March 16, 2023
SOUNDWICH XVI
7:30pm Conference / 8pm ConcertIn collaboration with the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal
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Biography
Julie Delisle is a composer, a multidisciplinary researcher specialized in digital audio, and a flutist. They graduated from the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, and participated to several international festivals, among them the Impuls Academy (Graz, Austria) and the Improcon Festival (Desinić, Croatia), both as a flutist and as a live electronics musician.
Always searching for answers to their numerous questions on the way musical instruments are working and can be played, Julie Delisle studied acoustics, computer music and musicology at the Université de Montréal. Researching instrumental timbre from diversified perspectives (instrumental, historical, perceptual, and computational) profoundly transformed the way they conceive, listen, modulate, and arrange sounds, and continues to have an impact on their creative processes, which are also influenced by their strong interest for Chinese martial arts and mathematics.
After completing a Ph.D. in musicology (Université de Montréal) and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory (Schulich School of Music, McGill University) as part of the ACTOR Project (for "Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration"), they are collaborating to the research-creation project Sheng! (Collegium Musicae, Sorbonne Université), focusing on the study of Asian mouth organs and their music, and are part of the scientific committee for the online journal "Analyses" (IRCAM), which aim is to document the mixed music repertoire.
Julie Delisle is currently active in the field of digital audio technology development, for game audio, interactive audio, and virtual and augmented reality. They study electroacoustic composition at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal with Louis Dufort.
Program
Pipa Aura Suichi – Acousmatic – 10’45”
During the composition of Pipa Aura Suichi, it appeared to me that sound materials that I had chosen, with their articulatory possibilities, often presented behaviors leading to chain reactions. The sounds, taken out of their instrumental context in a kind of schizophony, also followed a particular temporality that unfolded through triggers, attacks, resonances and propulsions.
Thus, the title refers to a children's program broadcast on Japanese television in the early 2000s, Pitagora Suichi. Animations were presented, in which viewers could observe a marble circulating through a series of slides and obstacles to reach the end of a course made of complicated mechanisms, although they were manufactured from simple everyday objects. In other words, it is an illustration of a complex and sophisticated way to simply travel from point A (the beginning) to point B (the end).
The pun on the name Pythagoras also refers to the harmonic character of the sounds produced by several of the Totem instruments, including the vibrations of the SubTuyo and the membrane resonances of the Babel Table Bowl. This characteristic is emphasized in the central section of the piece, composed of long instrumental layers. The Insects are also present, both as soloists and as textural accompaniment.
The work ends with a final section that again evokes an "incredible machine", this time in a more frenzied manner. The superpositions of impulses and sounds obey the laws of physics and follow the kinetic or potential energy given to them according to the context, accumulating sound energy until the final explosion.
Julie Delisle is a composer, a multidisciplinary researcher specialized in digital audio, and a flutist. They graduated from the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, and participated to several international festivals, among them the Impuls Academy (Graz, Austria) and the Improcon Festival (Desinić, Croatia), both as a flutist and as a live electronics musician.
Always searching for answers to their numerous questions on the way musical instruments are working and can be played, Julie Delisle studied acoustics, computer music and musicology at the Université de Montréal. Researching instrumental timbre from diversified perspectives (instrumental, historical, perceptual, and computational) profoundly transformed the way they conceive, listen, modulate, and arrange sounds, and continues to have an impact on their creative processes, which are also influenced by their strong interest for Chinese martial arts and mathematics.
After completing a Ph.D. in musicology (Université de Montréal) and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory (Schulich School of Music, McGill University) as part of the ACTOR Project (for "Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration"), they are collaborating to the research-creation project Sheng! (Collegium Musicae, Sorbonne Université), focusing on the study of Asian mouth organs and their music, and are part of the scientific committee for the online journal "Analyses" (IRCAM), which aim is to document the mixed music repertoire.
Julie Delisle is currently active in the field of digital audio technology development, for game audio, interactive audio, and virtual and augmented reality. They study electroacoustic composition at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal with Louis Dufort.
Program
Pipa Aura Suichi – Acousmatic – 10’45”
During the composition of Pipa Aura Suichi, it appeared to me that sound materials that I had chosen, with their articulatory possibilities, often presented behaviors leading to chain reactions. The sounds, taken out of their instrumental context in a kind of schizophony, also followed a particular temporality that unfolded through triggers, attacks, resonances and propulsions.
Thus, the title refers to a children's program broadcast on Japanese television in the early 2000s, Pitagora Suichi. Animations were presented, in which viewers could observe a marble circulating through a series of slides and obstacles to reach the end of a course made of complicated mechanisms, although they were manufactured from simple everyday objects. In other words, it is an illustration of a complex and sophisticated way to simply travel from point A (the beginning) to point B (the end).
The pun on the name Pythagoras also refers to the harmonic character of the sounds produced by several of the Totem instruments, including the vibrations of the SubTuyo and the membrane resonances of the Babel Table Bowl. This characteristic is emphasized in the central section of the piece, composed of long instrumental layers. The Insects are also present, both as soloists and as textural accompaniment.
The work ends with a final section that again evokes an "incredible machine", this time in a more frenzied manner. The superpositions of impulses and sounds obey the laws of physics and follow the kinetic or potential energy given to them according to the context, accumulating sound energy until the final explosion.
Biography
Vergil Sharkya is a musician, composer, improviser and sonic explorer of Austrian origin, who specialises in immersive experiences. After receiving his MA in Composition and Music Theory at Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna, he settled in Liverpool, UK, for 15 years, where he completed his PhD at Liverpool John Moores University, and he joined Montréal’s artistic community in 2010. His fields of interest include immersive works for dome theatres and VR, collaborative multimedia and mixed media works, as well as experimental and improvised music (musique actuelle). Armed with synthesizers, vocoders, software, analogue and electronic effects, and his unique sense of treating his sonic materials, he currently works in a multitude of projects, creating VR experiences for the Quest2, as well as creating musics and soundtracks for dance, radio(,/-)theatre, slam, poetry, and film/video.
His music has been heard at SÓNAR (Barcelona, ES), SAT-Société des arts technologiques (Montréal, QC), CKUT 90.3, CiBL 101.5 (both Montréal, QC), and FIMAV-Festival International de Musique Actuelle (Victoriaville, QC). Recordings of his music have been published on labels including Cuneiform Records (USA), Audio Research Editions (UK), Mikroclimat (QC), Ambiances Magnétiques (QC), Atrito-Afeito (QC), UKsupersonic (UK), and VergilReality (AT/UK/QC). Vergil regularly collaborates with Ensemble SuperMusique, and he has performed, recorded and worked with Ensemble Innovarumori, TIT - Total Improvisation Troop, Orchestre Métropolitain, the Vienna Improvisers Orchestra, as well as many other musicians, poets, writers, dancers, directors and artists, both in Québec and internationally.
Program
Ascents – Acousmatic - 21’21”
Ascents is a composition / hypercomposition originally created during a residency program for the SAT - Society for Arts and Technology in Montréal in 2017/2018. Then named NAscent, it was accompanied by a film created for the work by visual artist Push 1 stop (Cadie Desbiens), and a 3-D audio mix realised in collaboration with Mourad Bennacer. The resulting immersive audio-visual work enjoyed a 3-week run in the Satosphère in February 2018, and was again shown during the iX Symposium at SAT in May 2018. In June of the same year it was also presented as part of the SAT's long films selection at Sonár+D, the 360º immersive part of the Sónar festival in Barcelona.
Ascents consists of three main sections, which are created using the principles of hypercomposition: the process follows a compositional method used to transform audio recordings, the primary sonic matter, which here are the chord sequences played by a chamber ensemble in the first two main sections, and the recording of the synthesizer in the third main section. In these hypercomposed sections, minute variations of the primary sonic matter are layered in large numbers of proportion canons. This transformation yields secondary sonic matter, which still contains audible traces of pitch and rhythm structures of the primary sonic matter, yet has its own particular timbres and sonic textures.
Vergil Sharkya is a musician, composer, improviser and sonic explorer of Austrian origin, who specialises in immersive experiences. After receiving his MA in Composition and Music Theory at Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna, he settled in Liverpool, UK, for 15 years, where he completed his PhD at Liverpool John Moores University, and he joined Montréal’s artistic community in 2010. His fields of interest include immersive works for dome theatres and VR, collaborative multimedia and mixed media works, as well as experimental and improvised music (musique actuelle). Armed with synthesizers, vocoders, software, analogue and electronic effects, and his unique sense of treating his sonic materials, he currently works in a multitude of projects, creating VR experiences for the Quest2, as well as creating musics and soundtracks for dance, radio(,/-)theatre, slam, poetry, and film/video.
His music has been heard at SÓNAR (Barcelona, ES), SAT-Société des arts technologiques (Montréal, QC), CKUT 90.3, CiBL 101.5 (both Montréal, QC), and FIMAV-Festival International de Musique Actuelle (Victoriaville, QC). Recordings of his music have been published on labels including Cuneiform Records (USA), Audio Research Editions (UK), Mikroclimat (QC), Ambiances Magnétiques (QC), Atrito-Afeito (QC), UKsupersonic (UK), and VergilReality (AT/UK/QC). Vergil regularly collaborates with Ensemble SuperMusique, and he has performed, recorded and worked with Ensemble Innovarumori, TIT - Total Improvisation Troop, Orchestre Métropolitain, the Vienna Improvisers Orchestra, as well as many other musicians, poets, writers, dancers, directors and artists, both in Québec and internationally.
Program
Ascents – Acousmatic - 21’21”
Ascents is a composition / hypercomposition originally created during a residency program for the SAT - Society for Arts and Technology in Montréal in 2017/2018. Then named NAscent, it was accompanied by a film created for the work by visual artist Push 1 stop (Cadie Desbiens), and a 3-D audio mix realised in collaboration with Mourad Bennacer. The resulting immersive audio-visual work enjoyed a 3-week run in the Satosphère in February 2018, and was again shown during the iX Symposium at SAT in May 2018. In June of the same year it was also presented as part of the SAT's long films selection at Sonár+D, the 360º immersive part of the Sónar festival in Barcelona.
Ascents consists of three main sections, which are created using the principles of hypercomposition: the process follows a compositional method used to transform audio recordings, the primary sonic matter, which here are the chord sequences played by a chamber ensemble in the first two main sections, and the recording of the synthesizer in the third main section. In these hypercomposed sections, minute variations of the primary sonic matter are layered in large numbers of proportion canons. This transformation yields secondary sonic matter, which still contains audible traces of pitch and rhythm structures of the primary sonic matter, yet has its own particular timbres and sonic textures.
Biography
Thomas Quirion is a composer of electroacoustic and instrumental pieces, as well as an electronic music producer. He is currently affiliated with Concordia University where he is completing his final year of a bachelor’s degree in Electroacoustic Studies with a specialization in creative practices and recording. Through his compositional work, he seeks to balance sonic experimentation with rhythmic and tonal conciseness. Additionally, he tries to touch on the concept of grain, the creation with samples and the use of infinitely small units to generate vast
and tangible structures.
Program
Anthropomorphic Arthropoda – Acousmatic - 19’30”
Anthropomorphic Arthropoda is an acousmatic composition created in the fall of 2021. In this work, the very beginnings of the Earth are told from the perspective of arthropods which, apart from primitive microorganisms and flora, represent some of the first living (and conscious) beings to interact with the ground on which we stand. From a compositional point of view, a work of analog modular synthesis combined with the granulation of the human voice allows to explore metamorphic transformations and the concepts surrounding the movement that an exoskeleton exhibits. Its structural integrity, in relation to the subsistence of arthropods, is crucial. A unique sound world to discover that relates to the fragility of the different stages and cycles of life.
Thomas Quirion is a composer of electroacoustic and instrumental pieces, as well as an electronic music producer. He is currently affiliated with Concordia University where he is completing his final year of a bachelor’s degree in Electroacoustic Studies with a specialization in creative practices and recording. Through his compositional work, he seeks to balance sonic experimentation with rhythmic and tonal conciseness. Additionally, he tries to touch on the concept of grain, the creation with samples and the use of infinitely small units to generate vast
and tangible structures.
Program
Anthropomorphic Arthropoda – Acousmatic - 19’30”
Anthropomorphic Arthropoda is an acousmatic composition created in the fall of 2021. In this work, the very beginnings of the Earth are told from the perspective of arthropods which, apart from primitive microorganisms and flora, represent some of the first living (and conscious) beings to interact with the ground on which we stand. From a compositional point of view, a work of analog modular synthesis combined with the granulation of the human voice allows to explore metamorphic transformations and the concepts surrounding the movement that an exoskeleton exhibits. Its structural integrity, in relation to the subsistence of arthropods, is crucial. A unique sound world to discover that relates to the fragility of the different stages and cycles of life.
Biography
Diego Bermudez Chamberland is a Quebec/Costa Rican sound artist who works in several creative fields such as music composition, sound design and live performance. His practice is inspired by his human and musical experiences. Collaboration is an essential aspect of his artistic practice. He sees it as a way to transcend his reflexes and to take his creations to new horizons.
https://www.diegobermudezc.com
Program
Destin/Trouble – Acousmatic – 17’21”
Destin//Trouble is the second composition of an acousmatic work in three movements (Cartografía interior) that draws its inspiration mainly from Scandinavian mythology as told in Snorri Sturluson’s collection: the Edda. It is important to underline that the work does not try to materialize in a literal way this mythological universe, but rather proposes a free and personal sound adaptation. The result is a music that explores energy, continuous and fragmented temporality, and multiple spaces through various timbres and articulations, rather than it being a research centered on the mimicry or the literal recreation of this universe. The possible connections between some of the grand themes of Scandinavian mythology (natural forces, infinite territories and dynamism) and composition were explored during the creative process. These themes were subsequently transposed into the morphology of the sounds, the formal approach of the editing and the work of space.
The genesis of the work Cartografía interior is rooted in a desire to materialize musically the imaginary that marked my youth. I had, for some time, the idea of exploring Scandinavian mythology through my acousmatic compositions. When I was younger, my readings on Nordic folklore and its cosmogony left a strong impression on me. The multiplicity and vastness of the worlds told in the cosmogonic myth, the diversity of its creatures, its incessant struggles between the forces of good and evil fascinated me. I wanted to imagine a large-scale work in which the movements would echo each other.
Diego Bermudez Chamberland is a Quebec/Costa Rican sound artist who works in several creative fields such as music composition, sound design and live performance. His practice is inspired by his human and musical experiences. Collaboration is an essential aspect of his artistic practice. He sees it as a way to transcend his reflexes and to take his creations to new horizons.
https://www.diegobermudezc.com
Program
Destin/Trouble – Acousmatic – 17’21”
Destin//Trouble is the second composition of an acousmatic work in three movements (Cartografía interior) that draws its inspiration mainly from Scandinavian mythology as told in Snorri Sturluson’s collection: the Edda. It is important to underline that the work does not try to materialize in a literal way this mythological universe, but rather proposes a free and personal sound adaptation. The result is a music that explores energy, continuous and fragmented temporality, and multiple spaces through various timbres and articulations, rather than it being a research centered on the mimicry or the literal recreation of this universe. The possible connections between some of the grand themes of Scandinavian mythology (natural forces, infinite territories and dynamism) and composition were explored during the creative process. These themes were subsequently transposed into the morphology of the sounds, the formal approach of the editing and the work of space.
The genesis of the work Cartografía interior is rooted in a desire to materialize musically the imaginary that marked my youth. I had, for some time, the idea of exploring Scandinavian mythology through my acousmatic compositions. When I was younger, my readings on Nordic folklore and its cosmogony left a strong impression on me. The multiplicity and vastness of the worlds told in the cosmogonic myth, the diversity of its creatures, its incessant struggles between the forces of good and evil fascinated me. I wanted to imagine a large-scale work in which the movements would echo each other.
