ACTOR at Manifeste 2019
Project Blog | Conference Summary
By Bob Hasegawa
June 22, 2019
ACTOR scholars and artists introduced the project to a French public this June with “Orchestration and the ACTOR Project,” a study day hosted by the Paris research center IRCAM (Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique) as part of the June 2019 ManiFeste-2020 festival. Our audience included young composers and performers participating in the ManiFeste Academy as well as IRCAM researchers, professional musicians, and a more general public of concertgoers and music lovers following the festival’s concerts and talks.
Recordings of all the June talks and demonstrations have been made available online by IRCAM’s Creation & Production team (with special thanks to Éric de Gélis). The opening set of talks, by Stephen McAdams, Philippe Esling, and Robert Hasegawa presented the “three pillars” of ACTOR: Perceptual, Technological, and Analytical/Creative. These talks emphasized the flow of ideas in our collaboration, and particularly the search for a perceptually informed theory of orchestration that embraces cutting-edge tools for the development of new scholarly, pedagogical, and creative outcomes.
McAdams’s introduction sketches out the broad outlines of the project. The psychological field of auditory scene analysis is central in categorizing a wide range of orchestral effects, ranging from blend and sequential integration to the intentional splitting of textures into layers or individual voices. ACTOR’s technological innovations are summarized in Esling’s talk, focusing on approaches to computational orchestration: most frequently, the use of computer applications such as Orchids or Orchidea to mimic target sounds through specific orchestral combinations. This is a complex combinatorial problem which makes great demands on computing power; newer approaches including learning-based inductive orchestration may offer more efficient solutions. My own talk on the Analytical/Creative aspects of ACTOR examines tools for scholars and teachers such as OrchPlay, the ORCHARD database, and the visualisation software Orcheil, as well as new avenues for music analysis informed by perception and acoustical analysis. Other morning presentations included a short film on the ODESSA (Orchestrational Distribution Effects in Sound, Space, and Acoustics) project realized at the Université de Montréal and the ORVEO project on computer-assisted orchestration based at the Haute École de musique de Genève (introduced by Luis Naón).
In the afternoon, talks from ACTOR composers Yan Maresz (CNSMDP, HEM Géneve) and Carmine Emanuele Cella (UC Berkeley) introduced innovations in computer-assisted orchestration as well as a glimpse into the composer’s workshop. Cella also offered a hands-on workshop with the latest versions of Orchidea. The performance side of ACTOR was on display in a round table with Jean-Michaël Lavoie (Université de Montréal), Guillaume Bourgogne (McGill University), and moderator Robert Hasegawa: “Orchestration from the conductor’s podium” . This discussion, featuring two expert conductors of contemporary repertoire, explored questions of balance, fusion, and artistic interpretation informed by new approaches to orchestration. The final presentation of the day featured ACTOR member Pierre Michel (Université de Strasbourg, GREAM) in a discussion of musicological approaches to timbre and orchestration, areas long overlooked by the discipline. A recent project at Strasbourg explores performance and orchestration issues linked to Gérard Grisey’s Les Espaces acoustiques through the collection and analysis of rehearsal and concert footage as well as interviews with conductor and Grisey expert Pierre-André Valade.
This summer study day, set in the context of the ManiFeste contemporary music festival and Academy, brought together all aspects of the ACTOR Project within one of our main research centres, IRCAM. Keep tuned for more public presentations of ACTOR’s research in 2019 and 2020, including ACTOR symposiums at CIRMMT and at the IRCAM Forum hors les murs in Montreal, April 2–5, 2020.