Electronic music pioneers

[Roland Kuit]

And maybe it was a hint to put more women composes in this thread.

Maryanne Amacher
(February 25, 1938 – October 22, 2009) was an American composer and installation artist. She worked extensively with the physiological (not psychoacoustic) phenomenon called otoacoustic emission, in which the ears themselves act as sound generating devices.

Amacher was born in Kane, Pennsylvania, to an American nurse and a Swiss freight train worker. As the only child, she grew up playing the piano. Amacher left Kane to attend the University of Pennsylvania on a full scholarship where she received a B.F.A in 1964. While there she studied composition with George Rochberg and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Subsequently, she did graduate work in acoustics and computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

She worked extensively with the physiological (not psychoacoustic) phenomenon called otoacoustic emission, in which the ears themselves act as sound generating devices. Amacher composed several "ear dances" designed to stimulate clear "third" tones coming from the listener's ears. It's not yet adequately researched and clear as to whether these works are solely from otoacoustic emissions or perhaps also combination and difference tones.(wiki)



Head Rhythm 1 and Plaything 2 - Maryanne Amacher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MahrtRV ... p7Ra2m3ojj

[Roland Kuit]

Tamas Ungvary



Tamas Ungvary was born in Hungary in 1936 and has for many years lived in Sweden where he is currently responsible for the production, instruction and program development of computer music at The Electronic Music Studio (EMS) in Stockholm. Member of the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra, 1957—1967. Studies and Diploma (1969) in conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. After his arrival in Sweden, Ungvary's conducting activity continued together with a gradual transition to computer music composition and program development. Since 1972 Ungvary's compositions have been performed at the majority of the European and American festivals.


Tamas Ungvary. "Anonce"

Ungvary has held innumerable workshops and seminars in both Europe and the United States. As a composer Ungvary was influenced by Györgi Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis and the Swedish computer music pioneer Jan W. Morthenson. Ungvary's intention is to create music, that evokes an orchestral sound without the use of traditional musical instruments, but also without imitating the usual orchestra instruments. Many of his works originate from the tension between static's and dynamics of the sound material. Whenever Ungvary combines traditional instruments with computer sounds, he often directs the electronic versus instrumental sounds from a mergence into a supplementation. Furthermore, Ungvary tries to provide the player with a sense of freedom through strange notations, but at the same time tries to force him to a very well-defined textual, structural and musical style and expression.

Ungvary's special interest is the exploration of the possibilities which are able to solve the obvious communication problems between computers and humans and to develop means of interpretation that already exist in the instrumental music. For this reason, he developed his own computer languages (compositional computer languages), used and designed new input devices with which he tries to solve the mentioned problem in his compositional works.

The author of the realtime software CHOR shows examples controlling the hybrid hardware system of EMS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcpYC2XPSuE

Music:

Interaction#2 Part 1
http://youtu.be/HlQd-N9EH80

Interaction#2 Part 2
http://youtu.be/P1erpoNToV8

[Roland Kuit]

Bent Lorentzen (born 11 February 1935), is a Danish composer)



Bent Lorentzen was born in Stenvad, a village in eastern Jutland. He studied musicology at the university in Aarhus and at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. He was a pupil of Knud Jeppesen, Finn Høffding, Vagn Holmboe and Jørgen Jersild. After his final examination he taught at the Academy of Music in Aarhus for some years.

Lorentzen was one of the earliest pioneers in the field of Danish electronic music (The Bottomless Pit in 1972 for the Nordic Music Days in Oslo, and Visions 1978), which was also introduced with an educational aim: the LP Elektronmusikkens materiale [The Material of Electronic Music, 1968] and the LP Water – electronic music for children, 1968.

Lorentzen's orchestral music includes concertos for oboe (1980), cello (1984), piano (1984), saxophone (1986), trumpet (1991) and violin (2001); his chamber music comprises solo works for organ, piano, trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, guitar, violin, cello and double-bass, as well as string quartets and works with mixed ensembles (2-12 instruments). Wiki.

Bent Lorentzen - Interferences (1967)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5uN-2l-TrA

[Roland Kuit]

George Hatzimichelakis

Born in Piraeus, Greece in 1959. Ηe studied Music Theory with Costas Clavas, Byzantine Music with Constantinos Catsoulis and Vassilis Nonis, and Composition with Theodore Antoniou. He has also attended the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Literature in the University of Athens.

He has extensive experience in Greek traditional music and in free improvisational practices. His works include compositions for solo instruments, chamber music, symphonic music, stage music and soundtracks of documentaries. He has received commissions to compose for ERT (Greek state radio and television), for various Greek orchestras as well as for other music organizations.

At the request of the choreographer Maria M. Horss he composed the music for the Lighting of the Olympic Torch Ceremonies for the 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 Olympic Games.

He is a member of the Greek Composers Union and artistic director of the Municipal Conservatory of Petroupolis in Athens.
(http://sites.google.com/site/gxatzi2b/biography)



List of works computer music:
http://hatzimichelakis.blogspot.nl/sear ... er%20music

Chrysanthos Sleepeth
A composition by George Hatzimichelakis, III-2014, with use the UPIC/High C system.
made with the program HighC, by using a few envelopes and several waveforms in combination with imported waves-samples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=12&v=DzXZ0U-4_M4

More about UPIC here: http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php ... 30#p313030

[Mr Arkadin]

I'd like to add an old tutor of mine from back when I did some courses on Musique Concrete and on the (then new) Fairlight CMI back in the '80s:

Jonty Harrison (1952-)

Jonty Harrison (born 1952) studied with Bernard Rands at the University of York, graduating with a DPhil in Composition in 1980. Between 1976 and 1980 he lived in London, working at the National Theatre (where he produced the tape components for many productions, including Tamburlaine the Great, Julius Caesar, Brand and Amadeus) and City University.
In 1980 he joined the Music Department of The University of Birmingham, where he is now Senior Lecturer, as well as Director of BEAST (Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre) and the Electroacoustic Music Studios; for ten years he was Artistic Director of the Department's annual Barber Festival of Contemporary Music.

He has been a Board member of Sonic Arts Network for many years (Chair 1993-96), his main responsibility being liaison with agencies in various parts of the UK in an attempt to establish a National Studio. He plays an active role in the musical life of Britain, serving on a number of committees, as well as making conducting appearances with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (most notably conducting Stockhausen's Momentein Birmingham, Huddersfield and London) and the University New Music Ensemble. He has been a member of the Music Advisory Panel of the Arts Council of Great Britain and of the Council of the Society for the Promotion of New Music.

As a composer he has received several Prizes and Mentions in the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Awards (including, in 1992, a Euphonie d'Or for Klang, cited as one of the "significant works" of the Bourges competition's history), Distinction and Mention in the Prix Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria, First Prize in the Musica Nova competition, Prague, the Lloyds Bank National Composers' Award, the PRS Prize for Electroacoustic Composition, an Arts Council Composition Bursary and a Leverhulme Research Grant. Commissions have come from many leading performers and studios, including the Groupe de Recherches Musicales, Paris, the Groupe de Musique Expérimentale de Bourges, the International Computer Music Association, MAFILM/Magyar Rádió, Budapest, IRCAM/Ensemble InterContemporain, Paris, the BBC, the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble, the Nash Ensemble, Singcircle, John Harle, Beverly Davison, Harry Sparnaay and Jos Zwaanenburg.

His music is performed and broadcast worldwide, and several works are available on CD: Pair/Impair, ...et ainsi de suite..., Unsound Objects, Aria and Hot Air on Articles indéfinis, a Jonty Harrison "solo" CD on the empreintes DIGITALeslabel (Montreal); Klang and EQ on NMC (London). Upcoming releases include Sons transmutants/sans transmutant and Ottone on Merlin and Unsound Objects as part of the CDCM collection on Centaur.

http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/harrison/biography.htm



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur3Voi5DPWY

[Roland Kuit]

Thanks Mr. Arkadin.

The video wasn't available in my country.
This one is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ll7jtHr95k

[Roland Kuit]

Włodzimierz Kotoński (23 August 1925 – 4 September 2014), was a Polish composer.

Born in Warsaw, Kotoński studied there with Piotr Rytel and Tadeusz Szeligowski at the PWSM, graduating in 1951. In an initial period of activity he took an interest in folk music from the Podhale region in southern Poland. After attending the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1957–61, he adopted punctual serialism in works like Sześć miniatur ('Six Miniatures') for clarinet and piano of 1957 and Muzyka kameralna ('Chamber Music') for 21 instruments and percussion in the following year. This trend culminated in 1959 in Musique en relief for six orchestral groups (Thomas 2001). His Etiuda na jedno uderzenie w talerz ('Study on One Cymbal Stroke') was the first Polish piece of electronic music, created at Polish Radio's Experimental Studio. He also worked in various electronic music studios abroad, amongst others in Cologne, Paris, Freiburg, and Berlin.

In 1967 he was appointed lecturer in composition at the Frédéric Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw, where he also directed the electronic music studio. Notably, he wrote the first book in Polish on the field of electronic / electroacoustic music.

In the years 1974–1976 he was head music editor at the Polskie Radio and head music director for the Polish Radio and Television. In the years 1980–1983 he was vice president, and in 1983–1989 president of the Polish Section, International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM). He presented guest lectures in composition and electroacoustic music at foreign universities in, amongst others, Stockholm, Buffalo, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem.

His students included: Jacek Grudzien, Jarosław Kapuściński, Krzysztof Knittel, Stanislaw Krupowicz, Owen Leech, Hanna Kulenty, Pawel Mykietyn, Pawel Szymanski. See: List of music students by teacher: G to M#Włodzimierz Kotoński.

He died in Warsaw at the age of 89 on 4 September 2014.(Wiki)



Włodzimierz Kotoński - Etiuda na jedno uderzenie w talerz (Study for one cymbal stroke) 1960:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?t=18&v=A88qOh5nuRU

[Roland Kuit]

Joris de Laet

Biography
Joris de Laet was born in 1947 in Antwerp. Apart from some years of music lessons at the music
academy (in violin and cello), he did not receive any formal artistic training. De Laet was largely
self-taught, and was mainly interested in the thought-processes of the avant-garde. In particular,
the possibilities of amplified sound intrigued him, an interest that even led him to build or adapt
his own instruments. In order to increase public awareness of the music of the avant-garde, de
Laet set up the Studio voor Experimentele Muziek (SEM) in 1973. Under the auspices of this
studio, he organised monthly concerts in various locations (the studios of Flemish Radio 2,
deSingel concert hall...), performed by leading musicians of his time. The holding of lectures,
seminars and the dissemination of music on tape further stimulated the contact between the
audience and experimental music. In 1974, the SEMensemble was founded, with the aim of
producing live performances of post-production studio techniques (a constant in de Laet’s
oeuvre), thereby allowing electronic means to become real time communication. In the
performances of this ensemble, many different artistic disciplines (such as theatre, poetry and
experiments with light) were combined into a whole by such composers as Karel Goeyvaerts and
André Stordeur. For the performances including traditional instruments, he drew on the talents of,
amongst others, Luc Brewaeys and Serge Verstockt. During his sojourn at the Instituut voor
Psycho-akoestik (IPEM) in Ghent from 1972-1975, de Laet came into contact with Karel
Goeyvaerts, resulting in a number of concerts (including a performance of Partiduur 12345) and
works on which the two composers collaborated (Tot Barstens Toe [Full to Bursting],
Maskerade). At the IPEM he also met Lucien Goethals and Herman Sabbe.
Joris de Laet teaches composition (electro-acoustic music) at the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp.
He is also co-founder and vice-chairman of the Belgian Federation of Electro-Acoustic Music
(BeFEM / FéBeMe). In 1997 he received the SABAM prize for electro-acoustic music and in
2000 became a member of the SABAM committee for the evaluation of electro-acoustic compositions.
(flandersmusic.be)



Joris de Laet - Masses d'algoritmes vers 12 zones chromatiques:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpwvHXwM0ew

It was great meeting him at my concert in Brussels yesterday.

[JoPo]

Hi, Roland ! I'd like you to know and if you already know, like Philippe Petit's work :
https://soundcloud.com/philippepetit

He should be interesting for you.. But I think he uses also a lot of acoustic instruments, not only electronic...
I must confess that too minimalistic abstract music is hard for me to feel as music more conventionnal gives me feelings, emotion. But his music, as strange, offbeat as it is, my mind and my body feel high things by listening to it.

I hope you'll enjoy.. I don't think he is an electronic music pionneer but he is not that far from...

[Roland Kuit]

He is not an electronic pioneer but certainly a disruptive thinker!
Thanks!

[Roland Kuit]

Carla Scaletti
(born 1956) is an American harpist, composer, music technologist and the inventor of the Kyma Sound Design Environment as well as president of Symbolic Sound.

Carla Scaletti was born in Ithaca, New York. She graduated from the public schools in Albuquerque, New Mexico, then completed a bachelor's of music from the University of New Mexico, a masters of music from Texas Tech University, a masters of computer science from the University of Illinois and a doctorate in music composition from the same school. In the 1970s, she worked as principal harpist in the New Mexico and Lubbock Symphony Orchestras and composed for acoustic instruments, but later she developed an interest in computer generated music. After completing her education, she worked as a researcher at the CERL Sound Group, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and later as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Illinois before leaving the university to launch the Symbolic Sound Corporation.

Scaletti designed the Kyma sound generation computer language and co-founded Symbolic Sound Corporation with Kurt J. Hebel in 1989 as a spinoff of the CERL Sound Group.

Scaletti has published professional articles in the Computer Music Journal, proceedings of the OOPSLA and SPIE conferences, Perspectives of New Music, and as book chapters. In 2003 she received the Distinguished Alumnae Award for contributions in the field of music from Texas Tech University. From 2000 to 2007, she lectured at the Center for the Creation of Music Iannis Xenakis (CCMIX) in Paris.

Scaletti was a member of the executive committee for the IEEE Task Force on Computer Music, a member of the advisory board for the Electronic Music Foundation, and the founder and chair of SIGSound, a special interest group within the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Scaletti also serves as the president of the Salvatore Martirano Foundation.(Wiki)



Carla Scaletti - Lysogeny, 1983
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4ulXyhYiCo

[Mr Arkadin]

Just want to big up Morton Subotnick who I saw playing at Cafe Oto in East London last night and going again tonight. Great to see this guy still playing live. Living legend in my book.

[Roland Kuit]

The Concertzender did a special about him. Still in the archive.



Link:
http://www.concertzender.nl/programmagi ... tail=63951

For listening, click the little speaker button.

[Roland Kuit]

Luc Ferrari
(February 5, 1929 – August 22, 2005) was a French composer of Italian heritage.

Ferrari was born in Paris, and was trained in music at a very young age. He studied the piano under Alfred Cortot, musical analysis under Olivier Messiaen, and composition under Arthur Honegger. His first works were freely atonal. A case of tuberculosis in his youth interrupted his career as a pianist. From then on he mostly concentrated on musical composition. During this illness he had the opportunity to become acquainted with the radio receiver, with pioneers such as Schönberg, Berg, and Webern.

In 1954, Ferrari went to the United States to meet Edgard Varèse, whose Déserts he had heard on the radio, and had impressed him. This seems to have had a great effect on him, with the tape part in Déserts serving as inspiration for Ferrari to use magnetic tape in his own music. In 1958 he co-founded the Groupe de Recherches Musicales with Pierre Schaeffer and François-Bernard Mâche. He taught in institutions around the world, and worked for film, theatre and radio. By the early 1960, Ferrari had begun work on his Hétérozygote, a piece for magnetic tape which uses ambient environmental sounds to suggest a dramatic narrative. The use of ambient recordings was to become a distinctive part of Ferrari's musical language.

Ferrari's Presque rien No. 1 'Le Lever du jour au bord de la mer (1970) is regarded as a classic of its kind. In it, Ferrari takes a day-long recording of environmental sounds at a Yugoslavian beach and, through editing, makes a piece that lasts just twenty-one minutes. It has been seen as an affirmation of John Cage's idea that music is always going on all around us, and if only we were to stop to listen to it, we would realise this. Ferrari continued to write purely instrumental music as well as his tape pieces. He also made a number of documentary films on contemporary composers in rehearsal, including Olivier Messiaen and Karlheinz Stockhausen.(Wiki)

Ferrari, Luc - Hétérozygote - 1963-64 Part I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BndZT2-z ... D603DB058B

Ferrari, Luc - Hétérozygote - 1963-64 Part II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHD-B3N6 ... B&index=35

[stonberg]

I was happy to see Delia Derbyshire get a mention (or two!)

I've thought of one pioneer who's name hasn't been mentioned yet: Lester Polfus. I probably don't need to say who he was

[hubird]

I've thought of one pioneer who's name hasn't been mentioned yet: Lester Polfus. I probably don't need to say who he was

that's something akin to swearing in church

[dawman]

Dahlia was so unique.
Whenever I trigger audio clips while performing a picture of her spinning Reels in black and white
Flashes in my head. Then followed by images of whatever the clip triggers.
I.e. the Nevada mushroom cloud shot for the explosion I trigger during ballad of Dwight Frye......

[Roland Kuit]

Jozef Malovec
(24. 3. 1933 Hurbanovo – 7. 10. 1998 Bratislava)


(left: Ján Backstube. right: Jozef Malovec)

1952 – 1954 studied composition with Alexander Moyzes at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava
1954 – 1957 studied with Jaroslav Řídký and Vladimír Sommer at the Academy of Music and Drama in Prague
1957 – 1981 programme adviser and editor of the Czechoslovak Radio in Bratislava
1965 participated in the International Summer School in Darmstadt
1977 – 1981 programme adviser of the Electro-Acoustic Studio of the Czechoslovak Radio in Bratislava
(Music Centre Slovakia)

Jozef Malovec: Orthogenesis (1966/1967)

http://youtu.be/NJjAbGj6hmE?list=PLB1v3 ... 3B2nXkKw20

[Roland Kuit]

I started this topic because pioneers in electronic music shaped our ways in electronic music and instruments.

This post is about a composer where his acoustic music is shaped by thinking electronic.

Krzysztof Eugeniusz Pendereck
( born 23 November 1933) is a Polish composer and conductor. The Guardian has called him Poland's greatest living composer.[1] Among his best known works are his Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, St. Luke Passion, Polish Requiem, Anaklasis, four operas, eight symphonies and other orchestral pieces, a variety of instrumental concertos, choral settings of mainly religious texts, as well as chamber and instrumental works.

Born in Dębica to a lawyer, Penderecki studied music at Jagiellonian University and the Academy of Music in Kraków. After graduating from the Academy of Music, Penderecki became a teacher at the academy and he began his career as a composer in 1959 during the Warsaw Autumn festival. His Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra and the choral work St. Luke Passion, have received popular acclaim. His first opera, The Devils of Loudun, was not immediately successful. Beginning in the mid-1970s, Penderecki's composing style changed, with his first violin concerto focusing on the semitone and the tritone. His choral work Polish Requiem was written in the 1980s, with Penderecki expanding it in 1993 and 2005.

During his life, Penderecki has won several prestigious awards, including the Commander's Cross in 1964, the Prix Italia in 1967 and 1968, the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1964, three Grammy Awards in 1987, 1998 and 2001, and the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 1992.



Electronic

Krzysztof Penderecki: Psalmus - 1961

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4ss9at-N30

Acoustic

Krzysztof Penderecki: Polymorphia - 1961

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwaEOyOw9tk

Score example

[hubird]

the 'acoustic' link gives:
'"Krzysztof Pender..." The YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement.'
The one which made me interested in particular