* CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS *

Calling for submission of work from female Sonic Artists for a paper entitled ‘Ekho :: Toward a Repetitive Sounding of Difference’. The paper will be analysing Echo as an original sound, combining Sound Studies and Feminist theories. All works will be included in the archive alongside an artist profile.

We are particularly interested in hearing from artists working in areas of drone, deep listening, minimalism, field recording, sound spatialisation and noise – but welcome any submissions. Supporting statements are encouraged discussing the ways in which your work, or your identity as a female Sonic Artist, responds to the themes of Echo / Subversive Difference / Difference and Repetition.

Please see below or email for further details.

DEADLINE :: 23rd Oct [/Submissions before this date are appreciated]

Submissions and questions to :: ekhofemalesound@hotmail.co.uk

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Sarah Angliss

‘A composer, multi-instrumentalist, roboticist and sound historian. Sarah’s work explores her obsessions with defunct machinery, faded variety acts and European folklore.

Sarah’s music mixes her own software patches (using Max/MSP, Supercollider, PRAAT and other tools) with her samples, field recordings and live performance on theremin, saw, recorder, waterphone, keyboard,  handbells and other instruments. On stage, she’s often accompanied by musical automata – machines she’s been devising and building since 2005 as she’s been seeking a more theatrical alternative to the laptop, sampler and loop pedal.

 

About “The Bows” (SEE BELOW) Angliss says: “This is an interpretation of a London folksong which I hope captures the mood of the original, even though it’s drifted far from its moorings. The bows in the title are the bends in the River Thames but could also refer to bows of a violin. In the original folksong (titled “The Cruel Sister” or “The Bonny Bows”), a woman drowns when she’s pushed into the river by her sister. Downstream, her body is dredged out of the water and her breastbone, fingerbones and hair are used to make a fiddle. Whenever anyone tries to play this fiddle, it speaks, revealing the identity of her murderer. (The Wire)

 

Hard to pigeonhole as an engineer, musician or kinetic artist, Sarah’s actually a little of all three. In fact, she’s been combing these interests since she was a child in the 1970s, building mini cable cars across the garden and put together soundtracks, on a portable Phillips cassette recorder, about futuristic trips to the Moon. Sarah’s first degree in engineering (electroacoustics) was followed by a masters in biologically-inspired robotics (evolutionary and adaptive systems) and an Associateship in Early Music Performance from the Royal College of Music. On graduating as an engineer, Sarah had a brief spell in the building industry, where she assisted the chief acoustician in a busy London engineering company,  There, she fell for the peculiar charms of vintage electronics, when she was asked to work on an ancient, hybrid thermal-modelling computer. She later found her way to the Science Museum, London, where she was encouraged to combine her interests in the history of technology, interactive design and live performance. In 1995, Sarah opted to leave the Science Museum and work independently, focusing on performance, writing and the sonic arts. She worked solo and collaborated with other makers, most notably the sculptor and cartoonist Tim Hunkin who introduced her to PLCs and other control systems for machines.’ (Bio from Sarah’s website)

>>> http://www.sarahangliss.com/ <<<

 

Agathe Max

Agathe Max is a French violinist/Composer based in Lyon

After training in Classical music for 1O years and graduating at the Bourgoin-Jallieu School of Music, France, in 1995; Agathe was later exposed to improvised music and to the experimental scene. ‘Inspired by a world both enchanting and draped in darkness, she has developed a wide range of sound textures, unique and melodious, creating unconventional and magnetic musical pieces reflecting a personality in constant search of rareness in music’.

 

Since 2011, Agathe Max has been part of the Bernard Fort study program in electroacoustic composition at the National School of Music in Villeurbanne, France, where she continues to develop her talent and virtuosity to create soundscapes and music related to images and films. She has produced several projects in sound design for animated films, short movies,theater, contemporary dance and art exhibitions…’

Agathe Max & Cyril M. – Live at Herstmonceux Observatory 2013

www.agathemaxmusic.com

Purchase music via bandcamp here : agathemax.bandcamp.com

 

Joan La Barbara

Joan La Barbara (born 1947 in Philadelphia, PA) is an American Composer, Performer and Sound Artist. Her work explores the human voice as a multi-faceted instrument, expanding traditional boundaries in developing a unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques.

photo: Julie Graber, 2002

Rehearsing “Still and Moving Lines in Families of Hyperbolas” Cunningham Studios, NYC, 1974.[Photo : Mary Lucier]

photo: Roberto Massoti, 1976

La Barbara has collaborated with artists including Morton Subotnick, Alvin Lucier, Christian Marclay and Merce Cunningham, and in the early part of her career performed and recorded with Steve Reich, Philip Glass and several jazz artists, developing her own unique vocal/instrumental sound. Hailed as “one of the great vocal virtuosos of our time”, she premiered landmark compositions written for her by noted American composers, including Morton Feldman’s ‘Three Voices’; Morton Subotnick’s chamber opera ‘Jacob’s Room’;  and the title role in Robert Ashley’s opera ‘Now Eleanor’s Idea’; as well as Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s ‘Einstein on the Beach’; Steve Reich’s ‘Drumming’; John Cage’s ‘Solo for Voice 45’, and many more.

David Tudor’s Rainforest performance April 19, 1975 at The Kitchen (59 Wooster Street). Tom Johnson is in foreground with back to camera, I am facing camera, both listening to hoop; in background at right is Laurie Speigel. [photo: Kathy Landman]

Joan La Barbara in performance at LA Theatre Center (3/3/86) of her work “Winds of the Canyon” with sets by visual artist Lita Albuquerque (standing in shadow at left). [photo: Debbie Richardson]

oan La Barbara and John Cage playing chess before a rehearsal at his loft photo: © 1976 Michael McKenzie

In 2008, La Barbara was awarded the American Music Center’s Letter of Distinction for significant contributions to the field of contemporary American music.

Read a full biography alongside recordings and archival photographs via the artist’s website here

Above: Klee Alee (scored for multiple voices) was commissioned by RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) in 1979 and was released on her Reluctant Gypsy LP, Wizard Records. The piece takes inspiration from the composer’s experiences while viewing a Paul Klee painting.

Listen below to an interview with Joan La Barbara via the CKUT archives, produced November 1990 by Kathy Kennedy.

‘Drumming’ 1971 with Clayton, Barbara & Sherman

Town Hall premiere of Steve Reich’s “Drumming” 1971, NYC.

Left to right, Jay Clayton (L), Joan La Barbara(C), Judith Sherman (R)

Alice Shields

Alice Shields is an American Composer known for her cross-cultural operas and vocal electronic music. She has recieved a DMA degree in Music Composition and served as Associate Director of both the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and the Columbia University Computer Music Center; as well as lecturing on the Psychology of Music in numerous institutions across America.

“Study for Voice and Tape was composed in 1968, using my prerecorded singing voice synchronized with electronic sounds on tape. The sound sources for the tape part include phrases created on an analog Buchla synthesizer, my own singing voice, and a shaken bell-tree. Pitch and timbral modifications occur through Klangumwandler and elaborate feedback, resulting in spiraling patterns that rise and fall in pitch and speed.” AShields

Alice is still producing work to date including her new chamber opera, ‘Zhaojun – A Woman of Peace’ (2013), in which her cross-cultural explorations step into the position of women in ancient China. Further information, recordings and contact can be found via www.aliceshields.com

Beatriz Ferreyra

Beatriz Ferreyra is an Argentine composer. She worked with the Groupe de Recherches Musicales under the direction of Pierre Schaeffer (1963-70) where she collaborated on the realisation of the Solfège de L’objet Sonore albums. While there she completed research and ran the interdisciplinary seminars. In 1975, Ferreyra joined the Composers College of the IMEB (Institut international de musique électroacoustique de Bourges) and later created the experimental concerts series ‘Les rendez-vous de la Musique concrète’ at the Centre d’études et de Recherche Pierre Schaeffer. Ferreyra has performed at many international festivals, electroacoustic conferences and music seminars. As an independent composer, she has received commissions for performance at festivals and concerts, as well as public celebrations and events, films and ballets. Beatriz Ferreyra has also worked in the area of music therapy and served on numerous juries for international competitions adjudicating experimental musics.

‘Demeures Aquatiques’ (Waterish Dwelling): electroacoustic music commissioned by G.R.M. (Groupe de Recherches Musicales) in 1967.  First Performance: Avignon’s  Festival, August 1968, France.

Laurie Spiegel plays Alles Synth

“This 1977 tape is one of the earliest examples of purely digital realtime audio synthesis. It manages to achieve an analog synth sounding quality, but is entirely digital synthesis and signal processing. The interactive software I wrote and am playing in this video recycles my keyboard input into an accompaniment to my continued playing, which is why I called it a ‘concerto generator’. I use part of one of the keyboards for control data entry, and the small switches upper right to access pre-entered numerical patterns. The sliders are mainly pre-Yamaha FM synthesis parameter controls, for the number and amplitude and frequency of the FM pair modulators and carriers…” Laurie Speigel 

Christina Kubisch – Mono Fluido

 Christina Kubisch is a German composer and sound-installation artist. She is a Professor of Audio-Visual Arts at the academy of Fine Arts, Saarbrücken and has had international solo exhibitions since the seventies as well as numerous releases with  various labels.

Below – ‘Ocigam Trazom’ from Mono Fluido (Important Records 2011), Constructed using field recordings, tape, flute and custom EMS synthesizer.

Else Marie Pade

“In Denmark, I often felt a bit ridiculed as a female composer. Even my own husband was bothered by my creating music. One might say that I was doubly isolated in Danish composer circles, partly as a composer of electronic music, partly as a woman.” – Else Marie Pade

Else Marie Pade was born in Denmark in 1924. During the early 50s she became the first Danish composer of electronic music and Musique concrète.

While Denmark was not interested by Else’s work, Stockhausen and Boulez required her tapes to use during lessons and seminars held throughout Europe. These included “Syv Circler” (Seven Circles) 1958  ↓

De-gendering the Electronic Soundscape

An inspiring theses by Jennifer M. Brown of Southern Cross University

De-gendering the Electronic Soundscape: Women, Power and Technology in Contemporary Music.

Graphic Scores by Women Composers – Heresies 1980

Graphic scores by women composers.
From Heresies magzine #10, “Women and Music”, New York, 1980.

• Kathleen St. John, Centipede
• La Donna Smith, PARTBE
• Kay Gardner, Atlantis Rising
• Daria Semegen, Jeux des Quatres
• Heidi Von Gunden, Whistle Music: A Sonic Exorcism
• Beth Anderson, The People Rumble Louder

Download full PDF of magazine here

Heresies, a Feminist Publication on Art and Politics.

Laurie Spiegel

Laurie Spiegel is an American composer. She has worked at Bell Laboratories, in computer graphics, and is known primarily for her electronic-music compositions and her algorithmic composition software Music Mouse…

Ivana Stefanović – The Epistle of Birds 1976

Ivana Stefanović is a Serbian composer born 1948 in Belgrade. She trained as a violinist, and since the late 1960s, worked as music editor at Belgrade’s national radio and television. Her compositions include orchestral and vocal music, as well as radio art and stage music.

Ivana Stefanović – ‘The Epistle of Birds’ – a tape collage of bird songs published on 7″ in 1976 by Russian state label Melodyia

Geneviève Calame – Labyrinthes Fluides

“During the 1970s, classically trained Swiss composer Geneviève Calame (1946-1993) worked at Geneva’s Studio de Musique Contemporaine, where she composed various electronic music compositions likeL’Oiseau Du Matin (1972) or Geometry I, II, III (1975-1976). She was the co-founder of the Artistic Research Team, or A.R.T., in 1971, working on intermedia projects including video and new technologies. Created in the A.R.T. studio in 1976, Labyrinthes Fluides, is based on the EMS Spectron video sythesizer. allowing sound waves to generate pictures and movement.” Continuo

Maryanne Amacher – Music for Sound Joined Rooms 1980

Maryanne Amacher (1938-2009): Living sound, for “Sound-joined Rooms” series (1980).

“…meanwhile, the entire house was full of sound, circulating throughout the rooms, out the doors and windows, down the hill, past sedate Victorian mansions…cont“

Pozzi Escot – The Poetics of Simple Mathematics in Music

In 1999, American music composer and researcher Pozzi Escot published The Poetics of Simple Mathematics in Music, a study of the geometrical grounding and mathematical structure of various music traditions from the Middle Ages, Romantic era, Native American Indians or contemporary European avantgarde. Born in Lima, Peru, in 1933, Pozzi Escot teaches music theory and composition at New England Conservatory. She is the editor of Sonus – Journal of Investigations into Global Musical Possibilities. In 1976, she wrote Sonic Design: The Nature of Sound and Music.

Daphne Oram Documentary – Wee Have Also Sound-Houses

Pauline Oliveros – Valentine

Pauline Oliveros’s Valentine in performance 1968

Ellen Fullmann on the Long Stringed Instrument