Two Studies after Sibelius for stereo tape

 Oded Ben-Tal

The sound material for "Two studies after Sibelius" is taken from His Violin Concerto - 3 short fragments from the solo cadenza. The transformations of these sounds were done using CLM instrument definitions and CM algorithms. --Oded Ben-Tal

Oded Ben-Tal was born in Haifa, Israel, where he began his study of composition. From 1992 until 1996 he undertook a dual undergraduate program in physics and music in Jerusalem, concentrating in composition which he studied under Prof. Mark Kopytmann and Dr. Yinam Liff. In 1997 he joined the DMA Program in Composition at Stanford.

Eum-Yang for new Piano Trio (Radio Baton, Celleto, and Disklavier)

 Jun Kim  Chris Chafe, Celleto.

Eum-Yang is a composition for Disklavier, sampled and computer-modified violin sounds, and Celleto. The Disklavier and violin sounds are controlled by Radio-Baton through the PadMaster program using a NeXT computer. Two digital mixing processors (DMP-11) are also linked to the Radio-Baton to control the qudraphonic sound system.

Eum-Yang, in chinese pronunciation Yin-Yang, is an old oriental philosophy. Eum means dark and cold, while Yang means bright and hot. In music, these constrasts and polarity can be expressed in many ways: Color of harmony (dark and bright), Level of pitches (low and high), Level of loudness (soft and loud), and speed of rhythm (fast and slow).

The symbol of Eum-Yang, called Taeguk, is divided into two Yee (Divine Gender), which are in turn divided into four Sang (Divine Phase). The four Sang are divided into eight Kweh (Divine Diagram). Each of these eight Kewh has a meaningful names which are four polaric pairs: Sky and Earth, Pond and Mountain, Fire and Water, and Thunder and Wind. The piece contains twelve sections which are eight sections of each of above and four sections of each of those four pairs, which is a kind of recapitulation. Tonight's performance is only the first six sections: Wind, Thunder, Fire, Water, Pond, and Mountain (cello solo) with a temporary ending. --Jun Kim

A native of Seoul, Korea, Jun Kim received a Bachelor's degree in Composition from Kyung- Hee University, and a Master's degree in Composition from Boston University. He is currently pursuing a D.M.A. degree in Composition at Stanford University, studying with Jonathan Harvey, Chris Chafe and Jonathan Berger.

iICEsCcRrEeAaMm for four channel tape

 Fernando Lopez-Lezcano iICEsCcRrEeAaMm is a beta, er.. I mean alpha version of a new multichannel piece I'm still working on. As in the software world, Marketing informs me that in future versions bugs will be squashed and new features will be added for the benefit of all listeners. iscream refers to the origin of most of the concrete sound materials used in the piece. Screams and various other utterances from all of Chris Chafe's kids were digitally recorded in all their chilling and quite upsetting beauty. They were latter digitally fed into the "grani" sample grinder, a granular synthesis instrument developed by the composer. ICECREAM refers to the reward the kids (and myself) got after the screaming studio session. The piece was composed in the digital domain using Bill Schottstaedt's Common Lisp Music. Many software instruments and quite a few other samples of real world sounds made their way into the bitstream. --fll

Fernando Lopez-Lezcano (, 1956) received both a Master in Electronic Engineering (Faculty of Engineering, University of Buenos Aires) and a Master in Music (Carlos Lopez Buchardo National Conservatory, Buenos Aires). He started working with by building his own analog studio and synthesizers around 1976. After graduating he worked for nine years in industry as microprocessor hardware and software Design Engineer while simultaneaously pursuing his interests in electroacoustic music composition. His 1986 piece "Quest" won a mention in the 1990 Bouges Competition. He spent one year at CCRMA as Invited Composer, as part of an exchange program between LIPM in , CCRMA at Stanford and CRCA at UCSD, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. He latter did research and taught for one year at the Shonan Fujisawa Campus of Keio University, Japan.

He is currently Lecturer and Systems Administrator of the computer resources at CCRMA, where he splits his time between the company of good friends, keeping computers and users at CCRMA more or less happy and enjoying the arts of composing music and writing software. His music has been released on CD's and played in the Americas, Europe and East Asia.

Regulate Six for tape

 Charles Nichols Regulate Six is a study in granular synthesis. Samples are taken from recordings of male and female voices singing a line from a children's book, and are reassembled to create a new waveform whose spectrum is based on the selected vowel or consonant content of each word. Pitches are then grouped according to timbral types and sweep across or converge at points on the stereo field. --Charles Nichols

As an undergraduate violin major, Charles Nichols studied composition with Samuel Adler and Warren Benson at Eastman School of Music. After receiving his Bachelor of Music degree, he attended Yale University, where he studied composition with Martin Bresnick, Jacob Druckman, and Lukas Foss and computer music with Jonathan Berger. Interested in composition and performance of interactive computer music, digital synthesis, and instrument design, he is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Stanford University's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), where he has studied composition with Jonathan Harvey and Jean-Claude Risset.

Sermon on the Mount for stereo tape

 Bobby Lombardi

Sermon of the Mount is based on the opening lines of a spoken word recording by William Burroughs. The excerpted words from this text are the only source materials used. The work is in homage to the beat author who passed away last year. --Bobby Lombardi

Bobby Lombardi is a DMA student in composition at Stanford University. His current professors include Jonathan Berger, Chris Chafe and Jonathan Harvey. He has studied with Frederic Rzewski, Jean Claude Risset, and Orlando Garcia, and holds degrees from Florida International University, SUNY Stony Brook, and the Royal Conservatory of Liege, Belgium.

Skin Heads for percussion trio and electronic sounds

 Juan Pampin  Vanessa Tomlinson, Don R. Baker, Randal Leistikow, percussion

Skin heads are flat, usually covering an empty space, just a volume of air. Any resemblance with those that you might cross in the streets of Berlin is mere coincidence. Skin heads resonate, becoming the living body of another instrument, altering its sound or even magnifying its presence. Skin Heads, for percussion skins trio and electronics, is based on these resonances, explored and transformed both by electronic and acoustic means.

Skin Heads is the third piece of a cycle written for each family of percussion instruments and electronics. The first two works of the cycle are Metal Hurlant (1996), for metallic percussion (solo), and Toco Madera (1997) for wooden percussion (duet), both premiered at previous CCRMA Summer Concerts. The cycle will be completed with a percussion quartet combining all the instrumental palette.

Technical note: The analysis and spectral transformations of the instruments were done using ATS, spectral modeling software custom designed by me. All the digital sound processing and synthesis for the piece was performed with Common Lisp Music, developed at CCRMA by Bill Schottstaedt. --Juan Pampin

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Juan Pampin has studied composition with Oscar Edelstein and Francisco Kröpfl. He holds a Master in Computer Music from the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieur de Musique de Lyon, where he studied with Denis Lorrain and Philippe Manoury. As a Visiting Composer at CCRMA in 1994, he composed the tape piece Apocalypse was postponed due to lack of interest that received an award in the Concours International de Musique Éléctroacoustique de Bourges 1995. He has been composer in residence at the LIEM- CDMC studio in Madrid, and guest lecturer at Quilmes National University in Argentina.

As a Ph.D student at CCRMA, Juan Pampin has collaborated with professor Jonathan Harvey creating the electronic sounds for his pieces "Ashes Dance Back" (1996), and "Wheel of Emptiness" (1997). As part of his research work he has developed the ATS spectral modeling software used both for Harvey's pieces and for his own compositions. He has created a computer-based version for the live electronics of 's piece "Mantra", performed by Tom Schultz and Joan Nagano in the Alea II concert series.

Juan Pampin's main compositional project is a cycle of percussion pieces with electronics. This cycle will be completed by the end of next year with a percussion quartet, the final project for his DMA in composition at Stanford. Mr Pampin's music includes works for acoustic instruments, computer music and mixed media, that have been performed in the United States, , Europe and Asia.

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