Internationales Digitalkunst Festival 2019 at Bad Hersfeld

Program

Nikola Lutz: Terra australis incognita I, for 4-channel tape and ensemble of improvisers (2019)Jinok Cho: Flux, for Viola and Live-processingSophie Pope: Noise Pollution III - Street Vendors, for Tárogató, Viola and Tape (2017)Remmy Canedo: ROT47, code composition for saxophone, viola & live electronics (2011/2019)Bernhard Lang: DW9 II. double/puppe, for voice and keyboard (2003)Nikola Lutz: The Darkroom of the Map, for 4 channel Tape, live electronics, Keyboard, Viola, Saxophone, Voice (2019)Donoung Lee: Alco ‘Stuttgart 2019’, algorithmic composition for sensors and electronics (2019)Dionysios Papanicolaou: “Should it turn ?”. Solo performance for Modular analog network and Live electronics (2019)Veronika Reutz Drobnić: Ten Short Pieces, for Soprano Saxophone and Keyboard (2019)Youngmi Cho: Dharani/ 다라니(陀羅尼), for Soprano, Electronic Keyboard (4ch)Nikola Lutz: Terra australis incognita II, for 4-channel tape and ensemble of improvisers (2019)
Terra australis incognita I and II (2019)for 4-channel tape and improvising ensembleThe piece is divided into two parts which are self-sufficient, they are not necessarily meant to be performed successively. The audio tape is based on a field recording of a pontoon which is located in the backyard of the famous opera house in Sidney as well as other every day noises. The pontoon croaks and squeaks as if it were about to break apart from its task of connecting two worlds together - the realm of the water and the one of the land. The resulting sounds are electronically examined as if they were filmed by an underwater camera which suddenly reveals strange creatures popping up from the deepness, frightening, alien and rare, that disappear again after a quick appearance. Every perspective points to the ambiguity of the space that inhabits its existence between two worlds. This material forms a 4 channel tape, which the musicians encounter using improvisation. In part II it is connected to a Korean poem by Yi Sang, mirroring the ambiguity of the space in a different way.
Flux for Viola and Live-processingThis work is focusing on ‘melodic flux’ which is one of the significant features in Korean traditional music. Melodies produced by Viola are constantly modulated in various ways through computer programmed dsp, at the same time they create similar sound to ‘Jeongak’ ensemble, which is music for royal or upper class, using several to many sonic layers. It is hoped that audience would enjoy diverse melodic lines with consistent variations
Noise Pollution III - Street Vendors (2017)for Saxophone, Viola und Tape"Gas, gas, gas!" a seller draws attention to his wares. As a tourist I find it striking, almost entertaining. Who has heard it since childhood barely notices it.A bell ringing for ice cream? Where I’m from, songs are played in bad quality by “melodic chimes” from a van. The hand bell sounds again in Bad Cannstatt. Ice cream? No, this time it‘s “Potatoes, Onions, Eggs!” - what a disappointment for hopeful children.An English market: „Apples: six for a pound, six for a pound, six for a pound“ - I presume people in other countries say something similar but for my ears it sounds different, new, like music. In this piece I offer us a short street vendor round-the-world trip. Can we hear this special market atmosphere as a kind of music, or will it remain for many noise pollution? 
ROT47code composition for viola, saxophone & live electronics (2011/2019)ROT47 explores different degrees of data conversion and the principle of rotation as a compositional paradigm. It was first conceived in 2011 as a code composition for saxophone and live electronics; a conceptual work inspired by the homonymous substitution cipher. This method of encryption uses 94 characters from the ASCII code, from decimal 33 (!) to 126 (~), rotated by 47 positions. The same algorithm was used to create a score based on alphanumerical and symbolic data with an encoded meaning. After its decryption the code turns into a text score, as a series of instructions that can be interpreted by the performer. These codes/texts are organized into 10 groups, each with 3 different levels, giving a total of 30 aural events that change their order according to a computerized rotational system, creating a new sequence for every performance. This design correspond to multiform music; a constantly changing structure by means of real-time algorithmic post-composition, generating a dynamic score inspired by nonlinear narrative and discrete models of perception.
DW9 “puppe/tulpe” (2003)DW9 “puppe/tulpe” is based on the last texts of Christian Loidl, "die schlange küsst den schlafenden" (the snake kisses the sleeping one), originally elaborated in a live performance / installation "fremd / vertraut" (foreign / familiar) in Vienna during 2002.The repetition was taken as a theme in these texts; loops are one of the determining structural elements. It was also Loidl who drew my attention to the work of Deleuze in 1994, triggering a longer study of the difference / repetition theme.DW9 is an attempt to further re-illuminate these last texts by Loidl, which are being deconstructed and reconstructed in a cut-up process that I took over from Martin Arnold. I wanted to explore the interior of these texts further. The inner voice, the voice of remembrance; I did not read the lyrics again while composing, letting the fragments emerge from memory, letting them going around and sink again. In this piece, I do not use a loop generator, the loops are first mapped to bodily movements of the singer, then translated by the microphone into spatial movements.The piece is a tribute to a friend, inspirer and text author of the pieces "icht" and "dw2".
Bernhard Lang, Vienna, 14.02.03
The Darkroom of the Map (2019)for 4-channel tape, live electronics and improvising ensembleThis piece is related to text fragments from a book with the same title by Yi Sang. Samples of a Korean drum (Buk) and a European instrument (grand piano) encounter each other in such a way that they are not immediately recognized. Gestures seem to be identical for both sound sources but the influence of the different cultural attitudes becomes perceptible in a subliminal way. However, it is not a piece for drums and piano; the instruments are randomly chosen as a metaphor for the accidental encounters life bears. In the context of a global culture that becomes increasingly delocalized and overlaps different cultures in an unforeseen way, The Darkroom of the Map reaches out to use this phenomenon in order to create new connections that make sense in spite of their accidental origin just like the neuronal network in our brains that works as an automatic non-stop rule extracting machine.
Alco ‘Stuttgart 2019’Alco ist die Abkürzung für Algorithm Composition und Composition Series von Unique Algorithm. Der Komponist selbst programmiert und steuert mit Sensoren. Das Grundmaterial von Alco 'Stuttgart 2019' ist das Geräusch der Stadt Daegu, das Geräusch des Wassers und der Atem des Komponisten. Stadtlärm wird aufgenommen, bevor die Aufführung und andere Materialien direkt im Konzertsaal aufgenommen und in Echtzeit umgewandelt werden. Diese Arbeit wird durch die Bewegung des Darstellers gesteuert, die von verschiedenen Sensoren erfasst wird.
“Should it turn ?”Solo performance for Modular analog network and Live electronics“Should it turn ?” is a question within a question within a question. A window from a bigger ongoing project with instrumental, modular and live electronics music. This project is one of interaction between musicians with different background stories that have never even met, and coordination of “composed on paper” with savagely improvised music in a more structured environment. “Should it turn ?” is about understanding structures in one environment. As soon as a structure is revealed, it becomes a “dead nature”, a starting point, or just an excuse to create or to destroy a new one. An environment within and all over the environment.The live set that i use for this performance is my modular analog network, in an intimate connection with my improvising hero 5 years old patch which becomes rather maturely ecological. Neither prince nor slave. Some manipulations are taking place though.
Ten Short Pieces, for Soprano Saxophone and Keyboard (2019)In ihren “10 Pieces for soprano Saxophone and Keyboard“ (2019), setzt die Komponistin MaxMSP im Kompositionsprozess und der Aufführung ein. Das Stück thematisiert die klanglichen Zusammenhänge und Verbindungen zwischen aufgenommenen Klängen, synthetisierten Klängen und dem analogen Klang des Instruments. Die Gestalt der Miniaturen erlaubt eine Art Lupenansicht auf die Klangrecherche und wirft Schlaglichter auf einzelne erweiterte Spieltechnken. Mit einer polyphon gedachte Gesangsstimme für beide Spieler arbeitet sich die Komponistin an die klanglichen Grenzen einer Duobesetzung heran.
Dharani/ 다라니(陀羅尼) Soprano, Electronic KeyboardThe title, “Dharani” indicates a mystic Buddhist formula derived from Sanskrit. The words are made up of exorcising scriptures, a kind of implicative and long incantation not to be interpreted as a language. The demonstration of the words goes through the process that the sound comes in me and then myself enters Buddha. The work represents such transmissions of sounds, and their alternations and combinations for a soprano, an electric piano, and the interplay of electrics. Dharani is generally sung with the repetition of short tunes accompanying occasional pulses by a few percussion instruments. The composer employs and develops them as the source ideas to imaginably enhance its sonic expression.

Bios

Prof. Nikola Lutz is a composer-performer based in Stuttgart. Apart from her lively concert activities as a saxophone player, Nikola is composing electronic music and working with sonic extensions of the instrument. In sound sculptures between composed and improvised contemporary music electronic and acoustic sonorities are overlapping and newly connected to each other. She especially focuses on interdisciplinary concepts, for example in her work series „GraphicSound“, where she works with graphic scores as well as modified empty vinyls with the aim of exploring audiovisual perception and sound conception. Her works have been performed in festivals and concert series such as Eclat festival Stuttgart, K-R-A-M Stuttgart, Donaufestival Korneuburg (AU), Festival Plein les sens Mulhouse (F), Beijing Central Conservatory (China). Her music has been commissioned by SWR Stuttgart, Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst Baden-Württemberg, Musik der Jahrhunderte, State Theatre of Oldenburg, T-art productions and others. 2018 she premiered foco_2018, a multimedia music performance commissioned by Deutschlandradio.Online works: www.nikolalutz.de/
Jinok Cho is an active composer in both acoustic and electro-a coustic music, as well as a recording engineer, a researcher in Center for Arts and Technologies at Seoul National University, and a lecturer at several universities in Korea. His compositions have been performed widely, including Seoul International Computer Music Festival (2016), Pan Music Festival (2013), Joenju International Contemporary Music Festival (2013), London New Wind Festival (2010), and International Computer Music Conference (2006). He has won several competitions, including the International New Music Consortium's International Composition Competition (2000) and the Computer Music Contest hosted by the Korean Electro-Acoustic Music Society (2001). His composition for 5.1 channel fixed-media "CoCo II" was recognized at the Bourges International Competition in France in 2009. Recently, he presented a new types of multimedia live performance named “SooGoong-Ga” using 24.1 channel loudspeaker orchestra, screen and pansori (korean traditional singing style). After completing his bachelors and masters at Seoul National University under the supervision of Cheng-iek Chang, Cho studied with Zack Browning, Erik Lund, and Scott A. Wyatt at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he received a DMA.
Sophie Pope was born in 1988 in Sheffield, England. She studied for two years at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester with David Horne and completed her Master's in Composition at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart with Caspar Johannes Walter. In 2013 she spent a semester at the Manhattan School of Music with Nils Vigeland. She is a founding member of the Stuttgarter Kollektiv für aktuelle Musik (S-K-A-M). Her music is performed internationally: in Belo Horizonte, Brazil as part of the “eu gostaria de ouvir” new music festival, in Tel Aviv as part of a German-Israeli exchange, New York, and Krakow during the Axes Composer Triduum in 2011. Also Canada as part of the Thin Edge New Music Collective's Commissioning Fund! In 2011-2012 she was a scholarship holder funded by the Society of the Friends of the MH Stuttgart and in 2012-2013 of the Deutschland Stipendium funded by the Sparda Bank. 2016 RMN Calssical Calls for Scores for II a crow (solo violin). In 2013 she was a prize winner at the Acht Brücken festival in Cologne for string quartet and electronics. In 2012 she was awarded the Honorary Mention from the Prix Ton Bruynèl for to a crow for flute and tape, and the 3rd prize of the Crossover Composition Award for violin duet. 2018 lecturer at the very first International Congress for Wind Band Music in Neu-Ulm. 
Remmy Canedo is a digital alchemist that transmutes mechanical waves into experimental electronic art. He studied composition and computer music at the University of Chile (BA) with Jorge Pepi Alos, Musikhochschule Stuttgart (MA & Konzertexamen) with Marco Stroppa and later at IRCAM (Cursus 1 & 2) with Hector Parra. His music explores the manipulation and deformation of sound in real time, being the experimentation and dialog between machines and performers his central point. In the past years, he focuses his work on the implementation of live algorithmic composition as an expansion of the concept of sound manipulation, but in this case applied to the score, generating interactive networks that involve the compositional process, performers and visual elements for the creation of multiform music. In 2012 he start making audiovisual installations together with Tobias Hartmann which gave birth to AVAF (AudioVisualArtFabrik) collective for interactive art, winning the 1st prize in the International Lanxess Composition Competition at Acht Brücken Festival (Köln). Also, in 2013 he founded Reactive Ensemble, an electronic ensemble specialized in computer music design for the performance of electronic music & multimedia art.Online works: https://vimeo.com/channels/remmycanedo
Bernhard Lang (born February 24, 1957 Linz, Austria) is an Austrian composer, improvisationalist and programmer of musical patches and applications. His work can be described as modern contemporary music, with roots, however, in various genres such as 20th-century avant-garde, European classical music, jazz, free jazz, rock, punk, techno, EDM, electronica, electronic music and computer-generated music. His works are performed on all relevant festivals of modern music and range from solo pieces and chamber music to large ensemble pieces and works for orchestra and musical theatre. Besides music for concert halls, Lang designs sound and music for theatre, dance, film and sound installations. 
Donoung Lee wurde in Seoul geboren, studierte Komposition an der Seoul National University und Komposition und elektronische Musik an der Freiburger Musikhochschule in Deutschland. Von 1991 bis 1994 war er im Freiburger Experimentierstudio der Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung für Computer- und MIDI-Musik verantwortlich.Nach seiner Rückkehr nach Korea war er Vorsitzender der KEAMS (Korean Electro-Acoustic Music Society) und des koreanischen Komponistenverbandes. Derzeit ist er Professor für Komposition an der Seoul National University und leitet das Center for Arts & Technologies. Er entwickelt und vertreibt Software für traditionelle koreanische Musikinstrumente. ([www.catsnu.com]www.catsnu.com)Seine elektronische Musik deckt viele Materialien ab, die mit koreanischem Klang und Natur zu tun haben. Insbesondere arbeitet er derzeit als interaktive elektronische Live-Musik- und Installations-Musiksteuerung, die von verschiedenen Sensoren gesteuert wird. Derzeit interessiert er sich auch für Musik, die Roboter spielt.In seiner Arbeit sind der emotionale Aspekt und die Musik, die auf der genauen Berechnung basiert, gut miteinander verschmolzen.
Dionysios Papanicolaou was born in Greece 1981 and he actually lives in Paris. In continuous struggle, he is searching for musical opportunities everywhere. He pays his rent as a stage technician, secretly trying out musical ideas on the stage instruments (pianos, percussions, harps, Double-bass) while musicians are on pause. His ideas combine traditional composing, computer assisted composition, live electronics and improvising in a complex analog and digital esthetical network. Online works: https://soundcloud.com/dionysios-papanicolaou
Veronika Reutz Drobnić, geb. 1999 in Zagreb, ist Kompositionsstudentin an der HMDK Stuttgart bei Professor Martin Schüttler. Bereits mit 18 Jahren begann sie an der Musikakademie in Zagreb bei Professor Srećko Bradić Komposition zu studieren. Später setzte sie ihr Studium in Deutschland fort. Ihr kompositorisches Œuvre umfasst Solostücke und Kammermusik, audiovisuelle Werke sowie elektronische und Computermusik. In ihrer Arbeit untersucht sie natürliche (aufgezeichnete) und synthetisierte Klänge in Kombination mit Instrumenten und bezieht Medien wie Video, visuelle Kunst, Elektronik und Fixed Media in ihre Kompositionen ein. Ihre Werke wurden von Ensembles und Solisten aus Deutschland, Kanada, Österreich, Ungarn, Kroatien, Bosnien und Herzegowina, der Schweiz, Mazedonien und Italien aufgeführt. Veronika Reutz Drobnić wurde mit dem Victoria Composers Collective Award 2018 ausgezeichnet, der im Rahmen des Oak Bay New Music Festival von einer internationalen Jury verliehen wird. Hierbei wurde sie auch für ein Wettbewerbsstück für die Piazza del Mondo 2019 nominiert.
Youngmi Cho is a composer based in Seoul, a visiting professor of Suwon University and an adjunct instructor in Cheonnam University. She also serves as a managing editor of the computer music journal, Emille, and worked as a member of iHEAB(interactive Hybrid Electroacoustic Band) and a research fellow on developing Gugak VSTi and on compiling Online Korean Encyclopedia. Her works has been performed in Singapore Asian Composers Festival, Seoul International Computer Music Festival, Young Asian Musicians' Connection in Taiwan, SoundSCAPE Festival in Italy, HighScore Contemporary Music Festival in Italy, Etchings International Contemporary Music Festival in France, International Forum on Acoustical Ecology in Greece, TIMARA Electronic Music Workshops in US, Hawaii International Conference on Arts in US, etc. She was a winner composer of Singapore Asian Composers League and Korean Ensemble Music Expo, and was recipient of the 1st prize in the multimedia category of Illinois State Arts Tech Annual. Youngmi has studied with composers Cheong-ik Chang, Scott Lindroth, Stephen Jaffe, and Rodney Waschka II, and with arts-technician Aaron Paolucci. She holds a PhD in music from Duke University, an MSci from the Illinois State University, and BMus from Seoul National University. Online works: https://vimeo.com/user34598086