94 spring 2006
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FEATURE ARTICLES:
Lori Freedman: Clarinettist immersed in sound
By Ellen Waterman
Listen to an excerpt from Lori Freedman’s solo concert at the 2005 Guelph Jazz Festival. Click on one of the icons below to download MP3:
Article Summary: Clarinettist Lori Freedman is one of Canada's most active creative musicians. Her September 2005 solo performance at the Guelph Jazz Festival is the jumping-off point for this interview, in which she talks about her performance practice, improvising, and composing projects. Central to Lori's work is her integration of physical impulse and sound. The interview is part of a larger project on experimental music performance across Canada that seeks to understand how meaning is created within the context of a particular performance.
Laiwan and Lori Freedman: Art in the body, the body in art
Uniting visual art and music
By Keith Wallace, Laiwan, and Lori Freedman
Article Summary: The artist, curator, and writer Laiwan
has been active in Vancouver and abroad for more than twenty
years. Lori Freedman, a household name in contemporary music, is
a musician living in Montreal who has more recently developed a
reputation as one of the foremost figures working in the field
of improvisational music. Laiwan developed the artwork Quartet
for the Year 4698 or 5760 to include the improvisational music
of Freedman, uniting visual art and music, using the
individuated complexities of both the programmed technology of
machines and the unpredictability of human bodies. Quartet
consisted of a gallery installation simultaneously projecting
four 16mm film loops simultaneously projecting images of Lori
Freedman improvising four different bass clarinet compositions.
When the opportunity has arisen, Freedman has also played live
in the installation. In this article the two artists discuss
with curator Keith Wallace, the work, its development, their
experience of it, and their views on it and the phenomena it
deals with.
Steve Heimbecker: Audio-visual alchemy in the sound pool
By Anna Friz
Listen to Steve Heimbecker’s Songs of Place: Vancouver. Click on
one of the icons below to download MP3:
Article Summary: Steve Heimbecker creates unique
instruments and sound production systems, heard in quadrophonic,
octaphonic, and soon sixty-four-channel sound. He engages
multi-channel systems to map, present, and represent immersive
sonic environments, resulting in extremely high-resolution
impressions of audible phenomena and/or daily life. His Songs of
Place series consists of four portraits of four Canadian cities
and one European city. These are works of visual and auditory
art that fully engage the senses and sensibilities of the
audience, operating at the juncture of electroacoustic
composition, soundscape and acoustic ecology, video montage, and
sonic sculpture. These works challenge the perceptual field of
audience members by creating unique multi-channel portraits, so
that time may be stretched, suspended, or shrunk, and space is
not merely represented but created. Heimbecker's attention is
not just on the soundscape itself, but is also focused on the
expanded subjectivity of the listener.
Metamkine: Retro-tech musico-cinema
By Chris Kennedy
Article Summary: For the last fifteen years, La Cellule
d'Intervention Metamkine has been fusing the worlds of cinéma
élargi and improvisatory music in a visceral live experience. In
addition, the trio of Jérôme Noetinger, Christopher Auger, and
Xavier Querel have built an artistic infrastructure in Grenoble
that is devoted to supporting independent and artisanal music
and filmmaking. Through these two pursuits, they have continued
to explore and promote the possibilities of 16mm filmmaking and
analogue music. This article discusses their art in the context
of their commitment to creating new possibilities for discarded
practices.
Stuart Dempster: Transforming the trombone
By Clair Sykes
Article Summary: With its forty-five-second reverb, a
defunct underground cistern in Port Townsend, Washington, is
among the world's many acoustically unusual spaces that Stuart
Dempster has found, from caves to cathedrals. This
sixty-nine-year-old Seattle composer and improviser has famously
transported the trombone beyond traditional uses and contexts.
One of the first to perform as a soloist without accompaniment,
Dempster has expanded the instrument's sound palette, and has
included dancers and theatrics in performing with it. He has
even made more than music, when his playing-on trombone or
didgeridoo, conch shell or common garden hose-invites a
meditative state for listeners. Improvisation lies at the heart
of Dempster's work, and his scores are often only verbal
directives. In the early '60s, he worked with Terry Riley, Loren
Rush, and Pauline Oliveros at the San Francisco Tape Music
Center, where he became serious about new music. From 1968-1998,
he taught at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he
performed in the Contemporary Group. Since 1989, he has
performed with Oliveros, David Gamper, and briefly, Panaiotis,
as the Deep Listening Band. Influenced by electronic music from
his time in San Francisco, Dempster invented new musical sounds
on the trombone, later codified in his book, The Modern
Trombone: A Definition of Its Idioms. Robert Erickson, Luciano
Berio, and Donald Erb have all written for him on commission and
he has written for choreographer Merce Cunningham.
SONIC GEOGRAPHY:
We¹ve begun a new section of the magazine with this issue, called sonic geography, in which writers describe aspects of their local music communities. In issue 93 we have:
Paul Cram in Halifax
Brent Lee in Windsor
Christian Carey in New
Jersey
David J. Lieberman in
Toronto
Warren Burt in Wollongong,
Australia
Philip Ehrensaft in The
Hudson River Valley
The Canadian New Music Network: Providing a common voice
By Tim Brady
Article Summary: The new music community encompasses many small,
distinct voices fighting for the attention of a public and
cultural industry unaware of their activity. The newly-formed
Canadian New Music Network / Réseau canadien pour les musiques
nouvelles (CNMN/RCMN) aims to make new music heard by providing
a single organization to connect the community, give it a voice,
promote new music, and work to improve the support and resources
available to new music.
COMMENTARY:
Eletronic musicians beyond the west
Electroacoustic music in a broader international context
By Bob Gluck
This article is a first step in relating the broad international
history of electroacoustic music. While the audience and
institutional base of electroacoustic music in Western Europe,
the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada remains more
firmly established than in other international locations, the
field nonetheless has a long history in many corners of the
world, notably in South America, Israel, South Africa, Asia, and
most recently in China and Korea. Pioneering efforts began in
some of those countries as early as the 1950s. Although
composers often have to travel abroad for advanced studio work
and, sometimes, employment, one finds in a number of nations, an
increasing number of educational and creative opportunities
close to home.
NOW NOTES:
Time to speak up
Changing cultural and funding environments
by Udo Kasemets
Udo Kasmet's latest installment of his Nownotes series tackles the
disconnect between the expectations and requirements of funding
bodies and the true nature of artistic creation. He calls upon
musicians to make their voices heard to change the current
funding environment.
CD CONTENTS
1| Alternate Realities (1999) 5:04
by/par Stuart Dempster
Performed by / interprété par Paul Taub
2| Don’t Worry, It Will Come (1983) 3:57
by/par Stuart Dempster
Performed by Stuart Dempster with Greg Powers
3| JDBBBDJ (John Diamond’s Big Beautiful Brass Didjeridu) (1983)
19:41 (or as long as possible)
by/par Stuart Dempster
Performed by Stuart Dempster
4| improvisation one (2005) 5:45
by/par Lori Freedman
Solo bass clarinet performed live by Lori Freedman
5| improvisation two (2005) 2:17
by/par Lori Freedman
Solo clarinet performed live by Lori Freedman
6| improvisation three (2005) 5:49
by/par Lori Freedman
Solo bass clarinet performed live by Lori Freedman,
7| improvisation four (2005) 2:50
by/par Lori Freedman
Solo half-clarinet performed live by Lori Freedman
8| All Good Children (2002) 2:27
by/par Lori Freedman
Solo bass clarinet/voice
9| Tatu (excerpt/extrait) (2003) 6:09
by/par Lori Freedman
10| No Man’s Clan (excerpt/extrait) (1998) 5:10
by/par Lori Freedman
Five bass clarinets, composed and performed by Lori Freedman
11| June Tooth (2002) 4:57
by/par Lori Freedman
For piano, viola, bass clarinet, Performed by Lori Freedman with Marilyn
Lerner, piano; Ig Henneman, viola
12| Songs of Place: Halifax (2001–2004) 4:38
by/par Steven Heimbecker
Songs of Place by Steven Heimbecker, surround sound compositions, stereo
excerpt from 34:43 original piece / Composition en Surround sound.
Extrait mixé en stéréo, tiré de la pièce originale d’une durée de
34’43”.
13| Songs of Place: Île de Montréal (2001–2004) 5:07
by/par Steven Heimbecker
Surround sound composition, stereo excerpt from 49:40 original piece /
Composition en Surround sound. Extrait mixé en stéréo, tiré de la pièce
originale d’une durée de 49’40”.
14| Songs of Place: Springwater (2000–2004) 6:00
by/par Steven Heimbecker
Surround sound composition, stereo excerpt from 38:00 original piece /
Composition en Surround sound. Extrait mixé en stéréo, tiré de la pièce
originale d’une durée de 38’00”.
15| Songs of Place: Vancouver (2002–2004) 4:15
by/par Steven Heimbecker
Surround sound composition, stereo excerpt from 40:47 original piece /
Composition en Surround sound. Extrait mixé en stéréo, tiré de la pièce
originale d’une durée de 40’47”.
REVIEWS:
Events:
Tone Deaf 4 in Kingston.
SOUNDplay in Toronto.
The Guelph Jazz Festival.
Banalities for the Perfect
House in Sydney, Australia.
The Enchanted Forest in
Haliburton.
Ostrava New Music days, Czech
Republic.
The River to River Festival in
New York City.
Deep Wireless in Toronto.
Recordings:
Sophie Agnel and Olivier Benoit
on In Siu Records
Ernie Althoff on Antboy
MEV& AMM on Matchless
Arto Artinian, Tatsuya Nakatani,
Antoine Roney, Jonathan Vincent and Adam James
Wilson on Stone Quarry Records
Robert Ashley on Lovely Music
Bell Orchestre on Rough Trade
Chris Brown on Tzadik
Graham Collier on Cuneiform
Records
Tony Conrad with Faust on Table
of the Elements
Drumheller on Rat Drifting
Paul Dutton and Pierre-André
Arcand on Ambiances Magnétiques
Avram Fefer and Bobby Few on
Boxholder Records
Jim Fox on Cold Blue Music
Kyle Gann on New World Records
Franco Gegrassi and Gianni
Lenoci on Ants
Mei Han on Za Discs
Jonathan Kane on Table of the
Elements
Pierre Langvin and Pierre
Tanguay on Ambiances Magnétiques
Text of Light on Starlight
Furniture
Music of the Maale and Music of
Laos on Inedit-Maison des Cultures du Monde
Mehri Maftun on Pan Records
Gordon Monahan on C3R Records
A. Dontigny and Érick D'Orion
on No Type
Nilan Perera on Verge Music
Going Native in Venezuela on
Pan Records
Les Poules on Ambiances
Magnétiques
Trio Sowari on Potlatch
Still on Public Guilt
Anthology of Noise, Vol. 3 on
Sub Rosa
Barry Truax on Cambridge Street
Records
The Arditti Quartet on Mode
Records, Pauline Oliveros on Deep Listening Foundation,
Marilyn Crispell on Homespun
Tapes
Words:
Jim Drobnick, Aural Cultures (YYZ
Books)
Julie Forrester and Danny
McCarthy, eds. For Those Who Have Ears (Exhibition Catalogue, Art Trail
in Cork)
Mike Heffley, Northern Sun,
Southern Moon, Europe’s Reinvention of Jazz (Yale University Press)
Urs Engeler and Christian
Scholz, eds. Fümms bö wö tää zää Uu. (Urs Engeler Editor)
Visions of Sound:
Alien Stingers by Charles Edward Fambro
