Student Representatives for The 2023-2024 Academic Year
We are pleased to announce that our three student representatives for the 2023-2024 academic year have been elected:
Executive Committee (EC) – Rebecca Moranis, PhD student (music theory), CUNY Graduate Center
Training and Mentoring Committee (TMC) – Francesco Maccarini, PhD Student (Computer science), Université de Lille
Knowledge Mobilization Committee (KMC) – Simon Jacobsen, PhD student (Music Perception), Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
Click the link to learn more about our committee members!
Newsletter / Bulletin #29
Facebook/ Instagram: ACTOR'S June newsletter is now out! Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with all of ACTOR'S research, projects and upcoming events about TOR.
Shared mental representations underlie metaphorical sound concepts.
Read “Shared mental representations underlie metaphorical sound concepts,” an article published in Scientific Reports with contributions by ACTOR members Victor Rossi and Patrick Susini.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-32214-2
My Journey Into Timbre Space
Click the link below to read more about Stephen McAdams’ journey into timbre space and the subsequent creation of the ACTOR project!
https://www.actorproject.org/timbre-and-orchestration-blog/timbre-stories/2022/2/2/my-journey-into-timbre-space
Timbre and Orchestration Writings: Seven Beginnings
Revisiting Jason Noble’s article about his composition, Seven Beginnings, commemorating through music the birth of Noble’s daughter. While examining the intricacies of the piece, it is also “far from being a technical étude, it is a very personal piece with a very specific motivation behind its materials and methods.” Follow the link in our story or down below to learn more!
Seven Beginnings: Fourth Beginning
Check out Jason Noble's Forth Beginning, as part of his work, Seven Beginnings! Click the link below to hear more about how Noble composed this piece using recordings of his daughter during her “babbling stage.”
Music Performance Markup
Click the link below to learn more about the project, "Music Performance Markup: Infrastructure for a Data Standard for Musical Performance Modelling". Their team has worked for years developing "Music Performance Markup format (MPM), comprehensive schema definition, documentation, and several software tools to work with this format, make performance analyses and create expressive MIDI/audio renderings."
Seven Beginnings: First Beginning
Click the link below to learn more about "the First Beginning," the first segment of Nobel's piece, Seven Beginnings. Jason Nobel’s work commemorates his daughter, Lily, as “the First Beginning,” explores the sensations a well-developed baby feels before birth. Noble writes, “The first beginning was noise, and it was as a liquid, suffusing and subsuming, filling every crevice, and of silent space there was none.”
Newsletter / Bulletin #25
Speak Web
SpeaK seeks to improve our knowledge about sounds in relation to auditory expertise and is calling on experts of music and sound to use the new web version to “create and share sound lexicons associated with a specific corpus of sounds.” Follow ACTOR to keep updated with projects such as SpeaK!
Amazing Moments in Timbre
Call for Contributions, Amazing Moments in Timbre: In this series we will explore many instances of musical moments in which the use of timbre plays an important role in the unfolding of a composition.
Stephen - Royal Society
Congratulations to ACTOR director Stephen McAdams who has been elected Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada! This is an outstanding accomplishment and is the highest recognition granted to the individual in the arts & social sciences by the RSC.
Lovin’ You — by Minnie Riperton
Learn more from Michelle Sulaiman about Minnie Riperton's unique, incredible whistle tone and technical style in Lovin' You.
Unveiling the Mystery of Timbre
As part of ACTOR’s series of Timbre Stories, “Unveiling the Mystery of Timbre”, explores what makes timbre so complex, yet fascinating. Click the link below or in our bio to read more from this anonymous author on his journey to understanding timbre!
ACTOR Speaker Series
SAVE THE DATE! The Sub-Saharan African and Afro-Diasporic subgroup of the Diversity working group are pleased to formally announce the Speaker Series: Afrological Perspectives on Timbre and Orchestration. The series, spearheaded by Jason Winikoff, Joshua Rosner, and Jay Marchand Knight, will take place over the 2022-23 academic year and will launch with a talk by Dr. Bibian Kalinde entitled, “Unraveling timbre in the music of the marriage ceremony of the Chewa and Bemba in Zambia.” Other invited guests include Kevin Holt, Andile Khumalo, Joel Larue Smith, Marvin McNeill, and Stephanie Shonekan. Bibian Kalinde’s talk will take place on Friday 30 September 2022 from 12:00pm-1:15pm Eastern (6:00pm-7:15pm in Zambia) and will be given over Zoom. Information about links to attend the event will be sent out closer to the date of the event.
Ilshin Composition Prize
Congratulations to ACTOR member Sang Song on receiving the prestigious Ilshin Composition Prize awarded by by the Ilshin Foundation in Korea! While this prize is typically awarded to mid-career composers, Sang was selected by a panel which included Unsuk Chin despite being a graduate student. Alongside a cash prize of 10 million Korean Won (approx. US$9,000), Sang will be writing a new piece to be performed at the award ceremony.
ACTOR TMC CV & Cover letter Workshop
Join us on Sept 26th at 1 PM for ACTOR'S TMC CV & Cover Letter Workshop! Our online event will include a panel discussion followed by breakout sessions in both English & French. Registration prior to the event is required, and is offered to ACTOR & CIRMMT members only! For more information, visit: https://www.actorproject.org/events-calendar/actor-cv-cover-letter-workshop. We can't wait to see you all there!
Musical collaborations, timbre, and recorded sound
Calling all pianists and orchestra lovers! Click the link below or in our bio to read more from Viktor Lazarov’s interview with the esteemed Professor Martha de Francisco. Together they explore recording processes, unique sounds, timbral differences, and so much more! Lazarov notes, “Martha relates specific experiences, notably, recording and discussing timbre with Alfred Brendel, the great Austrian pianist.”
Pour l’image- Philippe Hurel
Learn more about Philippe Hurel’s Pour l’image! In this piece, Linglan Zhu explores the musical transitions in the opening of Pour l’image. Zhu notes, “Two large-scale transitions happen consecutively within the first 60 measures of this piece, each of which showcases a set of different orchestration techniques that effectively modulate listeners’ perception.”
Musicians Auditory Perception (MAP)
ACTOR partners UCSD and McGill University have teamed up for the Musicians Auditory Perception (MAP) Project! MAP focuses on the creative process during musical collaboration, as 3 duos were selected to “document their collaborations while creating with binaural recording devices, adopting the concept of ‘sonic boundary objects”