, in Hamburg and in Graz as well as in SecondLife.
More info on the Disparate Bodies webpage.

Here is the slide show that was cast into SL:



Great success!!! A short movie with picts from the performance:




And here on youtube:

Faint - new trio

The new trio CD Faint is out on the creative sources record label.

Video of the CD launch
(11th October 2007 at the Sonic Arts Research Center in Belfast)