5th CIRMMT-ACTOR Symposium on Orchestration Research
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The Analysis, Creation and Teaching of Orchestration (ACTOR) Project and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research is Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) will be co-hosting a hybrid symposium on orchestration research on Friday, October 21, 12:00-1:30pm (EST). The event is open to all and will include presentations by ACTOR Postdoctoral Fellows Andrés Gutiérrez Martínez and Ben Duinker followed by a discussion period.
The Performer's Voice in Music Theory/Analysis Research – Ben Duinker
Timbre Topologies - Conception and Exploration of Timbral Similarity, Analogy, and Difference in my Creative Practice – Andrés Gutiérrez Martínez
Biographies
Ben Duinker
Ben Duinker comes to ACTOR from the University of Toronto, where he held a SSHRC postdoc to study analysis and performance in contemporary music. He received a PhD in Music Theory and Master of Music in Percussion Performance from McGill University, where his doctoral dissertation focused on metric and rhythmic aspects of hip-hop flow and was awarded an SMT-40 dissertation fellowship by the Society for Music Theory. Duinker has published on a variety of topics, with articles recently appearing in Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum, Music Theory Online, Popular Music, Journal of Popular Music Studies, and elsewhere. In addition to academics, Duinker works as a chamber musician, primarily with the Montreal-based quartet Architek Percussion, with whom he has premiered over 60 works and appeared on six albums.
Duinker’s dissertation research investigates how flow practice has evolved in connection to hip-hop music’s transition from a regional genre with identifiable local styles to a more stylistically homogeneous post-regional genre. He uses music analysis to stimulate broader discussions of Black oral vernacular traditions, perception, and the racial dimension of linguistics, rhythm, and genre. His present project—undertaken at ACTOR—concerns the defining roles of timbre, texture, orchestration, and language in trap music, a genre borne from Southern hip hop that has now pollinated local hip-hop genres worldwide. Duinker’s other research interest engages his dual backgrounds in theory and performance. This work primarily involves case studies that unite score-based analysis of contemporary works and ethnographic research with performers who have championed these works. The case-study topics include embodiment, interpretive difficulty, performers’ evolving relationships with works, and the strategic integration of theory and performance pedagogy.
Andrés Gutiérrez Martínez
Andrés Gutiérrez Martínez is a Mexican composer and electronic music performer. He began his musical studies in his hometown and continued his studies in Austria where he obtained master’s degrees in composition and electro-acoustic composition and computer music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. He completed his Ph.D. in Music Composition at the University of California San Diego in spring 2022. He has received several distinctions and grants such as the Musikförderungspreis der Stadt Graz in 2012, and the Young Creators Scholarship in Music Composition in 2017 by the Mexican Fund for Culture and the Arts FONCA. He was one of the winning composers of the fourth edition of the Incontri Internazionali Franco Donatoni in 2016 receiving a commission to write a piece for the Divertimento Ensemble and the Stuttgart Neue Vocalsolisten. He has received additional commissions by the Schallfeld Ensemble, Low Frequency Trio, and Line Upon Line Percussion.
For Andrés, timbral exploration is an important element in the articulation of sonic events. The search for timbral similarities and “sonic analogies” across music instruments, and the use of extended instrumental techniques are important constituents of his musical language. Additionally, the use of live-electronics is an important element in Andres’ work as a composer and performer. In his latest electro-acoustic work, Andres has experimented with controlled feedback situations on resonant surfaces of percussion instruments such as drums, metal plates, tam-tams as a means of developing an expressive, tactile approach to the control of electronic sound generation. As part of the ACTOR Innovation Output postdoc Andres is focusing on the research of timbre and orchestration by exploring the role of individual instrumental timbre in voicing in an effort to incorporate variation and nuance in instrumental synthesis techniques.
