Strategic Project Yan Maresz et al Strategic Project Yan Maresz et al

Database of scores and recordings of orchestral exams at the Paris Conservatory

There exists an abyss on the subject of the history of orchestration pedagogy, and this project proposes a first step in approaching this topic through the orchestration exams from initiation and end-of-curriculum classes at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (CNSMDP). Many student orchestration exams have been destroyed at the National Archives since the orchestration classes were introduced at the Conservatory in 1977. However, a significant number of scores remain to be collected. The recordings of these scores by the Conservatory orchestra have largely been preserved on various supports according to the audiovisual service at the Conservatory.

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Strategic Project Martha de Francisco et al Strategic Project Martha de Francisco et al

Recording and mixing a French sound: The case of Beethoven’s Erard Frères piano

On a fundamental level, we ask what differentiated a “French” from a “Viennese” sound; but taking into account the skills of both builder and player, along with the complex affordances of a particular type of instrument, we also ask what made Beethoven a “fast learner” on a new instrument and his Paris-based rival Steibelt an “expert” of a familiar one—one that lent itself well to what in France was known as son continu, or the skill of sustaining or “spinning” sound.

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Strategic Project Bob Pritchard Strategic Project Bob Pritchard

Dance and timbral exploration (DATE)

The DATE project will expand on the combined composed and improvisatory environments by providing a dancer/choreographer with the tools to blend and process the sounds of two musicians in real time using physical gestures. This project will make use of the Kinect Controlled Artistic Sensing System (KiCASS), a UBC-developed motion capture system which uses infra-red tracking to generate data from 20 points on multiple dancers.

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Strategic Project Eliot Britton & Anthony Tan Strategic Project Eliot Britton & Anthony Tan

A Quick Start Guide for Combining Electronic and Instrumental Orchestration

This project develops a streamlined resource for emerging composers seeking to introduce live electronics into their instrumental orchestration practice. It focuses on two topics. 1. Accessible and stable performance frameworks 2. Straightforward strategies for orchestrating with electronics in chamber and orchestral context.

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Strategic Project Lindsey Reymore et al Strategic Project Lindsey Reymore et al

Interactions of timbre, genre, and form in popular music

Timbre is an important stylistic and structural parameter in popular music, yet its specific functional roles in this repertoire have not yet been theorized. Most music-analytical scholarship on timbre in popular music to date consists of case studies of individual artists, bands, studios, or genres. There have been no broad corpus studies establishing timbral norms for genres or eras of popular music.

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Strategic Project Zachary Wallmark & Charalampos Saitis Strategic Project Zachary Wallmark & Charalampos Saitis

Metaphors We Listen With

Brightness is among the most studied aspects of music perception, and arguably among the most important timbral cues actively shaped by performers, composers, and audio engineers.

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Strategic Project Martha de Francisco et al Strategic Project Martha de Francisco et al

Path of Miracles – A multitrack recording in 3D audio to recreate choral blend

The historical Chapelle du Grand Séminaire de Montréal presents the acoustical canvas for a choral recording. 32 microphones will be placed strategically, 18 spot microphones, one for each singer, 8 highly positioned ambient microphones in varying distances, and 6 height microphones will capture the immersive sound above the choir.

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Strategic Project Timbre and Orchestration Resource Strategic Project Timbre and Orchestration Resource

Evaluating Spatio-Timbral Features using Higher-Order Ambisonic Recordings in the Music of Hans Tutschku

The team seeks to develop new digital means to analyse and interpret audio data generated by performances and collected using an ambisonic microphone (sub axes audio analysis, music analysis). Over the next twelve months the team will work to develop digital, analytical methodologies to better understand how timbre is manipulated and deployed in performance.

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Strategic Project Robert Hasegawa et al Strategic Project Robert Hasegawa et al

Spatialization, Orchestration, Perception: IRCAM Forum Hors les murs, Montreal 2020

Robert Hasegawa and colleagues from McGill, Université de Montréal, the Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT) and local new music ensembles planned an edition of the IRCAM Forum Workshop hors les murs in Montreal (April 2 to 5, 2020). This event brings together diverse Montreal institutions and offers an opportunity for exchanges between researchers and artists from IRCAM and their counterparts in Canada and the United States.

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Strategic Project Martha de Francisco et al Strategic Project Martha de Francisco et al

ODESSA: Orchestral Distribution Effects in Sound, Space, and Acoustics

An interdisciplinary symphonic recording for the study of orchestral sound. With the aim to study orchestral blending effects, a joint music production and evaluation of an orchestral recording was realized. Excerpts of the work were recorded in the full orchestral setting or in variable combinations of single instruments, partial or complete orchestral sections performing together, which illustrated timbre blending between the groups.

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