This public concert is a culmination of a three-day residency at Studio LOOS and is followed by an open discussion.
In our daily lives, our sonic environments consist of a constant combination of acoustic sounds and electronic sounds. This research aims to facilitate inclusive listening and sounding in performance that similarly combines and centers both acoustic and electronic sound in a common space.
In 2021-2022 my research at Studio Loos involved designing and implementing a gesturally controlled interactive interface for real-time vocal processing of my unamplified operatic voice, using wireless midi rings to control a MAX patch that manipulated my sampled disembodied voice(s). In my research in 2023, I move from a solo practice to an ensemble practice. I will explore working with this interface in collaboration with two virtuoso instrumental performer-composers who also use live processing to augment their acoustic signals and who also do not require amplification of their acoustic instruments: violinist Leslee Smucker and reed player Peter van Bergen.
The challenges of moving from a solo practice to an ensemble practice require time and space to perform together and time to investigate a deep concentration on the interactions of our embodied acoustic sounds with our disembodied processed signals in a common acoustic environment. We will explore the musical challenges of working within a trio consisting of 3 monophonic acoustic instruments, each of which will be processed with a different audio-processing interface. We will investigate what kind of multi-channel loudspeaker setup will most effectively combine our unamplified embodied sounds (the resonant bodies of our voices and instruments) with our disembodied sounds (the live processing of our sonic avatars).
Deep gratitude to Studio Loos for providing space, technical equipment and expert collaborators, and to Music Norway for a 2023 travel grant.
bios
As both a composer and singer, Kristin Norderval is inspired by hybridity, interactivity and the idea that everything we do is site-specific. She blends acoustic and electronic sound, is fascinated with de-tuned instruments, machines, and ambient sound. In her solo works for voice and electronics she processes her voice in real time often combining it with prerecorded sounds to create complex sonic layers and unusual soundscapes.
Leslee Smucker is a musician utilizing violin, voice, synthesizers, electronics, film, and poetry. Her work focuses on ideas surrounding sound perception, phenomenological spatial relationships, anachronisms, language, and the human/machine relationship. For composition, she was awarded a commission from Gaudeamus for Michela Amici in 2022 for harp and transducers. She has presented her research at the 20th Biennial International Conference on Ninetheeth-Century Music in Huddersfield, UK, and given artistic research lecture-performances at Brancaleoni International Festival and University of Virginia. She is lecturer in music at University of Colorado Boulder.
Peter van Bergen is artistic and business director of LOOS. He is a composer, improviser, interpreter and PhD researcher at the Free University of Brussels in the field of interdisciplinary experimental new music. He founded LOOS in 1982 and Studio LOOS in 2005. His research concerns "Improvisation, Interactivity, Instability: Artistic Transformations" (IOMAIM Research) in which improvisation between people is transformed into collaboration between man and machine.