CMAT’s Dr Aki Pasoulas, performed at the Greenwich ‘Electroacoustic Music in Great Britain: Past/Present/Future’ conference on Saturday.
Aki joined an exciting and varied programme, alongside the very best of the electroacoustic genre, including Simon Emmerson, Denis Smalley, Leigh Landy, Trevor Wishart and Jonty Harrison – to name a few!
Aki’s piece ‘Iridies’ was premiered in April 2017 and has since been performed around the world.
A 2 year AHRC-funded project to study Roman and Late Antique Artefacts from Egypt – a collaborative effort between the University of Kent, Manchester Metropolitan University, and the UCL Petrie Museum, London – has resulted in the production of replica ancient musical instruments using 3-D print technology.
Dr Ellen Swift, Reader in Archaeology and Dr Jo Stoner, Research Associate, both in the Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies, worked together with Dr April Pudsey (Manchester Metropolitan University). They also enlisted the help of SMFA and CMAT technicians to complete the project.
Lloyd Bosworth, Archaeology Technician in SECL, 3-D scanned the ancient objects and created virtual models from the scans. These virtual 3-D models were sent to Fine Art Technicians Georgia Wright and George Morris, who printed them out to use as a basis for the replica objects, which they made in original materials. They created a set of reed panpipes, 3 different ceramic rattles, a pair of wooden clappers and two sets of double-flutes.
The team was also assisted by Centre for Music and Audio Technology Music Technician, Frank Walker, to make sound recordings of the replica instruments. The recordings were created in CMAT’s Neve studio, using computer software that mimics the acoustic qualities of specific interior and exterior spaces. Information on Roman buildings from archaeological excavations in Egypt allowed the researchers to hear the sounds as though the instruments were being played within ancient spaces.
The replica artefacts and the sound recordings are currently being shared at an exciting new exhibition at the UCL Petrie Museum, which will be open from 22 January – 22 April 2019. For more information, visit the UCL Petrie Museum website.
Research seminar
Tuesday 29 January, 5pm
Clock Tower Lecture Theatre, Historic Dockyard Chatham
Jaap Blonk, avant-garde composer and performance artist, will join the University of Kent for a research seminar this January. Blonk will discuss his work, placing it in the context of its roots: sound poetry, improvisation and new music. He will present his work in the form of snippets of live performance, projection of texts and scores, sound examples, including his work with other musicians and with electronics, and video fragments.
Biography
Jaap Blonk (b. 1953 in Woerden, Holland) is a composer, performer and poet. In the late 1970s he took up saxophone and started to compose music.
A few years later he discovered his potential as a vocal performer, at first in reciting poetry and later on in improvisations and his own compositions. For almost two decades the voice was his main means for the discovery and development of new sounds.
Later, Blonk started work with electronics, at first using samples of his own voice, then extending the field to include pure sound synthesis as well.
He took a year off of performing in 2006. As a result, his renewed interest in mathematics made him start a research of the possibilities of algorithmic composition for the creation of music, visual work and poetry. Blonk’s work for radio and television includes several commissioned radio plays. He also makes larger-scale drawings of his scores, as well as visual poetry, which is being exhibited.
He has his own record label, Kontrans, featuring a total of 25 releases so far. Other Blonk recordings appeared on various labels, such as Staalplaat, Basta, VICTO, Ecstatic Peace, Monotype Records, Terp and Elegua Records. His book/CD ‘Traces of Speech’ was published in 2012 by Hybriden-Verlag, Berlin. Forthcoming is a sequel with the title “Traces of Cookery”. A comprehensive collection of his sound poetry came out as a book with 2 CDs in 2013, entitled “KLINKT”.
Image: Etang Chen, 2015
CMAT undergraduate students enjoyed a guest lecture from music industry expert Paul Pacifico this week. Paul is CEO of AIM, the Association of Independent Music which represents independent labels, digital distributers, label services companies and self-releasing artists amongst its 800 members.
Before joining AIM, Paul was CEO of the UK’s Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), the organisation in the music industry that represents the interests and rights of the Artists. Paul was also the founding President of the International Artist Organisation (‘IAO’), which unites artist organisations from different countries to speak with one voice. In his early career, he spent almost 10 years in the City in banking and strategy consultancy before leaving to focus on creative music consultancy, Specific Music.
Paul spoke to CMAT students about the Independent Record Industry, giving them practical advise for promoting themselves as emerging artists and sharing his wealth of experience from working across the music industry.
Staff and student composers from CMAT have been invited to the University of Aberdeen to present their works at the eleventh concert of the Rediscoveries series, a joint project between the two universities. Rediscoveries offers a series of performances of electroacoustic music and sound art events, presented by SERG (Sound Emporium Research Group) from the Department of Music, University of Aberdeen.
Rediscoveries XI will take place on Concert Wednesday 14th February, 2019 at the Butchart Hall, University of Aberdeen.
Thursday 6th December
6 – 9pm
Galvanising Shop, Historic Dockyard Chatham
How do blind people make sense of the world through other senses? What happens when the visual is removed from ensemble music making? Tactile Trio are an ensemble of sighted and partially sighted musicians, who create and perform new music working under blindfold and in darkened spaces. Without visual notation, they work with improvisation and tactile scores – where music is created from a sense of touch, and darkness offers a world rich with other sensory possibilities.
Join Tactile trio for their Medway debut at the Historic Dockyard Chatham, part of the University of Kent’s celebrations of Arts and Disabilities. The event will feature a performance of tactile scores and devised works, plus a pre-performance talk and demonstrations.
Tactile Trio are:
Adrian Lee – guitar, composer, formerly Musical Director for Royal Shakespeare Company
James Ridson – recorders, Para-orchestra member
Jackie Walduck (Leader) – vibraphone, composer, SMFA Music Lecturer.
This event is free to attend. Email J.Walduck@kent.ac.uk to book your place.
Wednesday 5th December
7.30pm
The Royal Dockyard Church, Historic Dockyard Chatham
The CMAT/SMFA Christmas concert returns this December and we couldn’t be more excited! Join us, to celebrate the University of Kent Medway’s vast array of talented music students. Uniting our two schools of music, a diverse programme awaits; featuring music that spans centuries, crosses continents and unites a multitude of genres. Our students will showcase their work from across the Autumn Term.
This event is free but please book via Eventbrite.
Saturday 24th November
11am – 12.30pm
Huguenot Museum, Rochester
This music workshop from the University of Kent and the Huguenot Museum will explore the origins of some of the music we hear today by looking at the journey music makes with people when they migrate.
Working with Syrian darbuka virtuoso Rami Merhi and singer-songwriter and music lecturer Anna Neale from the University of Kent, Music and Migration will aim to recreate this journey exploring different Arabic and Western rhythms, creating a new fusion in musical composition in a relaxed setting. Everyone will be given a djembe to use, but if you play an instrument please bring it along.
This is a free event. Book online via Eventbrite or at: www.beinghumanfestival.org.
Vote 100: Celebrating Women Composers will mark the centenary of women gaining the vote through democracy in action. This concert, organised by MOOT, will take place on Saturday 17th November at St George’s Church in Brighton.
The night will feature music by a diverse range of women composers, including Lecturer in Music Performance Dr Ruth Herbert’s piano trio, TableMusic. Visit Eventbrite for more information and to book.
Professor of Contemporary Music, Tim Howle’s ‘Globus Hystericus’ (AV, fixed media, 7’15”) was performed in Oslo on 7th November. The piece is a collaborative work with the video artist, Nick Cope.
The event was hosted by the Norwegian electroacoustic music group, Electric Audio Unit (EAU). EAU performs works from around the world and specialises in immersive spatial audio concerts, cutting edge 3D experiences and spatialisation performance.
