ACTOR OUTCOMES

Publications

New research involving ACTOR members has been published.

Special issue of Music & Science — "Timbre: From Sound to Meaning" edited by Kai Siedenburg, Nina Eidsheim, Zachary Wallmark, Marcelo Caetano, Charalampos Saitis, and Asterios Zacharakis.

Articles by ACTOR members:

Asterios Zacharakis (2024, published online), Sonic Bouquet: Decoding Cross-Modal Correspondences Between Timbre and Scent
Lindsey Reymore (2024, published online), An Interdisciplinary Timbral Analysis of “ringtone,” by 100 gecs
Erica Y. Huynh & Stephen McAdams (2024, published online), Categorization of Typical and Atypical Combinations of Excitations and Resonators of Musical Instruments: Assimilation of the Unusual to the Familiar
Iza R. Korsmit, Marcel Montrey, Alix Y. T. Wong-Min & Stephen McAdams (2024, published online), The Acoustic Properties of Affective Timbres: Consistencies and Discrepancies in a Synthesis of Multiple Datasets
Linglan Zhu & Stephen McAdams (2024, published online), Comparison of Heard and Imagined Blends of Instrumental Dyads
Annie Liu & Zachary Wallmark (2024, published online) Identifying Peking Opera Roles through Vocal Timbre: An Acoustical and Conceptual Comparison between Dan and Laosheng.
Jason Winikoff (forthcoming), Kutanga, Mujimbu, and the Orchestration of Events Amongst the Luvale of Zambia.

Hansen, N.C., & Reymore, L. (2024). Timbral cues underlie instrument-specific absolute pitch in expert oboists. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306974

For the full bibliography, please visit ACTOR publications.

Presentations

SMT’s Annual Meeting

ACTOR student member Joshua Rosner participated in the Society for Music Theory's annual conference with his presentation Bright Beats: Timbre’s Influence on Rhythm and Meter, which was held from November 7-10, 2024 in Jacksonville, Florida. Read more

AWARDS AND HONOURS

Danish Ministry of Culture Grant

Congratulations to Lindsey Reymore for obtaining a grant from the Danish Ministry of Culture!

New grant: PI Niels Christian Hansen, Collaborator Lindsey Reymore, Danish Ministry of Culture; “PLAY: Timbral Diversification for Personalised Learning in Aural Skills Pedagogy” $131,057 USD (DKK 883,008)

London Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composers Programme

UPCOMING EVENTS

Metaphor as Material Practice

11 November | 6:00pm
McGill University
Tanna Schulich Hall

On November 11 Prof. Eidsheim will give her presentation Metaphor as Material Practice in the frame of the CIRMMT Distinguished Lectures series exploring the integral role that metaphor plays in our perception and understanding of music, musical practice, and one another. The presentation will take place at 6:00pm in the Tanna Music Hall of the Elisabeth Wirth Music Building of McGill University's Schulich School of Music.

Entry is free and the lecture will be followed by a catered reception. Read more

Workshop on vocal and instrumental timbre

12 November | 9:00am-5:00pm
McGill University
Room A-832

On November 12, from 9:00 to 5:00pm Nina Eidsheim presents a workshop on vocal and instrumental timbre in relation to the metaphors used to describe them and to the concept of materiality in contemporary music.

The workshop is organized by CIRMMT Research Axis 3 (Cognition, perception and movement) in collaboration with Robert Hasegawa, Caroline Traube, Juanita Marchand-Knight, and Kit Soden of the ACTOR Project.

The workshop will take place in room A-832 (8th floor) of the Elizabeth Wirth Music Building, 527 Sherbrooke Street West

To register, please see the event page. Read more

Gaston le caméléon

18, 20 November
Conservatoire de Lausanne

Gaston le caméléon, premiere of the French version of Cameron Chameleon, by Jason Noble (English version premiered in 2020 by the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble as part of ACTOR).

18 November 2024, Lausanne. Ensemble contemporain de l’HEMU, Guillaume Bourgogne, conductor, Ninon Manel, narrator. More info

20 November 2024, Lausanne, didactic concert. Ensemble contemporain de l’HEMU, Cristian Camilo Alvarez Olaya, conductor, Ninon Manel, narrator. More info

Timbre Semantics Workgroup Meeting

25 November | 1:00pm
Zoom

The Timbre Semantics Workgroup will be meeting on Monday, November 25 at 1pm Eastern time on Zoom: Zoom_Timbre-Semantics.url

Our focus topic will be on organizing Data Organization and Tool Development Project—all who are interested or intrigued are welcome—no prior involvement with this initiative is necessary. We will also have the opportunity to connect and share research updates, ideas, etc.

Workgroup on Orchestration Pedagogy

6 December | 11:00am-1:00pm EST
Zoom

The ACTOR Project Training and Mentoring Committee is organizing the first Workshop on Orchestration Pedagogy with the participation of Fabien Lévy (Hochschule für Musik und Theater 'Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy' Leipzig), Victor Cordero (Haute École de Musique de Genève), Lena Heng (University of Prince Edward Island), Kelsey Lussier (McGill University), and Félix Frédéric Baril (McGill University). The event will focus on various approaches to teaching orchestration through demonstrations, discussions, and the examination of orchestration syllabi. This free event is open to ACTOR members and anyone interested in orchestration pedagogy. We invite you to sign up and participate in this informative session.

Registration is required: https://airtable.com/app8gRjxBogIgqZsH/shrmerDYx3X1s945i

Join Zoom Meeting | Meeting ID: 811 9901 4175 | Passcode: 137765

ACTOR BUSINESS

Summer School

TOSS 2025

The ACTOR Project is pleased to announce its third Timbre and Orchestration Summer School (TOSS 2025), scheduled for June 3-7 at McGill University in Montréal, QC, Canada. This edition will be linked with the Timbre and Orchestration in Popular Song (TOPS) Conference.

Following the success of previous editions, TOSS 2025 continues to explore the multifaceted world of timbre and orchestration research, encompassing musicology, history, music theory, composition, cognitive neuroscience, and acoustics. This program targets graduate students (and advanced undergraduates), postdoctoral researchers, and early-career scholars involved in music-related research who have a strong interest in timbre and orchestration.

Learn more about how to apply here; application deadline is December 15th, 2024.

PROGRAM STRUCTURE

TOSS includes two days of tutorials/workshops and three days of overlap with the TOPS conference.

June 3 & 4: tutorials (open only to TOSS participants)
June 5: workshops (open to both TOSS and TOPS participants)
June 6 & 7: TOPS conference, featuring a poster session showcasing TOSS participants' research

COSTS

Accepted participants will be invited to register as of January 15. Registration fees are

Option 1 - $870: $720 (TOSS) + $150 (TOPS). This includes tuition, lunches on June 3-7, dinner June 7, and single-room accommodation for 6 nights (June 2-8) as availability permits.
Option 2 - $396: $246 (TOSS) + $150 (TOPS). This includes tuition and lunches on June 3-7, and dinner June 7.

NOTE: TOSS participants must also register for TOPS in order to access the activities on Days 3, 4, and 5 of TOSS.

Learn more

MEMBERS SPOTLIGHT

Luis Naón

Born in Argentina in 1961, Luis Naón studied music at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata and the Universidad Católica Argentina in Buenos Aires, then at the CNSM in Paris with Guy Reibel, Laurent Cuniot and Daniel Teruggi, at the Conservatoire de Pantin with Sergio Ortega and at Université Paris 8 with Horacio Vaggione, where he obtained a doctorate in Science and Technology of the Arts. Since 1991 he has been Professor of Composition and New Technologies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. From 2003 to 2008 he was also Professor of Composition at the ESMUC (Barcelona), and since 2006 Professor of Mixed Composition at the HEM in Geneva. The influence of so-called ‘traditional’ music and its heritage ( Argentinian tango and folklore, but also electronic music) is confronted with the various trends in the development of contemporary music, forging a particular language in which the French culture of timbre and sound plays a predominant role.

His works have been performed in prestigious venues and festivals in Europe, the Americas and Asia. His Urbana cycle, begun in 1991, crystallizes under this generic title in Urbana (1997) for accordion, percussion and real-time device, and comprises 25 works ranging from the acousmatic piece Perspectives to the piece for symphony orchestra Speculorum Memoria. Naón's most recent piece is acousmatic: Symphonie pour un monde seul. His works are published by Editions Lemoine, Billaudot and Babelscores.

As a professor at the HEM, he runs the EmROC workshop (Ensemble Mixte de Recherche en Orchestration et Composition). The aim of this laboratory is to research and learn about mixed composition through 15 working sessions with instrumentalists, conductors and composers, with a view to creating new, participatory works.

Jack Adler-McKean

Jack Adler-McKean is a performer-researcher whose work focusses on the meeting point of materiality, timbre, and performance practice in the context of the tuba family of instruments. He explores how a combination of historical musicology, acoustic science, and quantitative organology can be used alongside ethnographic and auto-ethnographic methods as a way of approaching performance-based research. Jack’s current projects include investigating the early history of the bass tuba as a solo instrument, the use of acoustic theory to stimulate creation of new music for old instruments, and collaborations with engineers to explore mechanical and electronic augmentations to acoustic instruments. Through this work, he aims to develop a sustainable practice that can framing self-reflection within broader chronological perspectives, as well as promoting an experimental approach to historicism that respects cultural heritage by using it as a lens through which the present and future can be viewed. Following publication of his first article for the Timbre and Orchestration Resource earlier this year, he is very excited about future collaborations with the ACTOR Project!

Jack’s recent artistic projects include ensemble performances with Ensemble Modern and Klangforum Wien, music theatre productions on stage at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Luzerner Theater, chamber music performances at the Pierre Boulez Saal and Elbphilharmonie, collaborations on new solo works with Sarah Nemstov and Georges Aperghis, premières at the BBC Proms and Darmstädter Ferienkurse, and recitals in Rome and Buenos Aires. His first book The Playing Techniques of the Tuba was published by Bärenreiter in 2020, while other writings have been featured in the Historic Brass Society Journal and Oxford Handbook of Wind Instruments, as well as the journals TEMPO and Music and Letters. He was awarded his PhD in 2023 from the Royal Northern College of Music, and earlier this year was appointed post-doctorate researcher at Lunds Universitet.

*photo by Kristof Lemp

OPEN CALLS

ACTOR Research Dissemination

With less than a year to conclude its activities, the ACTOR project would like to boost our knowledge mobilization and help you share the research you have developed within the context of ACTOR, including projects discussed in workgroup sessions, shared on ACTOR’s website, or funded by ACTOR.

We are organizing an initiative to promote ACTOR’s outcomes through social media and email communication and to accomplish this, we are inviting you to send us the following:

A short paragraph about the project outputs (or project itself) – this will be featured in a series of emails distributed to members and other academics who have subscribed to our newsletter.
A single line about the project – this will be featured in social media
URL – if available
An image – if available

Note:

It is ok if your project has not been completed yet. You may choose to talk about its aims, methodology, or if it’s a project with multiple phases, you can pick a single phase to promote.
You can also talk about your project in general and what you are trying to achieve.
All formats of dissemination are welcome: website, compositions, videos, code, tools, etc. This is the beauty of ACTOR!

Our main goal with this initiative is to reach both the academic community around ACTOR (members and non-members) as well as the general public and ensure that the vast amount of output generated during ACTOR (mostly on the TOR site—https://timbreandorchestration.org) is made accessible, therefore useful to other people. If your research is not on the TOR site in any way, that’s OK, you can still share it through us.

We will be accepting contributions continuously until the end of March 2025. Please send your materials to actor-project.music@mcgill.ca. Don’t miss out!

Timbre and Colour in French Music Symposium

Call for participation for the Timbre and Colour in French Music Symposium, which will be held February 20th and 21st, at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in England.

The French Music Research Hub at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire invites proposals for a two-day symposium on Timbre and Colour in French Music.

Deadline: Tuesday November 19, 2024

The symposium seeks to explore:

Exemplars of timbre and colour in francophone music from any historical period
The nature of engagement with timbre and colour by composers, musicians and writers on music operating in or associated with France;
The role of text(s) in relationship to musical timbre and colour
The role and resonance of relationships between keys, colours and instruments in the Baroque era
Which repertoire, figures or groups are excluded by using timbre and colour as signifiers of Frenchness
How far back francophone interest in the quality of sound extends
Organology and the role of instruments in cultivating French perspectives on timbre and colour
The implications for performance of exploring francophone notions of timbre and colour

Papers in English or French are welcomed.

Proposals are accepted for the following presentation formats:

Individual papers (20 minutes, plus 10 minutes for discussion)
Themed sessions (3 papers of 20 minutes each, plus 10 minutes per paper for discussion)
Performance-based presentations (up to 45 minutes including questions)

Each proposal should include:

Paper and/or session title(s)
The author’s name and affiliation (if any)
The author’s/convenor’s email address
Paper abstract(s) of no more than 250 words
Short biographical text(s) of the presenters/participants involved (no more than 150 words each)
Any technical requirements

For themed sessions, an additional panel description of max. 200 words is required.

For performance-based presentations, the word limit of the abstract is 350 words. Please include the name of participants, the repertoire to be performed and a sample recording.

Proposals, and any queries, should be emailed to FrenchMusic@bcu.ac.uk by 11.59pm (GMT) on Tuesday 19th November 2024. Outcomes should be known by early December. Read more

Call for Proposals:

Timbre and Orchestration in Popular Song

June 5–7, 2025
McGill University
Montreal QC, Canada

Timbre and orchestration are essential aspects of musical experience in any culture or style. They enable us to effortlessly identify different genres of music and are particularly important in popular musics. This centrality is reflected in Timbre and Orchestration in Popular Song (TOPS), a three-day conference hosted by McGill University's Schulich School of Music and the ACTOR Partnership. The conference convenes scholars, producers, performers, and audiences of popular music for keynote lectures, workshops, posters, and papers, united under the theme of how timbre and orchestration give rise to critical and analytical accounts of genre, identity, performance, production, and perception.

TOPS is soliciting proposals for paper (20 minutes) and poster presentations. We welcome submissions that approach timbre and orchestration in popular music (broadly defined) from any perspective or academic discipline, especially music theory, musicology, ethnomusicology, sound recording, performance, production, and cognition.

The conference features keynote presentations by Nina Sun Eidsheim (UCLA) and Kevin Holt (Stony Brook University), and workshops by Lindsey Reymore (Arizona State University), Nicole Biamonte (McGill University), Claire McLeish (Third Side Music), and Megan Lavengood (George Mason University). The TOPS schedule overlaps with ACTOR's third annual Timbre and Orchestration Summer School (June 3–7), which is designed for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, postdocs, and early-career researchers.

Proposals should be submitted by email to topsconference2025@gmail.com by 11:59 PM (anywhere in the world), February 1, 2025.

In the subject line, please include your name and “TOPS Proposal”
In the body of your email, please include the following:

Indication of whether the submission is for a paper or poster
The primary author’s name, email address and institutional affiliation (if relevant)
The names of any co-authors (if applicable)
Any technical requirements beyond audiovisual projection (i.e., a piano, whiteboard, etc.)

As a DOC or PDF attachment, please include:

An anonymized abstract of no more than 250 words

Results will be communicated to all corresponding authors by March 1, 2025. Should your paper be accepted, we will ask you to confirm your attendance via email by April 1, and let us know of any accessibility, dietary, and/or childcare needs. For any questions, please email the organizing committee at topsconference2025@gmail.com.

Program Committee: