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/ <<<

 

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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

 

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

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.

Pauline Oliveros – Valentine

Pauline Oliveros’s Valentine in performance 1968

Ellen Fullmann on the Long Stringed Instrument