SKAM Ensemble / Konzert 1

Program

Nikola Lutz: Terra australis incognita I, for 4-channel tape and ensemble of improvisers (2019)Jinok Cho: Flux, for Viola and Live-processingRemmy 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)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
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.
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.
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. 
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