If you are an ISSTA member for 2014-15, you can receive a discount for the International Conference on Sound and Music Computing held in Maynooth University this year. You can find more information here: http://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/smc15/index.php

Be sure to register using the email list you used to subscribe to the ISSTA mailing list.

ISSTA and the Spatialization and Auditory Display Environment (SpADE, University of Limerick) is hosting a concert of 8-channel music resulting from the residency of Darren Copeland from New Adventures in Sound Art (Toronto, Canada). Works feature Irish and Canadian composers working in multi-channel sound. Irish composers include Brona Martin, Fergus Kelly, Aidan Deery and Slavek Kwi.

Date: 9 March, 2015

Time: 7pm

Location: Irish Chamber Orchestra Building, Studio space, University of Limerick campus

Special thanks to Digital Media and Arts Research Centre (CSIS, UL) and the Irish Chamber Orchestra for their support.

For the participants of the first annual ISSTC in Limerick (2011), you may recall a radio crew circulating and doing interviews and recordings. The show is finally online! Six half-hour episodes that discuss ISSTA’s mission with samples of the art, music and research that happened that August. Find it here: http://www.wiredfm.ie/?page_id=3772

Urban Soundscapes and Critical Citizenship
27th & 28th March, 2014, Limerick, Ireland

Call for papers (reminder)
In this interdisciplinary conference, we explore the intersection of
soundscapes and acoustic ecology studies (Murray Schafer 1977; Truax
1978) with urban, applied ethnomusicology’s focus on human subjects
(Hemetek and Reyes 2007; Jurková 2012) and with sociological
understandings of the cultural restructuring of urban space (Fainstein
and Campbell, 2011; LeGates 2011; Bridge and Watson 2010), through an
evocation of ‘critical citizenship’ (Nell et al, 2012).
We would particularly welcome individual papers (20 mins + 10 mins for
questions) or panel presentations (90 minutes) that address the
following questions:

– Where is the individual located in urban (soundscape) studies?
– How do the sounds of a city shape human experience?
– What role does sound play in the cultural restructuring of urban
space?
– Might soundscape projects be part of urban regeneration and
renewal and if so, in what ways?
– How can we create/capture urban soundscapes and what motivates
us to do so?
– How might the relationship between the city and the individual
be reframed sonically?
– What critical potentials are unleashed in applied soundscape
work?
– Are soundscapes mere reflections of acoustic and other
realities, or might they construct pathways for greater interaction
between cities and their people?
– What are contemporary methodological challenges in representing
urban soundscapes?
– What new technologies allow for the reimagining of applied
soundscapes production and manipulation?
– How can we productively bring together lessons from different
disciplines in relation to urban, societal, cultural and acoustic
ecologies in order to imagine a better, lived, urban experience?

Keynote speakers include:
Dr. Ursula Hemetek, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
(Applied/Urban Ethnomusicology)
Dr. Giacomo Bottà, University of Helsinki (Urban Studies)
Peter Cusack, CRiSAP/University of the Arts, London (Sound Arts
Practices)

Please send your individual abstract of no more than 250 words, or a
panel abstract of 350 words to LimerickSoundscapes@ul.ie

We also invite five-minute recording submissions for our dedicated
listening space at the event. Please send your sound file, associated
picture, and a brief description to tony.langlois@mic.ul.ie

The deadline for receipt of individual and panel abstracts is Nov 14th.
Notifications will be sent by Nov 28th.

Programme committee:
Dr. Aileen Dillane, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University
of Limerick.
Dr. Tony Langlois, Dept. of Media, Mary Immaculate College, University
of Limerick.
Dr. Martin Power, Dept. of Sociology, University of Limerick.
Dr. Eoin. Devereux, Dept. of Sociology, University of Limerick.
Dr. Mikael Fernström, Interaction Design Centre and Department of
Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick.
Dr. Colin Quigley, Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of
Limerick.

LimerickSoundscapes is an interdisciplinary research cluster that
includes applied, urban, and media ethnomusicologists, sociologists,
acousticians, and soundscapes composers, and is based at the University
of Limerick and Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland. This
conference is funded by the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social
Sciences, and by The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University
of Limerick.

Dublin Sound Lab presents Mirrors of Earth
the Irish premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s ‘MAA’ (for septet and surround sound) with a newly commissioned video work (75 min.) by Ailbhe Ní Bhriain.

Premiere

Project Arts Centre, Dublin, 9 November 2013, 8.00pm (Tickets €15/€10)

Second performance

Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray, 14 November 2013, 8.00pm (Tickets €14/€12)

Kaija Saariaho’s haunting chamber-ensemble composition MAA was originally conceived as a ballet; in ‘Mirrors of Earth’ the choreography is replaced by a newly commissioned seven-part video work by Cork-based artist Ailbhe Ní Bhriain. Varying in forces from surround-sound ‘tape’ to septet, each of the seven movements is counterpointed by a specially produced video piece projected above the performers in large format cinema-quality HD.

MAA (a Finnish word meaning “earth”, “land”, “country” or “world”) is one of Saariaho’s first large-scale works and Ní Bhriain’s remarkable response, in the form of seven projected works which combine filmed and computer-generated imagery, matches Saariaho’s score in both scale and rhythm.  The video work confronts the underlying themes which permeate Saariaho’s work – our perception of distance, longing, journey, memory and sense of place. The musical/visual engagement operates at multiple levels, in keeping with a composition which is not obviously narrative or goal-directed, and which explores a myriad of timbres through combined electronic, surround sound and instrumental forces.

Kaija Saariaho is a prominent member of a group of Finnish composers and performers who are now, in mid-career, making a worldwide impact. She studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she has lived since 1982. Her studies and research at IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) have had a major influence on her music, and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often created by combining live music and electronics. Although much of her catalogue comprises chamber works, from the mid-nineties she has turned increasingly to larger forces and broader structures, such as the operas ‘L’Amour de loin’ and ‘Adriana Mater’ and the oratorio ‘La Passion de Simone’. Saariaho is the recipient of several international accolades, including the Sonning Music Prize (2011) and the Polar Music Prize (2013).

Ailbhe Ní Bhriain works primarily in video, using composite and constructed imagery to create scenes in which the dimensions of time and place are out-of-joint. Her work seeks to represent a state of things come undone by imagining the hallucinatory in the mundane and vice versa. It operates on two levels. On the one hand it employs deliberately simple collage techniques to declare its constructedness and point to the illusory nature of image–place. On the other hand, it asks the viewer to inhabit a fluid illogic – an unfolding of form and narrative that lends an unlikely coherence to the contradictions of the imagery. Her works have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Ireland and internationally. Ailbhe lecturers in fine art at the Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork, and is represented by Domobaal Gallery, London.

Dublin Sound Lab is Ireland’s foremost contemporary music ensemble specialising in electronic and computer-mediated concert performance. As well as presenting established works, Dublin Sound Lab initiates and commissions new repertoire and often uses computer-based techniques to explore novel relationships between musical material, compositional process and performance practice with the aim of creating new and genuinely engaging concert experiences. Formed in 2008 by organist Michael Quinn and composer Fergal Dowling, Dublin Sound Lab has worked with many leading Irish and international composers, given Irish premieres of over 50 works and performed in Paris and Bucharest. Dublin Sound Lab is supported by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council; its appearances abroad have been grant-aided by Culture Ireland.

Performers:

Conductor, David Adams

Violin, Bogdan Sofei

Viola, Andrea Baciu

Cello, Adrian Mantu

Flute, Julie Maisel

Harp, Cliona Doris

Harpsichord, Michael Quinn

Percussion, Maeve O’Hara

Computer, Fergal Dowling

Sound, Alexis Nealon

Video projection, Mihai Cucu

Mirrors of Earth has been supported by a Music Project Award from the Arts Council, along with assistance from Dublin City Council, the Finnish Music Agency, Cork City Council, the Finnish Embassy in Ireland and the Contemporary Music Centre.

Booking:        www.projectartscentre.ie   tel: (01) 8819613

Booking:        www.mermaidartscentre.ie   tel: (01) 2724030

Enquiries:             info@dublinsoundlab.ie tel. 086 2249686

http://www.dublinsoundlab.ie

https://www.facebook.com/dublinsoundlab

https://twitter.com/dublinsoundlab

http://www.saariaho.org/

http://www.domobaal.com/artists/ailbhe-ni-bhriain-01.html