Newsletter no. 38
Newsletter no. 38
Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration Project
TOR Spotlight:
Orchestration of Sonorities of Renaissance Polyphony
The Timbre and Orchestration Resource Editors are happy to announce our latest published essay from the series Amazing Moments in Timbre, Orchestration of Sonorities of Renaissance Polyphony, by ACTOR Postdoc Ben Duinker. The essay examines the role of voicing in the timbral quality of closing chords in Renaissance polyphonic music.
Creations & Productions
Yum!
Yum! is a mixed-reality opera and dining experience, where the audience becomes an essential element of the show. In a world where climate change has decimated and transformed our eating and dining habits, three self-obsessed individuals, immune to the tribulations of the masses, experience an evening designed only for the select few. The opera is an immersive, multi-sensory adventure, with audiences seated on stage amongst and surrounding the cast. Yum! blends satire and dark humour with social commentary to explore the themes of climate change, class, identity, and self-obsession, all in a blurred and ostentatious setting. Read more
Participants
April Koyejo-Audige, co-creator / librettist & singer (UK) • Wen Liu, co-creator / composer (CN/AT) • Jorge Ramos, co-creator / composer (PT/UK) • Alexander Hackl, technical director (AT)
Presentations
The taxonomy of orchestral grouping effects: some thoughts on its application to the chamber music repertoire
On April 24, Nathalie Hérold gave a talk entitled La taxonomie des effets de groupement orchestraux : quelques réflexions sur son application au répertoire de musique de chambre [The taxonomy of orchestral grouping effects: some thoughts on its application to the chamber music repertoire], as part of the Study Day "Homogénéité, hétérogénéité des formations instrumentales dans la musique de chambre" [Homogeneity and heterogeneity of instrumental formations in chamber music], organized by Muriel Joubert and Denis Le Touzé, as part of the 19th Lyon International Chamber Music Competition (CIMCL), at the Université Lumière Lyon.
Afrological Perspectives on Timbre & Orchestration
All videos from the second season of the Afrological Perspectives on Timbre & Orchestration speaker series have been edited by Jason Winikoff and are now available for viewing. They can be accessed through either the Timbre in Afrological Music Workgroup's page or from the ACTOR Project's Youtube channel.
New commission with the ORA Singers
Composer and ACTOR Collaborator Jorge Ramos has received a new commision from the ORA Singers. Follow the link for more info: https://www.orasingers.com/graduate-composers
Timbre Semantics Workgroup Meeting
9 May | 11:00am EDT
Online - Zoom
Laurie Radford's 8-channel electroacoustic piece Au-delà du souffle will be given its European premiere at the NoiseFloor Festival in Lisbon, Portugal in May 2024. Read more
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 on zoom.
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.
Vacillations harmoniques en six tableaux
9 May | 7:30pm EDT
McGill University
Elizabeth Wirth Music Building
Music Multimedia Room MMR
The Quasar Saxophone Quartet joins forces with the McGill division of the ACTOR Project to present the concert Vacillations harmoniques en six tableaux [Harmonic vacillations in six images], featuring premieres by the participants of the project. After several months of research, meetings and creative workshops, the musicians of Quasar and composers are ready to present the fruit of this new collaboration. Free admission
PROGRAM
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 Harmoniques (Premiere, 2024)
Jonas Regnier - En s'effaçant (Premiere, 2024)
Louis-Michel Tougas - Cinq miniatures (Premiere, 2024)
Illustration by Lila Wildy Quillin.
Marcelo Caetano
Emily I. Dolan is Associate Professor and Department Chair at Brown University. Dolan works on the music of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, focusing on issues of orchestration, timbre, aesthetics, and instrumentality. She is the author of The Orchestral Revolution: Haydn and the Technologies of Timbre (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and is co-editor, with Alexander Rehding, of The Oxford Handbook of Timbre (2021). She has published articles and essays in Current Musicology, Eighteenth-Century Music, Studia Musicologica, Keyboard Perspectives, Representations, and 19th-Century Music and has essays forthcoming in Cambridge Opera Journal and The Journal of the American Musicological Society. Currently she serves on the Board of Directors of the American Musicological Society and the Board of Governors of the American Musical Instrument Society.
Dolan is completing her second monograph Instrument and Order. This project examines the material and immaterial lives of musical instruments in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. The book follows three intertwined threads: instruments’ status as historical objects and the roles they play in the construction of broader histories of music; narratives of instrumental invention and obsolescence; and evolving ideas of instrumentality. Dolan is also in the early stages of a new project that explores the historical processes by which timbre occasionally has become marginalized and what these forms of subordination can tell us about the history of listening more generally. This summer, Dolan is looking forward to teaching in the Second Timbre and Orchestration Summer School in Vancouver.
Workshop Y6
ACTOR Y6 Workshop Registration & Accommodation
Attention ACTORians!
Don't forget to register and secure your accommodation for the Y6 Workshop to be held in Vancouver, July 15-17, at the University of British Columbia! Deadline: June 1
REGISTRATION (for self-funded participants only)
We would like to invite self-funded members attending the event to register via the following link: https://forms.office.com/r/g4Xnf82min
Registration is free.
Lunch and dinner will be offered free of charge for all three days of the workshop. However, members will have to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses.
Members whose travel is being funded by ACTOR, such as Institutional Representatives, don't need to register.
LODGING
We have made arrangements with UBC Conferences and Accommodation to offer our members the following options:
Gage Suites – Signature Studio – $198 + 13% tx per night
Studio with queen bed, private washroom, Air conditioning, work desk with telephone, flat-panel TV and WIFI, fully-equipped kitchen and complimentary coffee. Maximum 2 guests per studio.
Place Vanier Residence - $60.00 + 13% tx per night
This low-cost accommodation is a great option for students. With mixed rooms (single/double), the Place Vanier Residence has shared hallway washrooms, with male and female washrooms located on alternate floors. Limited housekeeping service is available (i.e., linen is provided; guests bring their own towels and soap). Complimentary Wi-Fi is included. Buildings offer a social lounge with TV, fridge, sink and microwave on every floor and are equipped with elevators. Note that guests may be placed on single or double rooms (i.e., sharing with other participants). This will be determined later on, depending on the number of guests
Note that the UBC campus is rather isolated from downtown Vancouver (approximately 30-min by bus), thus it might be difficult to find nearby hotels.
To book your accommodation, please fill out the online registration form (link above) and send us an email including:
Preferred lodging (Gage Suites or Place Vanier)
Check-in date
Check-out date
Rooms are limited! Book your room soon, before we are full!
Payment should be completed upon arrival, by cheque made to "McGill University," and submitted to Andre Oliveira (not UBC!). Complete instructions will be sent once the reservation is confirmed.
For more details and the complete schedule, visit the ACTOR Y6 Webpage.
