Jean-Francois Charles's blog

Alea III plays a Third Stream Composition

2010-01-26T20:28:00.008-05:00

Last year, the contemporary classical music ensemble Alea III performed the première of my composition Viola palustris. It would be fair to speak of Third Stream Music, since the piece is a concerto for a jazz soloist and a classical music ensemble.

Watch on youtube: Third Stream Music - Viola palustris by Alea III

Alea III, dedicated to new music

Alea III is giving his Young Composers' Workshop Concert this Wednesday, January 27th, at 7:30pm in TSAI performance center, in Boston. The exciting program includes new music by the following composers:

Graham Dixon (United Kingdom) Kittinger’s Fall
Aaron Krerowicz (USA) Asterisk
Lina Tonia (Greece) Prismatic
Eun Young Lee (Korea) Yeol-doo-dal
Mohammed Fairouz (United Arab Emirates) Symphony No. 2
Gon Hwang (Korea) Cosmorleans Concerto
Antonis Anestis (Greece) Villa R. (homage à Paul Klee)
Miles Bergsma (USA) Phoenix

If you are a composer, make sure you check the Alea III's composition competition (you may submit an application until March 15).

Viola palustris: the first page of the section with the triangle ostinato

The Physics of Music & Sound at Harvard

2010-01-20T21:20:00.004-05:00

Next week, Spring courses start at Harvard University. I am very excited to be a Head Teaching Fellow for the course The Physics of Music and Sound, taught by Professor Eric Heller. Eric Heller is a true sound lover, but his interests cross many boundaries, as you can check on the Heller Group page.

A Gen Ed course

All incoming students at Harvard College must complete, over the course of their undergraduate education, one letter-graded course in each of the eight categories in the Program in General Education. One goal is to ensure that the undergraduate education encompasses a broad range of topics and approaches. The Physics of Music and Sound are in the category Science of the Physical Universe.

As Pr. Heller says in the course syllabus: In keeping with the new GenEd philosophy, the class will be made as participatory as possible. Discussions, live demonstrations of experiments, student demonstration of voice and instruments, computer experiments that you can also easily do, peer instruction and PRS “clicker” participation are all part of the experience.

Check the course trailer on the Harvard General Education web site.

We'll study - and experiment with - sirens!

Final projects

A hands-on approach to learning is also implemented by the presence of final projects for all students. Replacing more traditional exams, the projects will be the occasion for the students to turn to their special interests. The students will choose projects from a list, or come up with their own (with approval of the teaching staff). The propositions in the syllabus are already very exciting, for instance:

Acoustical consultant - coloration of sound as function of position in room, objects in room, proximity to walls etc.; ambient sound, echo studies, reverberation time. Measure, analyze, and offer opinions on concert halls and other soundspaces.
Noise: how is it generated? e.g. rustling or crushing paper, tire noise, wind turbulence, etc. Related: the sound of things breaking: a twig, glass, rips (paper, foil, cloth) etc. What are the technologies/possibilites for cutting noise off at its source; of reflecting or attenuating on its journey, or for canceling it before it enters our ears? May include investigations of noise levels and noise regulations near Harvard: start with the shuttle busses!
Building of an experimental musical instrument or sound generation machine (e.g. voice mimic) - explain its principles, demonstrate and play it (or them) for the class.
Sound in technology and medicine: ultrasound imaging, sonar (side scanning imaging), noise cancellation technology, imaging with ambient sound (the analog of imaging with ambient light). Principles of studio acoustics with examples.
Scientific historian: following the traces of Wallace Clement Sabine at Harvard, including mastering his discoveries of the early 1900’s.

I'm looking forward to helping out all the students in their discovery of the Physics of Music & Sound. Surely, my studies at the National Institute for Applied Sciences in Lyon, as well as my experience in electronic music will come handy. But as importantly, and thanks to the open structure of the course, I know that I am going to learn a lot: the world of music and sound is so vast!

Max patches - phase vocoder & audio freeze back online

2010-01-12T14:25:00.001-05:00

After I wrote the Computer Music Journal article A Tutorial on Spectral Sound Processing Using Max/MSP and Jitter, I made available a number of Max patches designed to study graphical sound processing, time stretching, and spectral audio freeze, and to create new music! Several professors use these patches when they teach the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) in Max and its musical applications.

you'll have to browse down the page to find my name & the associated patches

These patches disappeared from cycling74's web site when they revamped it in November of 2009. Good news, the share page is back; download here 16 free spectral Max patches:

1-record-spectrum-in-matrix record sound directly in spectral domain
2-record-play-frame-by-frame schematic playback
3-record-play-speed-control playback slower or faster
4-explore-the-sonogram the sonogram is an essential tool for the modern musician
5-spectrum-your-graphical-transformations build your own graphical sound processing
6-interpolate-2frames one way to interpolate between frozen sonic frames
7-play-blur the stochastic secret to extreme time stretching
8-play-with-transients faster on consonants, slower on vowels?
9-segmentation basic sound slicing
10-sliced-playback slice a sound and playback with fun
1-freeze-frame freeze a sound: the idea
2-stochastic-freeze-8frames sounds better
3-freeze-slide musical interpolation between frozen sounds
4-freeze-tail music & comets
5-freeze-denoiser several composers used this one in their works
6-melody-to-harmony like Stockhausen, compose your harmonies after your melodies

You will find great patches uploaded by other musicians and composers from the Max user community: make sure to explore the content of this share page!

Electroclarinet 1 - From draft to score

2010-01-07T11:45:00.001-05:00

The draft of Electroclarinet 1

My score for the première of Electroclarinet 1

A serial composition inspired by Steve Vai and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

As you may recall, this title was one of the slides in my Shanghai Max MSP (and beyond) presentation. The Steve Vai influence may be obvious (when I was composing, I discovered his double DVD Where the Wild Things Are.) So I'll try to highlight how the piece is related to twelve-tone serialism and Mozart.

The easiest link is Mozart: you might have already recognized that the last minute of Electroclarinet 1 is no more than 18/60 - True Night, a Mozart-inspired minute of music. Now, how is this music serial?

Well, it turns out that 18/60 - True Night is not just the last section of Electroclarinet 1, but really a seed for the whole composition. You can see that by comparing the draft above with the score of 18/60 - True Night.

We can also trace the three first pitches of True Night throughout Electroclarinet1:

4 transpositions of the 3 note motive: that looks like a 12-tone series!

the three opening pitches of the piece (F, G, A). They must be played as split tones, the kind of multiphonic sounds played with normal fingerings, and sounding especially rich on the lowest notes of the clarinet. I liked to make this naturally inharmonic spectrum interact with the inharmonicity of the live electronics, a dynamic frequency shifting (ring modulation).
the three successive high notes (Ab, Bb, C). These are multiphonics over trills, or rather tremolos. After writing the high pitches, I figured out which exact tremolos I wanted by trying out with the clarinet.
(B, C#, D#) are played as multiphonics as well, the lowest pitches of the multiphonics being shadow "false fundamentals" of the high fingered pitches.
Finally, (D, E, F#) start the last minute of the piece. And to round off the composition, the three last pitches are the same as the first ones (F, G, A) - that's quite a classical approach, of course.

Listen to Electroclarinet 1.

Electroclarinet 1 - Live in Shanghai

2010-01-01T13:56:00.001-05:00

I recorded my own performance of Electroclarinet 1 in Shanghai. This is the direct sound from the clarinet (do you see the wireless microphone on the picture?) and the live electronics.

Shanghai, October 20th, 2009. Hope you like the white clarinet bell!
Picture by a member of the festival's organization.
Check the program notes on this announcement.

Frozen sounds in Electroclarinet 1

It's winter, and although it's not too cold in Cambridge today, it's a good time to talk about audio freeze (the equivalent of frozen frames in video). We can hear two different versions of frozen sounds in this composition:

from 2:50 to 3:50, several tremolos (sometimes arpeggios) are immediately frozen, and followed most of the time by a melodic phrase.
from 4:48, a high pitch (concert A) is frozen. Later, notes are added to this sound, building into a chord. The first note is added at 5:00, then 5:03, etc. The ice is melting at 5:26, when the frozen chord undergoes a long descending glissando.

I wish you a great - & warm - new year!

18/60 - True Night

2009-12-29T11:25:00.001-05:00

The manuscript I scribbled while recording.

In the Fall, I was a teaching fellow for Robert Levin. On Friday, September 18th, 2009, he gave a lively lecture during which he shared his passion for Mozart's music. After the lecture, I booked the Huseac's recording studio, and produced this minute of music. As you will hear, it is bathed in a quite Mozartesque spirit.

18th minute of 60/60, True Night was also inspired by the gift I received: Keith Jarrett's Carnegie Hall Concert. Keith Jarrett is certainly the most interesting composer of piano music in the recent decades. The title True Night comes from his True Blues, and from the fact that I made a direct recording of both Bb clarinet and live electronics during the night. Thanks to Bénédicte, the participant to whom this minute of music is dedicated.

Download or listen to 18/60 - True Night on last.fm.

You can still participate in this composition project: choose a present, I will compose & dedicate a minute of music to you!

My dissertation committee

2009-12-26T18:10:00.003-05:00

On December 7th, my dissertation committee was approved during the Music Department's faculty meeting. The dissertation is the most important part of the doctoral program at the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. I am honored by the four composers who accepted to serve as readers of my dissertation. Let me briefly introduce them:

Hans Tutschku He is a composition professor and the director of the Huseac Studios. He has been my advisor during my graduate studies at Harvard, and he was the first person I went to learn electronic music with.
Chaya Czernowin She has been a composition professor at Harvard since September of 2009. I also worked with her during my first semester here, when she was a visiting professor.

An excerpt from Bleu 3, a quatuor for clarinet, violin, cello and piano.
Bleu 3 will constitute a chapter of my dissertation.

Michael Gandolfi Chair of the New England Conservatory's composition department, he was a guest professor in 2008-2009 at Harvard. I appreciated very much his open-minded approach to teaching composition and his passion for traditional orchestration.
Gunther SchullerA visiting professor at Harvard during my 4th semester, he is a true music lover. He is very enthusiastic with young musicians and creators, and really helped me during my years in Cambridge.

17/60 - IM

2009-12-22T21:45:00.006-05:00

Many thanks to Ronan, who takes part in the 60/60 composition project with a great book on Afro-Cuban Percussion. I have always been keen on learning more in the vast percussion world, and this volume is an excellent introduction to an important rhythmic tradition. Of course, you really learn by playing with other percussionists, but it's interesting to read the author tell the story of what and how he learnt.

I dedicate IM, the 17th minute of 60/60, to Ronan. As you will hear, this minute of music retains the rhythmical orientation of the gift. You may also recognize influences linked to the personal story of the participant (hard work, house door... don't hesitate to invent your own story!)

Listen to this new minute, as well as the previous ones, on last.fm - or download the sound files:

17/60 - IM on last.fm

License Creative Commons by-nc-sa

Lapalu - Video with violist Garth Knox

2009-12-20T18:30:00.002-05:00

Lapalu, a composition for viola and live electronics, was premiered on February 14th, 2009 by Garth Knox and myself. The video is now available:

In this composition for viola and live electronics, I set up a chamber music situation for the two musicians. The violist and the live electronics performer interact, listen to each other, and follow the score that features both instrumental parts.

Lapalu's Coda: viola and live electronics in dialog.

For more information about the composition technique, and how the piece was inspired by a flower, check this earlier post: Formula composition in Lapalu.

Rhapsody in Blue by the Dudley House Big Band

2009-12-11T10:00:00.001-05:00

Ryan Banagale is not only a talented musicologist, but also a musician, and a very generous one. He shared with the big band his research on Duke Ellington's interest in George Gershwin's famous Rhapsody in Blue. The result is this unique program that we'll be performing together tomorrow.

I am blessed to lead first class musicians in the band. After a semester of weekly rehearsals, we are now ready with powerful sections that sound great. And it's just a pure pleasure to listen to the soloists. Whether they are graduate students in physics, mathematics, romance languages, or other fields, they really know what jazz is all about! I hope to see you at the concert:

Saturday December 12th, 2009
Dudley House (Lehman Hall) - Harvard Yard
Cambridge, MA, USA
Free admission

Program

Among the greatest American artists around Geoge Gershwin!

Strike Up The Band (George & Ira Gershwin, arrangement Sammy Nestico)
Fascinating Rhythm (George & Ira Gershwin, arrangement Ethan Fenn) - World Première!
Rhapsody In Blue (George Gershwin, arrangement 1932 by Duke Ellington)
Rhapsody In Blue (arrangement 1962 by Billy Strayhorn for Duke Ellington's Orchestra)
Our Love Is Here To Stay (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin)
Summertime (George Gershwin, Dubose & Dorothy Heyward, Ira Gershwin, arrangement Roger Holmes)
Summertime (arrangement Bill Potts)
Rhapsody In Blue (arrangement ca. 1971 by Bill Holman for Stan Kenton's Orchestra)
The Way You Make Me Feel (Michael Jackson, arrangement Dave Tanner)
Big Foot (David Sanborn & Marcus Miller, arrangement Mark Taylor)

The second part of the concert will be performed by the Dudley House creative combo, stay for them, too!

Electroclarinet 2 at Hydra

2009-12-08T20:47:00.011-05:00

The Hydra concerts are taking place these Thursday and Friday (December 10&11) at Paine Hall, Harvard Music Department. Hydra is Harvard University Studio for Electroacoustic Composition's sound diffusion system: it consists in 36 speakers with multiple routing possibilities.

During Thursday's 8pm concert, I will be premiering my most recent composition: Electroclarinet 2, for contrabass clarinet and live electronics.

My set-up for Electroclarinet 2 (rehearsal December 8th, 2009)

Electroclarinet 2 program notes

Electroclarinet 2 is an homage to Claude Debussy, directly inspired by his Sonate pour Violoncelle et Piano. In this piece, Debussy follows in the steps of the great innovative composers: he explores the expressive power of new sounds and twists them with a unique sense of humor. In the tradition, he keeps surprising the audience with his fantastical imagination, a trait maybe echoed today in the music of some official genius such as John Zorn.
After more than four years in the United States, I rediscover in Electroclarinet 2 the essence of Musique Française.

Dudley House Jazz Combo Winter Concert 2009

2009-12-06T15:22:00.002-05:00

At Dudley House, one of the jazz bands is a creative combo. All musicians from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts & Sciences are welcome to audition in the Fall and in the Spring. The group members then bring new compositions or suggest creative versions of standards. The repertoire is really a function of the musicians' personalities. This semester, the instrumentation consists in violin, five saxophones (two altos, two tenors, a baritone), clarinet, guitar, piano, keyboards, acoustic bass, and drums.

Free concert this Saturday

You are invited to the concert this Saturday, December 12th, 2009, at 8pm in Dudley House (Harvard Yard). The concert will open with a full big band (detailed announcement to come Friday on this blog...), then the combo will play 6 tunes: 3 originals by Brigham Hall, Richa Gawande, and Alan Lenarcic, and reprises from Daahoud (Clifford Brown), Fables of Faubus (Charles Mingus), and Baraka (Steve Korn).

Do Right Woman

Our previous concert was part of the Dudley House Music Festival. Listen to Imani singing Do Right Woman. And don't miss her live this Saturday!

Do Right Woman Video - Dudley House - May 2009

Robert Henke's life with Max

2009-11-30T15:10:00.002-05:00

On the new Cycling 74 web site, you can read an interview with Robert Henke. Artist known as monolake, he very close to the Ableton Live team. He was a guest at expo74, cycling 74's first user conference in April 2009. That was refreshing to hear him recount his "life with Max". But the best was when he told his feature requests during the open session with the Max & Jitter team!

Robert Henke presents "his life with Max" at expo74 (April 2009)

Atlantic Waves: a collaborative sequencer played by himself in Berlin and deadbeat in Montréal

I like the first minute of this interesting video where Robert Henke talks about sound quality.
If it sounds good, it sounds good. Who can disagree with that?

You need Max, but not all the time

2009-11-25T09:00:00.002-05:00

During the electroacoustic music week at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, each of the invited Prisma composers gave a talk to present his current research. I spoke in the afternoon of October 20th in the conservatory's Golden Hall.

After an introduction to spectral domain sound processing with Max, I presented alternatives for artists to create music with interactive electronics.

Why you need Cycling74's Max

Listening to the sound, and looking at it, too.

On the right side, a glimpse of the beautiful sound system Sa Majesté Le Son.

Real-time transient analysis.

You don't always need Max

Live electronics alternatives to Max/MSP/Jitter if you mostly want to trigger sound files include: Ableton Live, Apple Logic Pro's environment, or Meyer Sound's Matrix 3.

A few among many Max/MSP alternatives for interactive sound processes: PD (Pure Data), Reaktor, Max for Live, Kyma

A few words on the piece I was going to perform in the evening: Electroclarinet 1.

The first interactive process used in Electroclarinet 1.

Thanks to the photographer and to the organization of the festival, who sent me the pictures!

15-16/60 - Bagict - Live by Daoud/Noguchi duo

2009-11-18T08:22:00.002-05:00

As I said when announcing the premiere concert, the piece Bagict (15-16/60) is dedicated to both Ryan Banagale and Michael Cuthbert. Thank you for taking part in the 60/60 project!

Ryan chose the Illustrated History of Magic book, while Michael picked Milton Babbitt's Phonemena CD.

Because both presents came at the same time, and Ryan and Michael are almost colleagues, I decided to compose a piece inspired by both objects. The Illustrated History of Magic suggested me to base the composition on the idea of transformation. In the piece, the transformation of a musical material into another is realized/improvised/decided live by the performers. From Milton Babbitt, I stole the series of twelve pivot notes used in the melody and harmony of Phonemena's first couple of bars.

I recorded the premiere performance on a minidisc (in Bien, Switzerland, on August 15th, 2008). The excellent performers were Yuji Noguchi, clarinets, and Vincent Daoud, saxophones. Here are the links to the recordings available on last.fm:

Transformations

Follow the score when you listen to Act 1

In the score for Act 1, you can see musical figures connected with arrows. The arrows represent interpolation, or gradual transformation, from one musical figure to the next. The performers choose their own way of interpolating between the written musical phrases.

In Act 3, the performers complete the score themselves. They write in all of the missing details and interpolation paths they want to play.

Performance in Canada

The Daoud/Noguchi duo was invited in the Fall of 2008 by the Edmonton Composers' Concert Society (now with a new name: Tonus Vivus Society). They gave this concert in Edmonton on October 25th, 2008. I was honored that they featured this composition in their programme Daoud/Noguchi Duo: …vers un théâtre du son…

...vers un théâtre du son... that's really a title that suits this duo: I wish you can listen to, and watch them soon!

Workshops on FFT & Max

2009-11-12T09:25:00.003-05:00

FFT is a scary acronym for a scarier algorithm, the Fast Fourier Transform. Scary, but when it comes to sound processing, this is the door to go beyond the mirror of time domain. Sound is air in movement, atoms moving through space & time. When you push the door of the spectral domain (using the FFT algorithm), you access the frequencies that constitute the sound. In Shanghai Conservatory, on October 17th and 18th, I taught how to use the FFT in the software environment Max.

October 18th, Shanghai Conservatory of Music

Free tools for spectral sound processing

Where the first day introduced the theory, the second day was a hands-on workshop. We spent quite some time on the distinction between time domain and spectral domain in Max/MSP (made easy by the [pfft~] object).

October 17th: topic introduction
- waveforms (LP vinyl, tape)
- time domain sound processing: speed & pitch link
- analog granulation, digital granulation
- spectral domain (spectrum, sonogram)
- have fun with graphical sound transformations
October 18th: hands-on workshop
- real-time (denoiser, "noiser", frequency shifting, pitch shifting)
- freeze a sound
- elastic time, automatic slicing

The blackboard at the end of our morning session!

But most importantly, I wanted the students to be able to use spectral sound processing even if they would not become Max/MSP specialists. You can consider my Max MSP patches as free spectral processing tools: download the Max Runtime for free, and download the patches (link updated 01/12/2010). One student asked me how to record the output of the patches. Of course, if you own Max, you can modify the patches and add a sound file recorder. But before investing in Max, you can use a digital audio routing system, such as Soundflower, or Jack Audio, and any application that records audio (Quicktime Pro, Audacity, GarageBand, etc...)

Take care.

From Evian to Shanghai

2009-11-03T11:10:00.006-05:00

On October 19th, the day before my concert, I had a coffee at the Park Hyatt Hotel, at the 87th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center.

I had taken my draft of Electroclarinet 1: I still had to clarify details of the score before the performance.

In the summer of 1993, I spent 10 weeks as a worker in the Evian bottling plant.

It was fun to think that both the water and myself had made the trip from the Alps to the highest tower in China!

From the Financial Center (center), you can contemplate the top of the Jin Mao Tower (right).

Two Cambridge clarinetists in Shanghai...

2009-10-26T15:59:00.003-04:00

One of the first things I discovered in Shanghai Electroacoustic Music Festival last week was that our Prisma concert would be followed 2 days later by Bang on a Can All-Stars! I chatted briefly with their sound engineer, but unfortunately didn't manage to meet with Evan Ziporyn: I had to leave to catch my plane before the beginning of their dress rehearsal... I hope we'll meet soon in Cambridge or Boston!

What is Electronic Music?

2009-10-11T13:17:00.002-04:00

I am very honored to be invited to perform during the 2009 Shanghai Electroacoustic Music Festival. Last week, Chen Qiangbin, director of the festival, sent me a questionnaire about electronic music. He will include answers by many composers and researchers in a publication. Read my responses below, and don't hesitate to leave a comment with your own vision...

One of the numerous electronic music instruments used by Pink Floyd on Dark Side of the Moon
EMS Synthi A ad picture CC license by Zebra Pares

1. your definition to electronic music?

Pure electronic music could be defined as music being produced solely by electronic means, like, for instance, Olivier Messiaen's Fête des Belles Eaux for six ondes Martenot (1937) or Karlheinz Stockhausen's Studie II, electronic music on tape (1954).
But I prefer a wider definition, encompassing music produced through the use of both electronic and acoustic means. In that respect, works such as Pierre Schaeffer's Étude aux Chemins de Fer ("Study of Railroads", 1948) and Les Paul and Mary Ford's version of Morgan Lewis and Nancy Hamilton's How High the Moon, (1951) are milestones in the history of electronic music. In these compositions, the electronic medium contributed in a unique way to the creative process.

2. your opinion on "electronic music and noise; sound equipment, multimedia, new media"?

Entertainment, live performers, improvisation, meditation.

3. please briefly describe the future of electronic music

Stellar.

4. please recommend a electronic music work, and your comment on it?

I encourage all of my students to listen actively to two masterpieces of 20th century music: Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge (1956) and Pink Floyd's Money (from the album The Dark Side of the Moon - 1973).

Gesang der Jünglinge is a poetic and dramatic piece of music. Stockhausen explores a wide range of relations between electronic sounds and the voice of a young boy. A continuum from pure sinusoids to white noise contrasts, interpolates, and merges with the richness of a human voice singing sacred texts or single phonemes.

In Money, the Pink Floyd artists and sound engineer Alan Parsons create a unique multi-layered sonic landscape. Listen to the contrasting spaces allocated to the different parts of the arrangement: the tight and fully panned introductory musique concrète, the delay and reverb on the voice, the wide enhancement of the solo tenor sax. Electronics are used in an effective way on the three choruses of David Gilmour's guitar solo: to the manual double tracking of the first chorus succeeds a striking tight space matched by a new distortion sound. In the third chorus, the space is opened up again (using notably analog automatic double tracking), and prepares the collage of voices that constitutes the coda.

5. what's the foundation to learn electronic music? is it necessary to learn classic music first?

Open your ears, that's the foundation. Then, do what Bach used to do: be aware of the most advanced developments in music technology, try the new gear, listen to the new sounds, and study the masters.

6. please talk about electronic, compute, hearing, technology and perception

Music is at its best when you forget about electronic, compute, hearing, technology and perception, but when you cry because it's so moving.

7. please let us know your personal understanding of electronic music.

My personal understanding changes from piece to piece, whether it is music I am listening to or producing. My understanding may even change when I listen to the same piece of music several times. The more that happens, the better the music. That happens all the time with Mozart.

Amazon.com Widgets

Meet Prisma in Shanghai

2009-09-28T10:22:00.001-04:00

Prisma is a group of composers and researchers dedicated to International Pedagogy and Research on Assisted Musical Systems. The next Prisma event is happening in Shanghai Conservatory as part of the 2009 Shanghai International Electroacoustic Music Week. From October 16th to 26th, you can attend workshops (including hands-on instruction by the best specialists of PWGL), a series of conferences, and concerts.
I have been invited with the following musicians and researchers:

Hans Tutschku, composer, Harvard University (USA)
Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi, composer, Conservatory of Montbeliard (France)
Orjan Sandred, composer, researcher, University of Manitoba (Canada)
Johannes Kretz, composer, researcher, University of Vienna (Austria)
Mikael Laurson, researcher, Sibelius Academy, Helsinki (Finland)
Carlos Caires, composer, Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa and CITAR - Research Center for Science and Technology in Art (Portugal)
Mika Kuuskankare, researcher, composer, Center for Music and Technology, Sibelius Academy, Helsinki (Finland)

I'm looking forward to discovering the conservatory's facilities, and meeting both the students and the guest Chinese composers and researchers:

Feng Yin, researcher, Xiamen University, Institute of artificial intelligence, Group Art and Mind Lab
Jian Liu, Wuhan Conservatory, Director of the Computer Music Departement
Wing-wing Lee, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Head of Sound Design & Music Recording Department

Check out www.prisma-shanghai.org for more information.

What I'll be teaching

Here are some of the topics I proposed to address in my workshops. If you come, you can be certain that the content will be tailored to fit your needs!

Live Electronics with Max MSP & Jitter - beginners
Spectral Sound Processing with Max/MSP/Jitter, including audio freeze and time stretching - and the answers to all of the questions you may have after reading my Tutorial from the Computer Music Journal
Improvisation session with live electronics and traditional Chinese instruments
When and why use Max for Live

Shanghai Conservatory - 4 full days: October 16th to 19th.

What I'll be presenting

A few ideas I plan to incorporate in my intervention during the Prisma symposium:

Why you need Max 5: have fun with graphical sound processing in real time
Why you do not need Max 5: compose and perform a piece with live electronics
Why you need Max 5: to teach and to learn
What you do not need Max 5: flexibility is key

Shanghai Conservatory - October 20th, 2:30 to 3:45 pm

What I'll be performing

The organizer of the 2009 Shanghai International Electroacoustic Music Week invited me to perform a piece for clarinet and live electronics. Rather than playing an old piece such as Plex, I have been composing a new piece that will be entitled Electroclarinet 1.

Electroacoustic Music Center Shanghai - October 20th, 7:30pm

Electroclarinet 1 - Program notes

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote program notes that I kept fairly general given that the piece wasn't written yet... I hope I'll meet the requirements.

In Electroclarinet 1, Jean-François Charles presents his electronically enhanced clarinet. This exploration and combination of different sonic characters is also a reflection on the expressive power of electro-acoustic instruments.
Jean-François Charles belongs to the long tradition of composers who are also performers and instrument developers. He is fascinated by both the richness of acoustic instrument sounds and the ever-expanding possibilities offered by live electronics. In Electroclarinet 1, he shows that the expressivity so tactile in acoustical music (solos, chamber music, orchestra) may be just as palpable with new electronic sounds.

Perpetuum mobile - meditation for dancing clarinetist

2009-09-15T08:36:00.013-04:00

Above is the manuscript of Perpetuum mobile, the second part of PPP for dancing clarinetist.

The music is to be performed legato sempre using circular breathing. When the clarinetist reaches the end, s/he circles back to the top, and can play it for as long as desired.

The dance movement is notated in Labanotation / Kinetography Laban (just one side is notated). It should be looped as well. The movement should be very slow, inspired by the Butoh art of dancing.

Perpetuum mobile starts at 2:25 in the PPP video

This section of PPP is more minimalist than Stockhausen's In Freundschaft, Harlekin, Tanze Luzefa, and other innovative pieces created by Suzanne Stephens. If you're a clarinet player, I hope you enjoy performing it!

Robert Levin is a true music lover

2009-09-04T10:56:00.022-04:00

This fall of 2009, I am fortunate to be appointed head teaching fellow for Harvard's core course B-54: Chamber Music From Mozart to Ravel, taught by Robert Levin (Curriculum Vitae on Harvard Music Department's web site) (there is a shorter biography on wikipedia).

Attending a lecture by Robert Levin is a great experience. He believes that anyone can have fun listening to great music, and he is very talented to communicate his fascination for music. Whether you never listened to classical music in your life, or you are an accomplished musician, you will hear music differently after listening to him.

For this year's edition of the course, he chose to spend some time with the following pieces of chamber music:

Joseph Haydn String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 33/2, Hob. III:38 (“Joke”)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 25. Sonate in A: KV 256 for violin and piano
Franz Schubert Trio in E-flat Major, D 929 op. 100
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Second String Quartet
Robert Schumann Phantasiestücke Op. 73 for clarinet and piano
Johannes Brahms Sextett Nr. 2, Op. 36
Antonin Dvorak Quintet for 2 violins, viola, cello, and double bass, Op. 97
Claude Debussy Sonate pour Violoncelle et Piano
Maurice Ravel Histoires naturelles (voice & piano)

Well, today, he spoke a lot about Bach and the Beatles!

Picture copyright Kris Snibbe/Harvard News Office - See this 2006 article in the Harvard Gazette

Robert Levin is an improvisor, and a rebel

Derek Bailey invited Robert Levin in his documentary On the edge, part 1 (first broadcast February 2, 1992 on the BBC). Although you could look at a short excerp on youtube (Robert Levin talks about improvisation), I strongly encourage you to watch the full 13 minutes on ubu: On the edge part 1. Robert Levin plays piano and is interviewed from 07:00 to 20:00. Enjoy!

Amazon.com Widgets

Sabaudia - the land of trees

2009-08-29T22:24:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday, I played with the folk group Sabaudia. This friendly group of musicians and dancers performs traditional songs and dances from Haute-Savoie. It is with this group that I first performed out of Metropolitan France, in Guadeloupe and Denmark, in the early '90s.

The following pictures were taken by Martial Dray, thank you Martial!

Puppet - Manuscript (solo clarinet & dance)

2009-08-14T21:02:00.005-04:00

Puppet: the manuscript

Last week, I posted the live video recording of PPP for dancing clarinetist. The first part is called Puppet.

You can read on my manuscript score different layers composed between 2007 and 2009. I wrote the music in Helsinki in 2007, along with a naive puppet story and guidelines for the movement composition. I actually choreographed the piece between February and May 2009.

Studies for Dancing Clarinetist - PPP Video

2009-08-06T13:55:00.005-04:00

A few months ago, I invited you to the première performance of PPP, a series of three studies for dancing clarinetist. Here is the video, recorded live on May 2, 2009, in Lowell Hall (Cambridge).

Puppet
Perpetuum mobile (at 2:25)
Pipo (at 3:18)

Next week, I'm going to post on this blog an excerpt of the manuscript.