Luigi Nono: Fragments of Venice (UK)

Luigi Nono (1924-1990) is one the towering musical voices of the 20th century, a composer of immense power and thoughtfulness. Towards the end of his life, Nono wrote and premiered in his home city of Venice a remarkable spatially inspired composition which is recognised as the summation of his creative output. A colossal work for multiple orchestras, voices, narrators and synthesised sound, Prometeo redefined the very act of public listening.

In celebration of Nono’s work Southbank Centre presents a six month festival that begins with one of Venice’s first great spatially inspired compositions - Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 - and culminates in the long awaited UK premiere of Prometeo. A major theme of the Festival that emerges is Venice itself, the city that dominated Nono’s life and that has over the centuries been home to a unique series of musical spaces.

[read more - via southbankcentre.co.uk]

[The Luigi Nono Archive]

[Guardian Review]

Between Thought and Sound: Graphic Notation in Contemporary Music

The Kitchen - Center for video, music, dance, performance, film+literature (NYC).

September 7–October 20, 2007

Exploring the intersection of drawing and sound, this show includes experimental scores by more than thirty composers who have relinquished traditional musical notation in favor of their own invented visual systems employing graphic or pictorial elements. Their musical compositions take the form of abstract drawings, videos, and digital renderings filled with complex pictograms, evocative mark-making, gestural symbols, and intricate codes of numbers, letters, and color. These highly personal vocabularies are the catalysts for a social process of translation and open-ended interpretation between composer and performer. Among the artists included in the exhibition are: Cathy Berberian, Morton Feldman, Alvin Lucier.

Exhibition Hours:
Tue-Fri, 12-6pm; Sat 11-6pm FREE

TECHSTUFF: RAI PHONOLOGY STUDIO

[QOOBTV ]

The Rains Came (1939)

Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, Saturday, September 29, 7:00

Academy Award®-nominated visual effects supervisor Craig Barron and Oscar®-winning sound editor Ben Burtt present a newly restored 35mm print of The Rains Came (1939) and weave a lively and informative presentation about Hollywood special effects.

Barron and Burtt will present rare behind-the-scenes footage and sound recordings and will demonstrate how the film’s visual and sound effects were created.

This presentation caps another trilogy of sorts; Barron and Burtt have hosted two previous effects programs at the Rafael that focused on Hollywood classics: one on The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) that included a live archery demonstration, and the other on Gunga Din (1939) that featured live rifle blasts.

[read more > California Film Institute]

Cedric Delsaux

[cedricdelsaux.com]

U.S.O. Project in N.Y. City

U.S.O. Project will be in New York for the 123rd AES Convention, October 5-8. We would be glad to see you there!
If you want to meet with us, please write to:
This is our calendar of events:

Broadcast Session B5
Saturday, October 6, 9:00 am — 10:30 am
B5 - THE ART OF SOUND EFFECTS

Broadcast Session B6
Saturday, October 6, 11:00 am — 1:00 pm
B6 - LOUDNESS WORKSHOP

Special Event
Saturday, October 6, 1:00 pm — 3:00 pm
19TH ANNUAL GRAMMY RECORDING SOUNDTABLE

Historical Event
H3 Sunday, October 7, 9:30 am — 11:30 am
H3 - SURROUND SOUND: THE BEGINNING, 1925–1940

Special Event
Sunday, October 7, 11:30 am — 12:30 pm
LUNCHTIME KEYNOTE: BARRY BLESSER

Master Class
M6 Sunday, October 7, 1:00 pm — 2:30 pm
M6 - KEN HAHN

Historical Event
H4 Sunday, October 7, 2:00 pm — 4:00 pm
H4 - SURROUND SOUND: QUADRAPHONIC SOUND IN THE 1970S—RECORDING CLASSICAL MUSIC

Workshop W22
Monday, October 8, 12:00 pm — 6:00 pm
W22 - 5.1 MIXING TECHNIQUES EXPLAINED AND OBSERVED

[calendar_2007-10-06.pdf]
[calendar_2007-10-07.pdf]
[calendar_2007-10-08.pdf]

[Cycling '74 free exhibits-only pass]

MITO International Music Festival

Museo Diocesano

5 p.m.

Helmut Lachenmann

Gran Torso

Reigen seliger Geister

Grido

Quatuor Diotima
Naaman Sluchin, violin
Yun-Peng Zhao, violin
Franck Chevalier, viola
Pierre Morlet, cello

Introduced by Helmut Lachenmann

free admission

[Settembre Musica]

----------------------------------------

Museo Diocesano
ore 17

Helmut Lachenmann

Gran Torso

Reigen seliger Geister

Grido

Quatuor Diotima
Naaman Sluchin, violino
Yun-Peng Zhao, violino
Franck Chevalier, viola
Pierre Morlet, violoncello

Introduce Helmut Lachenmann

ingresso gratuito

[Settembre Musica]

John Williams on the score for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The two most interesting facts about John Williams:

1. He never goes to the movies.
2. He rarely listens to classical music.

These are not, one might assume, the habits of a successful film composer. And yet Williams is indisputably the most successful film composer of all time, having penned the instantly hummable scores to the Indiana Jones trilogy, among other blockbusters.

Last week, Williams spoke about his career by phone from New York City, where he was conducting the New York Philharmonic.

[read the full interview via theotherpaper]

Music of Indiana Jones - Part 1



Music of Indiana Jones - Part 2



And don't miss:

Film Composer John Williams (1980 Rare BBC) Part 1 of 6
Film Composer John Williams (1980 Rare BBC) Part 2 of 6
Film Composer John Williams (1980 Rare BBC) Part 3 of 6
Film Composer John Williams (1980 Rare BBC) Part 4 of 6
Film Composer John Williams (1980 Rare BBC) Part 5 of 6
Film Composer John Williams (1980 Rare BBC) Part 6 of 6

30th Anniversary of Star Wars: 8-CD Box Set

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first Star Wars movie, Sony Classical is releasing a one-time deluxe edition of Williams' lush, timeless themes on Tuesday, November 6, 2007. The Music of Star Wars: 30th Anniversary Collector's Edition is housed in an elegant numbered box set featuring new cover art depicting the main Star Wars characters. The box contains eight CDs.

[read more - via soundtrack.net]

[Music of Star Wars: 30TH Anniversary Collectors Edition]

Audio Innovations that changed Pro Audio

An offshoot of the TEC Awards, the TECnology Hall of Fame began in 2004 to spotlight significant innovations in pro audio history.

[here are the 15 entries for 2007]

Toronto's Lost Subway Station

Sound installation: The Ghost Station, 2007

by Kristen Roos

[photo by matthewpiers]

Lower Bay Station, Toronto's ghost station, is used as a vessel to contain sounds that are within and below the threshold of human hearing - infrasound and tactile sound - where sound is felt rather than heard. Low frequencies created by cars and subways are contributors to the cacophony of infrasonic noise that exists deep below the rumbling of the city. These tactile sounds have also been associated with paranormal activity and ghost sightings.

Kristen Roos' audio art is informed by aspects of acoustic ecology, radio art and phonography.

[ghoststation.blogspot.com]

[Transit Toronto]

[nuit blanche]

Fog City Mavericks

George Lucas, Saul Zaentz, Robin Williams and John Lasseter joined other celebrated local moviemakers at the Castro Theater Sunday, April 29, 2007 for the world premiere of Gary Leva's documentary Fog City Mavericks, which chronicles more than a century of cinematic achievement by Bay Area filmmakers.



[film details]
[quicktime video]

Chris Kern: FDDM

Evolution of the landscape series. Sound: Jan Truetzschler.



[via cckern]

SCSymposium(2007)[\Holland]

U.S.O. - Unidentified Sound Object (aka Matteo Milani and Federico Placidi) will be in The Hague for the SuperCollider Course (17,18,19 September 2007), an initiative of SampleAndHold.org.

The infamous/legendary/scary SuperCollider software is a highly customisable and super-efficient audio programming language originally written by James McCartney. It's maintained by a host of developers as an open source project, and is free and cross platform, running on OS X, Linux and Windows. SuperCollider was built for live music, for network music, for algorithmic music, and for use in art installations. All sound synthesis and interaction runs in realtime.

[about]
[timetable]
[location]

VEP: Virtual Electronic Poem

The goal of the Virtual Electronic Poem (VEP) project is the realization of a virtual reality (VR) environment that aims at reproducing the total experience of the dismantled masterpiece Poeme Electronique, through an accurate philological reconstruction of the original installation and a technologically innovative implementation with the VR techniques. The expected concrete results of the project are a VR installation that allows a renovated fruition of the Poème électronique and an interactive application in 3D computer graphics that provides an access to the virtual scenario and the audiovisual show through the WWW, in order to yield a wide dissemination of the project results.

[read more]