NASA/Smithsonian Collaboration
The ACTOR project (actorproject.org) collaborated with astrophysicist Dr. Kimberly Arcand at the Smithsonian Institute and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory for astronomy in the musical auralization of astronomical images. The composition was done by former Schulich composition student Sophie Kastner and was performed by an ensemble directed by Charles-Eric Fontaine with many former and current Schulich students and recorded in the MMR. The piece will be released by NASA tomorrow 15 November 2023 at 2pm EST at the following URLs:
https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2023/music/
https://chandra.si.edu/sound/symphony.html
New Publication
Click the link to read this new publication by ACTOR members!
https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2023.2228601
Diversity in Music Corpus Studies
The article “Diversity in Music Corpus Studies” by Nicholas Shea, Christopher William White, and ACTOR members Lindsey Reymore, Ben Duinker, Leigh VanHandel, Matthew Zeller, and Nicole Biamonte has been accepted for publication in Music Theory Online 30.1 (2024). The article discusses the anti-discriminatory alignment system used by the TiPS project.
Visual Biases in Evaluation of Speakers’ and Singers’ Voice Type by Cis and Trans Listeners.
Check out ACTOR member Jay Marchand Knight’s publication in the Frontiers in Psychology “Visual biases in evaluation of speakers’ and singers’ voice type by cis and trans listeners.”
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1046672/full
Musical Collaborations, Timbre, and Recorded Sound
In-depth: a post or two about Maestro Brendel's comments:
“– One should hear the particular sound of the pianist, the timbres and balances that are recognizably his or her own. When I listen to some old recording of Cortot (Chopin 24 Preludes 1933), Edwin Fischer’s Well-Tempered Clavier or Kempff’s Decca recordings from 1950 I get this impression. They remind me of their sound which was such an essential quality and which I witnessed in many concerts. The other features: rhythm, tempo, articulation, cohesion, are easier to transmit.
– Do modern recordings have greater clarity? There is, on old recordings, often less reverberation, and yet they have a warmer sound. And there are recordings like my second set of Beethoven Sonatas where, alas, too much reverberation has been added by the sound engineer (it wasn’t Prof. de Francisco!).
– I have, in my later years, generally insisted on pianos that were not excessively bright except for the “big” concertos. Only once in my life, I used two different pianos in one concert. The somewhat unusual programme in London consisted of the Concertos Bartok I and Schoenberg, with Haydn sonatas in between.”
— Comments on the dialogues by Alfred Brendel (January 2022)
https://www.actorproject.org/tor/dialogues/musical-collaborations-timbre-and-recorded-sound/part-one
Nestrova Publication
Check out ACTOR member Theodora Nestorova’s publication in the Journal of Voice, “Vocal Vibrato Characteristics in Historical and Contemporary Opera, Operetta, and Schlager” Click the link to explore Nestorova’s analysis!https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2022.12.027
Publication: Zachary Wallmark's Video for "What is timbre ?"
Do you know what timbre is? Click the link or watch the video down below to hear Zachary Wallmark, Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Oregon, "break down the layers of timbre and what draws listeners to a particular sound.” Let us know what you think in the comments!