Honorable Mention 2018 Giga Hertz Prize
Since 2007 the Giga-Hertz Award for electronic music has been jointly awarded by the ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics and the Freiburg EXPERIMENTALSTUDIO of the SWR. The Giga-Hertz Award is dedicated to world-famous physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894) who discovered electromagnetic waves at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) where he taught at the end of the nineteenth century.
Giga Hertz Production Award
The jury also nominated two outstanding works from around 150 international submissions: The artist duo »GRAYCODE, jiiiin«, consisting of Jinhee Jung and Taebok Cho, received the Giga Hertz Production Prize worth €4,000 for their audiovisual work »+3x10^8m/s, beyond the light velocity «for Fixed Media. In their piece, »GRAYCODE, jiiiin« make it possible to experience the expansion of the universe through sound. The second Giga Hertz Production Prize, also combined with prize money of 4,000 €, goes to Óscar Escudero for his composition »POV« (Point of View) for saxophone and fixed media. The saxophonist wears VR glasses: he is source and receiver of his actions, through the VR glasses he explores his actions from different »Points of View«.
Special Prize »Artificial Intelligence«
For the first time, an artist is also awarded the special prize »Artificial Intelligence« (endowed with 2,000 €): Martino Sarolli for his play »Lapidario_01«. Sarolli sonifies silicon crystals through the use of neural networks. David Bird also receives a special mention for his composition Decoder for Percussion and Live-Electronics (endowed with 1.000 €). His composition is characterized »by its simplicity with regard to technical means and the mediation of the human-machine relationship«.
https://zkm.de/en/event/2018/11/giga-hertz-award-2018-award-ceremony
Premiere of Music Theatre Work "Lonelyhearts"
On April 21st, TAK ensemble premiered "Lonelyhearts", developed in collaboration with actor and playwrite Kelsey Torstveit. "Lonelyhearts" follows a single character as they navigate a desolate apartment and the mysteries that hide within it. With nods to Lynch and Hitchcock, commonplace sounds take on a dramatic significance, as creaking floorboards, dripping faucets, and the electric hum of appliances, are amplified and orchestrated out to members of the TAK Ensemble.
On April 21st, TAK ensemble premiered my first-ever music theatre work "Lonelyhearts", developed in close collaboration with actor and playwright Kelsey Torstveit. The evening also featured works by Aaron Einbond and Alec Hall. The three works were directed by Joshua William Gelb and featured lighting design by Marika Kent.
"Lonelyhearts", the work follows a single character as they navigate a desolate apartment and the mysteries that hide within it. With nods to Lynch and Hitchcock, commonplace sounds take on a dramatic significance, as creaking floorboards, dripping faucets, and the electric hum of appliances, are amplified and orchestrated out to members of the TAK Ensemble. In "Lonely Hearts", members of TAK surround the solo performer and the audience, this feature and the staging of the work more broadly aim to construct an 'architectural antagonism' with which the character is forced to contend with and confront. In doing so, the character goes through a dramatic transformation. Do they find their true self in this space? or does the space transform them?
Winner of Eklekto Geneva Call for Scores
The Jury was composed by Daniel Zea (composer, co-artistic director of Ensemble Vortex), Brian Archinal (percussionist, Ensemble Nikel, HKB Bern) and Anne Gillot (Musician and journalist for Radio, RTS, Ensemble Babel, Ensemble Vortex). The presentation of the winning projects will take place on November 4th, 2017 at l’Abri in Geneva.
The laureates of the Call for Projects 2017 are:
David Bird (US)
Jamie Hamilton (UK)
Luc Döbereiner (DE)
Léo Collin (CH/FR)
The Jury was composed by Daniel Zea (composer, co-artistic director of Ensemble Vortex), Brian Archinal (percussionist, Ensemble Nikel, HKB Bern) and Anne Gillot (Musician and journalist for Radio, RTS, Ensemble Babel, Ensemble Vortex).
The presentation of the winning projects will take place on November 4th, 2017 at l’Abri in Geneva.
Multiplicities - for Multi-Tracked Bass Flute (2016)
Multiplicities is an ongoing commission and collaboration with MIT's Architecture Journal "Thresholds", and flautist Laura Cocks. It was designed with an attempt to understand and aestheticize the complexities and variations inherent in the performer/score relationship.
Multiplicities is an ongoing commission and collaboration with MIT's Architecture Journal "Thresholds", and flautist Laura Cocks. It was designed with an attempt to understand and aestheticize the complexities and variations inherent in the performer/score relationship.
Amidst the transmission of a musical idea, between the composer, score, performer, and audience, there is invariably a rich capacity for interpretation, contingency, and variability. It is often in these inconsistencies that a work finds its depth, as variable interpretations inevitably cast new light on a musical subject, imbuing it with a variety of perspectives, energies, and characterizations.
This work, ”Multiplicities”, is scored for indefinitely multi-tracked (pre-recorded/live-looped and layered) bass flute, in it, I aim to objectify the variabilities that occur from one performance to the next. I attempted to develop a notation that is, in one sense, quite specific in its prescriptive instructions, yet in another, highly receptive in its harnessing and objectifying of the nuances and variabilities that happen from one performance to the next. When the instruments become layered, these variabilities infuse the work with a variegated color, allowing what is essentially one part, to sound like a swarm or a mass of individual lines. The challenge was how to develop material in a range of variability, and to allow this range to dilate and contract as I saw fit, but not let these variabilities run out of control and obstruct my ability to articulate cohesive structural and formal shapes.
Sound, Space, Simulation - Portrait Concert / Design Exhibition
"Myth" is the first of two events curated by Qubit New Music that highlight the intricate relationships between architecture and music. This event will feature a visual exhibition from MIT's architecture journal Thresholds, sculptures from the Boston-Based design firm WOJR, and music by David Bird.
On May 26th and 28th, Qubit New Music will present "Sound, Space, Simulation", a two-day event highlighting complex relationships between architecture and music. These events will feature music by David Bird, Carolyn Chen, and Alec Hall, performed by renowned soloists, Laura Cocks, Weston Olencki, Meaghan Burke, and the violin and viola duo andPlay. These events will also feature visual exhibitions and installations from the Boston-Based design firm WOJR, and respected architecture journal MIT Thresholds. Both of these events will occur at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music, and will feature a selection of craft beer from Lagunitas Brewery, who have generously offered to sponsor the event.
"Myth" is the first of two events curated by Qubit New Music that highlight the intricate relationships between architecture and music. This event will explore the role of Myth and the Mythic in contemporary music, architecture, and design and will feature a visual exhibition from MIT's architecture journal Thresholds, sculptures from the Boston-Based design firm WOJR, and music by David Bird performed by Laura Cocks, Meaghan Burke, and andPlay. The event will feature craft beer from Lagunitas Brewery, who have generously offered to sponsor the event.
• 5 - 7pm - Visual Exhibition from Thresholds Journal
• 8pm - Music for instruments and spatialized electronics
(Music by David Bird performed by Laura Cocks, Meaghan Burke, and andPlay)
apocrypha
(for violin, viola, and 8 channel electronics)
spatia
(for solo cello and spatialized field recordings)
atolls
(for solo piccolo and 29 spatialized piccolos)
http://qubitmusic.com/2016-17-SEASON/SOUND-SPACE-SIMULATION
https://www.facebook.com/events/1888084044801378/
"Dialogue" - Album Release
Dialogue consists of five new works for solo cello, written in collaboration with Helen by composers David Bird, Adam Hirsch, Kurt Isaacson, Haley Shaw, and Danny Clay. Newby's approach to the instrument imagines a cello liberated from its body and open to a world humming with new sonic possibilities.
Dialogue consists of five new works for solo cello, written in collaboration with Helen by composers David Bird, Adam Hirsch, Kurt Isaacson, Haley Shaw, and Danny Clay. Newby's approach to the instrument imagines a cello liberated from its body and open to a world humming with new sonic possibilities. The works written for this collection explore the textured relationships between a cello and its imagined potential, between a performer and a hazily defined "other": an empty courtyard, a resonating piano, a disembodied voice, a subharmonic sine wave, a self-oscillating snare drum. Recorded live on 2-inch analog tape and stretching out across a patient time frame, Newby's hi-fi solo debut is by turns shimmering and dizzying, wondering out loud about how to hear things differently.