Orchestration Pedagogy Workshop
Dec
6

Orchestration Pedagogy Workshop

The ACTOR Project Training and Mentoring Committee is organizing the first Workshop on Orchestration Pedagogy. The event will focus on various approaches to teaching orchestration through demonstrations, discussions, and the examination of orchestration syllabi.

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McGill Doctoral Colloquium
Nov
20

McGill Doctoral Colloquium

Colloquium on November 20.

  • Louis-Michel Tougas (Composition), “Issues and Cognitive Limits of Polyrhythm: A Multidisciplinary Approach”

  • Theodora Nestorova (Applied Performance Science), “Vocal Vibrato VariabilityNovel Analytical Tools & Diagnostic-Pedagogical Approaches in Diverse Genres”

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Cimbalom on the Stage
Nov
13

Cimbalom on the Stage

The intention of the workshop named "Cimbalom on the Stage" is to introduce the cimbalom as a fully fledged concert instrument whose specific sounds and far-reaching possibilities are increasingly coming to be appreciated in the world of both traditional and contemporary music. Daniel Skála, one of the most striking cimbalom players in the world today, along with leading player of the young generation Matěj Číp, will introduce the cimbalom in its paramount performance form.

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Timbre Semantics Workgroup
Sep
16

Timbre Semantics Workgroup

The Timbre Semantics Workgroup will meet four times over the course of this semester. All are invited to attend any or all of the meetings, whether or not you have been in previous semantics meetings. If you’d like more detail about what the topics below are, I recommend looking at the  Y6 meeting documentation, and you’re also welcome to message/email Jason and I with questions.

 All meetings are on Mondays at 1pm Eastern for this semester, based on the results of the general availability poll. We will take notes and record at all meetings. If there’s one you’d like to be at but can’t attend, let us know, and we’ll keep you updated/in the loop. 

All meetings will be hosted on Zoom.

  • September 16, 1pm Eastern - Semantics Pedagogy Project

  • October 21, 1pm Eastern - Cross-linguistic Semantics Project

  • November 25, 1pm Eastern - Data Organization and Tool Development

  • December 9, 1pm Eastern - General meeting; updates & discussion

Best,

Lindsey Reymore (LREYMORE[at]asu.edu) and Jason Noble (jason.noble[at]umoncton.ca)

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Elegies
Sep
7

Elegies

Kjel Sidolski, organist and master student in composition at University of Montréal, will perform his piece Élégies at Église Saint-Édouard in Montréal (6500, rue de Saint-Vallier), in the context of the Religious Heritage Days.

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ACTOR Y6 Workshop 2024 — Vancouver
Jul
15
to Jul 17

ACTOR Y6 Workshop 2024 — Vancouver

The Year 6 Annual Workshop will be hosted by the School of Music of the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. It will be held in a hybrid format (online/in person). This year, the workshop will be preceded by a three-day edition of the second Timbre and Orchestration Summer School (TOSS).
The event page can be found here.

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Timbre Semantics Workgroup Meeting
Jun
13

Timbre Semantics Workgroup Meeting

Hello all!

The Timbre Semantics Workgroup will be holding a Zoom meeting on Thursday, June 13 at 12:30pm Eastern time. You will be able to join the meeting here: https://asu.zoom.us/j/5352528724

All are welcome, whether or not you have been to a previous semantics workgroup meeting.

If you would like to share a project update, brainstorm an idea, or put a call out for collaborators (this can be as formal or as informal as you'd like), email Lindsey Reymore at lreymore@asu.edu. We’ll also be sharing informal updates and discussing future projects for the workgroup.

Hope to see you there!

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Timbre Semantics Workgroup Meeting
May
9

Timbre Semantics Workgroup Meeting

Timbre Semantics Workgroup Meeting

Hello all! 

 The Timbre Semantics Workgroup will be holding a Zoom meeting on Thursday, May 9 at 11:00am Eastern time. You will be able to join the meeting here: https://asu.zoom.us/j/5352528724

 All are welcome, whether or not you have been to a previous semantics workgroup meeting. 

 If you would like to share a project update, brainstorm an idea, or put a call out for collaborators (this can be as formal or as informal as you'd like), email Lindsey Reymore at lreymore@asu.edu. We’ll also be sharing informal updates and discussing future projects for the workgroup.

 Hope to see you there!

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May
9
to May 23

Concert “Vacillations harmoniques en six tableaux”

Hello everyone,

There will an upcoming concert co-organised by the QUASAR saxophone quartet and ACTOR called "Vacillations harmoniques en six tableaux", featuring premieres by 6 McGill composers (2 from our lab). The concert will take place in the MMR (Elizabeth Wirth Building, -2) on Thursday May 9 at 7:30pm. After several months of research, meetings and creative workshops, the QUASAR musicians and composers are ready to present the fruit of this new collaboration.

PROGRAMME (free admission)

Andrés Gutiérrez Martínez - Ebb and Flow (Premiere, 2024)

Chelsea Komschlies - Beneath the Old Power Plant (Premiere, 2024)

Anita Pari - A Flickering Glow (Premiere, 2024)

Lila Wildy Quillin - Amortisseur Harmonique (Premiere, 2024)

Jonas Regnier - En s'effaçant (Premiere, 2024)

Louis-Michel Tougas - Cinq miniatures (Premiere, 2024)

More info: https://quasar4.com/fr/evenements/saison-2023-2024/vacillations-harmoniques-en-six-tableaux?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0C6_Q35_kiEuXYdjibgOQV7FHh966LjsLpUnpFp2FVxIEtlpGG1B8gfoA_aem_AcddoUSJo4uYTLDTaNGss-qPdQmae-I61XfEcG6_gGZJnSvM9FrqPe_xy29MnyJrZbSybOSI8nXojvfbPtBVvJnd

https://www.facebook.com/events/1461265471172078?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[]%7D

Looking forward to seeing you there!

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Timbre and Orchestration Analysis Workgroup Meeting
Apr
5

Timbre and Orchestration Analysis Workgroup Meeting

The Timbre and Orchestration Analysis Workgroup will be meeting via Zoom from 10:00 to 11:30 (EDT) on April 5. All ACTOR members with an interest in music analysis are welcome to attend. The agenda for this meeting will include planning for our session at the Y6 workshop in Vancouver and lightning talks on ongoing analysis-related projects by ACTOR members—anyone who'd like to present should contact Robert Hasegawa (robert.hasegawa@mcgill.ca).

Zoom Link https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/2632309272.

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Timbre Semantics Workgroup
Mar
21

Timbre Semantics Workgroup

Timbre Semantics Workgroup

Hello all! 

 The Timbre Semantics Workgroup will be holding a Zoom meeting on Thursday, March 21 at 3:00pm Eastern time. You will be able to join the meeting here.

All are welcome, whether or not you have been to a previous semantics workgroup meeting. 

 If you would like to share a project update, brainstorm an idea, or put a call out for collaborators (this can be as formal or as informal as you'd like), email Lindsey Reymore at lreymore@asu.edu. We’ll also be sharing informal updates and discussing future projects for the workgroup.

 Hope to see you there!

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Mar
20

Porous Instruments: Synthesizers and the Circulation of Cultural Value | Jennifer Iverson (University of Chicago)

Conférence de prestige de la Faculté de musique 

Jennifer Iverson (University of Chicago) | ‘Porous Instruments: Synthesizers and the Circulation of Cultural Value’

Synthesized sound pervades our experience: A futuristic sci-fi thriller opens with electronic whirrs, clicks, and hums. Top-40 radio resuscitates the sounds of the analog Moog and the digital Yamaha DX-7 synths. Teenagers gather at clubs to lose themselves in the trance-inducing loops of DJ-produced electronic dance music. Hip hop producers create sick beats from samples, layered over the mechanical thumps of drum machines like the TR-808. How did synthesized sound become so ubiquitous? Culturally speaking, why does synthesized sound matter?

 Porous Instruments investigates the production, flow, and meaning of synthesized sound. I argue that electronic music technologies—synthesizers, studios, turntables—fuel the emergence of raced, gendered, and classed sounds, as well as the circulation of social capital. Synthesizers might appear to be black boxes, but they are in fact porous tools for self-fashioning: users constantly intervene with new design affordances, hacks, and off-label (mis)uses. As listeners encounter new synthesized sounds, they navigate a continuum from novelty to ubiquity, ever-inventing new meanings for the electronic sounds that swirl around them. This talk works through several examples, from TPain to Janelle Monae, from Wendy Carlos to J Dilla, and from Deniece Williams to John Chowning, showing how cultural value accrues to synthesized sound. I attend to the outward-moving processes of mobility and circulation, as well as the inward-moving processes of subcultural definition, as I analyze how synthesized sounds flow through several different instruments. Porous instruments mediate the social synthesis of identity, prestige, and cultural value.

Jennifer Iverson is a scholar of electronic music, sound studies, and disability studies. She is an Associate Professor of Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago. She is currently writing a book titled Porous Instruments: Synthesizers and the Circulation of Cultural Value, which explores the complex histories and (mis)uses of synthesizers such as the vocoder, Moog, the DX7, and the TR-808. Her first book is Electronic Inspirations: Technologies of the Cold War Musical Avant-Garde (Oxford University Press, 2019).

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Mar
14

Analyzing Heterophony: Theory, Perception, and Performance | Jonathan De Souza (Western University)

Analyzing Heterophony: Theory, Perception, and Performance | Jonathan De Souza (Western University)

Dans le cadre du projet « Hétérophonie » (CRSH) dirigé par Jonathan Goldman

Jonathan De Souza holds a PhD in music theory and history from the University of Chicago, an MMus from Royal Holloway, University of London, and a BMus from Western University. He joined the faculty at Western in 2013.

De Souza’s research combines music theory, cognitive science, and philosophy. It examines the interplay of technology and technique in both classical and popular repertoire. His book, Music at Hand: Instruments, Bodies, and Cognition, asks how instruments affect music’s sounding organization and players’ experience. De Souza often collaborates across disciplines, and he is an Associate Member at the Brain and Mind Institute.

At Western, De Souza teaches a range of undergraduate theory courses. Recent graduate courses have explored the history of music theory and science, phenomenological aspects of music analysis, and music theory pedagogy. From 2017–2019, he served as the director for Music, Cognition, and the Brain, an initiative at Western that brings together faculty members and graduate students from music theory and music education, cognitive neuroscience, audiology, and related fields.

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CIRMMT Spatial Audio and Immersive Sound Workshop
Feb
23

CIRMMT Spatial Audio and Immersive Sound Workshop

CIRMMT Spatial Audio and Immersive Sound Workshop

We are eager to share our first CIRMMT RA4 event in 2024, on February 23rd

 The CIRMMT Spatial Audio and Immersive Sound Workshop will bring together experts from across the CIRMMT community, including students, as well as industry partners to cover various aspects of Spatial Audio and 3D Immersive Sound. 

  Description:

The Workshop will consist of a full day of lectures on several topics relevant to the core themes of Spatial Audio and 3D sound. Besides, there will be a variety of practical demonstrations ranging between an open hardware design for a new multidirectional loudspeaker array for spatial sound reproduction, 3D Ambisonic recordings including live demos with composers/performers with the possibility to listen to the resulting recordings immediately afterwards, as well as listening sessions of intricate multichannel music recordings in 7.1.4. Dolby Atmos in the immersive sound labs. 

 The workshop will consist of lectures on spatial audio in the morning and activities, performances, and demonstrations in the afternoon.  

 Spatial Audio Workshop Details 

Date: February 23rd, 2024 

Time: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM  

Location: A-832, MMR and the immersive labs in -2 (527 Sherbrooke O. Montreal, QC) 

 Seating is limited and registered attendees will have priority.

Event

Registration


Nous sommes impatients de vous convier à notre premier événement de l’AR4 en 2024, qui se tiendra le 23 février.

L’atelier « CIRMMT Spatial Audio and Immersive Sound » rassemblera des experts de toute la communauté du CIRMMT, incluant étudiants et partenaires de l’industrie, pour explorer divers aspects de l’audio spatial et du son immersif 3D.

 Description:

L’atelier offrira une journée complète de conférences couvrant une multitude de sujets pertinents dans les domaines de l’audio spatial et du son 3 D. En plus des présentations, les participants auront l’opportunité d’assister à diverses démonstrations pratiques. Ces démonstrations incluront la conception d’un dispositif innovant pour un ensemble de haut-parleurs multidirectionnels, une session d’enregistrement ambisonique 3D avec des démonstrations en direct par des compositeurs et interprètes, suivie de l’écoute immédiate des enregistrements réalisés, ainsi que des sessions d’écoute de musique multicanal dans une version Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 dans nos laboratoires sonores immersifs.

 L’atelier débutera par des conférences sur l’audio spatial le matin et se poursuivra avec des activités, performances et démonstrations l’après-midi.

 Détails de l’atelier

Date : 23 février 2024

Heure : 9 h - 17 h

Lieu : A-832, MMR, les laboratoires immersifs du -2 (527 rue Sherbrooke O. Montréal, QC, H3A 1E3)

 Les places sont limitées et les participants inscrits seront prioritaires.

 Événement

Inscription

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Analysis Workgroup Meeting
Jan
26

Analysis Workgroup Meeting

Hello ACTORians!

Our Analysis Workgroup will hold its next meeting via Zoom on Friday, January 26, 11:30-13:00 ET. All interested ACTOR members are welcome to join us, whether or not they've been to meetings of this group before. https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/2632309272

Workgroup participants are welcome to bring topics for discussion, including any ongoing or new projects involving music analysis and timbre/orchestration. This session will include an update on the analysis of our CORE (composer-performer research ensemble) pieces, including the use of the OrchView application for annotation and data coding, plus plans for an issue of the Revue Musicale OICRM on CORE.

Looking forward to Friday the 26! Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.

All the best,

Bob

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Approche collaborative de la création musicale : Processus de recherche compositionnelle et d’analyse autour du projet EROC3
Jan
25

Approche collaborative de la création musicale : Processus de recherche compositionnelle et d’analyse autour du projet EROC3

Approche collaborative de la création musicale : Processus de recherche compositionnelle et d’analyse autour du projet EROC3

Bonjour à toute la communauté,

Cette semaine, le Colloquium d'études supérieures en composition et création sonore a le plaisir de recevoir le tandem composé de Simon Grégorcic et Matthieu Galliker, qui viendra faire une présentation à la Faculté de musique, ce jeudi 25 janvier de 12h30 à 14h au B-521. L'entrée est libre! Vous êtes les bienvenu·es!

Approche collaborative de la création musicale : Processus de recherche compositionnelle et d’analyse autour du projet EROC3

Notre étude se penche sur le cas de la création d’Accords secrets pour sept instruments et électronique de Simon Grégorcic. S'inscrivant dans le cadre d'un séminaire associé à la troisième édition du projet Ensemble de recherche en orchestration contemporaine (EROC3) du regroupement scientifique Analysis, Creation, and Teaching Timbre and Orchestration (ACTOR), cette collaboration a réuni une équipe de sept étudiant·e·s en interprétation, Matthieu Galliker (musicologie) et Simon Grégorcic (composition) pour réfléchir, expérimenter et mettre en œuvre des problématiques liées au timbre et à l’orchestration, à travers un processus participatif de création ayant abouti sur un concert en avril 2023. Ce processus a rapidement été canalisé autour des idées de paysage sonore et d’espace musical. Sur les suggestions de chaque membre à propos d'enjeux poétiques et techniques (modes de jeux instrumentaux, résonance et spatialisation, écriture instrumentale, technologie), l'œuvre a progressivement pris forme pour aboutir à Accords secrets. Tout au long de cette collaboration, un suivi musicologique a été réalisé afin de rendre compte des stratégies de création qui ont été empruntées. Notamment guidée à travers les concepts d'« atelier » et d' « espace », la présente communication visera à montrer ce contexte de travail, ses enjeux et limites et les mettra en perspective à l'aune d’une analyse de la pièce pour en faire ressortir le parcours collaboratif.

 —

Après une formation de pianiste au Conservatoire de Versailles dans la classe de François Chaplin, Simon Grégorcic entame en France une carrière de pianiste accompagnateur et de professeur de musique. À partir de 2014 il poursuit une formation en composition instrumentale au Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, et poursuit actuellement un doctorat à l’Université de Montréal sous la direction de Caroline Traube et Jimmie LeBlanc. Il a collaboré dans des projets divers avec l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal (Véronique Lacroix), L’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (Kent Nagano), Le Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (Julian Pellicano), l’Orchestre de la francophonie (Simon Rivard) entre autres…

Après des études en musicologie et histoire du théâtre musical ainsi qu’en histoire de l’art effectuées à l’Université de Fribourg en Suisse, Matthieu Galliker entreprend en 2022 une thèse de doctorat à la Faculté de musique de l’Université de Montréal, portant sur l’imitation des chants d’oiseaux dans la musique humaine de 1950 à nos jours. Membre de l’Observatoire interdisciplinaire de création et de recherche en musique (OICRM), du regroupement Analysis, Creation, and Teaching Timbre and Orchestration (ACTOR) et du Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), ses centres d’intérêt s’étendent de la zoomusicologie – notamment à propos des relations entre cultures humaines et non humaines – à la sémiologie de la musique, et comprennent une attention particulière à l’intégration de réflexions touchant à la fois au processus compositionnel et à la perception de la musique.

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Afrological Perspectives on Timbre & Orchestration | Braxton Shelley
Jan
25

Afrological Perspectives on Timbre & Orchestration | Braxton Shelley

Minister, musician, and musicologist Braxton D. Shelley is a tenured associate professor of music, of sacred music, and of divinity in the Department of Music, the Institute of Sacred Music, and Yale's Divinity School. A musicologist who specializes in African American popular music, his research and critical interests, while especially focused on African American gospel performance, extend into media studies, sound studies, phenomenology, homiletics, and theology. Shelley is the author of Healing for the Soul: Richard Smallwood, the Vamp, and the Gospel Imagination as well as the forthcoming An Eternal Pitch: Bishop G.E. Patterson and the Afterlives of Ecstasy. His research has received considerable recognition including the Alfred Einstein Prize, Paul A. Pisk Prize, the Jaap Kunst Prize, and the Adam Krims Award. He received his Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Music at the University of Chicago.

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Timbre Geeks Networking (TGN) Event
Jan
19

Timbre Geeks Networking (TGN) Event

ACTOR's Training and Mentoring Committee is pleased to announce our annual Timbre Geeks Networking (TGN) event, which will be held online on January 19, 2024, from 12h-14h EST. This year's TGN is slightly different: we invite any ACTOR student who is interested in applying for the Y6 Student Presentation Award (https://www.actorproject.org/funding/student-workshop-presentations) to deliver a lightning talk on their proposed project. Fellow students and members of TMC will offer feedback on each talk in service of helping students develop competitive proposals for the Y6 presentation award. All are welcome, but registration is required if you wish to present.

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Afrological Perspective on Timbre & Orchestration | Ayò Olúrántí
Jan
18

Afrological Perspective on Timbre & Orchestration | Ayò Olúrántí

Ayò Olúrántí is a composer, conductor, organist, and music theorist specializing in pre-colonial Yorùbá music and culture. Equally fluent in the fields of production and computer technology, he is also an active member of the digital and virtual pipe organ community. His cross-cultural approaches to composition and scholarship have earned him considerable international attention. He has performed and composed in Nigeria, the UK, the USA, South Africa, and Germany. Olúrántí is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the Morehouse College Sub-Sahara Africa Commission Award, Andrew Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, and was the winner of the Donald Sutherland Endowment Fund Composition Competition. He has published research on tonality of African languages, polyrhythm in African pianism, intercultural music composition, and orality as a compositional technique. Olúrántí received his Ph.D. in Composition & Theory from the University of Pittsburgh.

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How the cello became a vehicle for arranging Haitian songs | Leyla McCalla
Oct
5

How the cello became a vehicle for arranging Haitian songs | Leyla McCalla

Combining original compositions and traditional Haitian tunes with historical broadcasts and contemporary interviews, Leyla McCalla’s remarkable new album, Breaking The Thermometer, offers an immersive sonic journey through 50 years of racial, social, and political unrest as it explores the legacy of Radio Haiti—the first radio station to report in Haitian Kreyòl, the voice of the people—and the journalists who risked their lives to broadcast it.

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Designing and Delivering Effective Research Presentations Workshop
Sep
27

Designing and Delivering Effective Research Presentations Workshop

ACTOR’s Training and Mentoring Committee will host a workshop on Designing and Delivering Effective Research Presentations. Aimed at graduate students and early-career scholars, this event features as guest speakers ACTOR Partners Lindsey Reymore (Arizona State University) and Eliot Britton (University of Toronto) as well as Mithura Sanmugalingam (McGill University Teaching and Learning Services).

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The 3rd International Conference on Timbre
Jul
10
to Jul 12

The 3rd International Conference on Timbre

The 3rd International Conference on Timbre

10–12 July 2023

Including the first ever Timbre and Orchestration Summer School 8–12 July 2023 — a synergy with the ACTOR Project

Location: Thessaloniki, Greece

Hosted by the School of Music Studies and the Sound & Music Technology Lab at the Artistotle University of Thessaloniki

https://timbreconference.org/timbre2023/

About

Timbre poses multifaceted research questions across the scientific spectrum, from hearing and music to psychology and neuroscience, to acoustics and artificial intelligence. The triennial International Conference on Timbre brings together a cross-disciplinary community of scholars, researchers, and practitioners interested in timbre, and provides a joint forum for exchanging novel insights and forging collaborations across disciplines to help address challenges in our understanding of timbre from empirical, theoretical, and computational perspectives.

Timbre 2023 will feature a program of new research and work in progress, panel sessions and tutorials, headlined by keynote talks discussing timbre from ‘unexpected’ perspectives: Nina Sun Eidsheim (UCLA) on timbre and vibration, Makis Solomos (Paris 8) on timbre and listening, Charles Spence (Oxford) on timbre and crossmodality, and Jesse Engel (Google, likely remote) on timbre and artificial intelligence. In foregrounding the interdisciplinarity of timbre and its application as an important parameter in orchestration, the ACTOR Timbre and Orchestration Summer School will engage with current perspectives on acoustics, analysis, composition, perception, semantics, and voice.

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