Suspended Beginnings

Diemo Schwarz, and Victoria Johnson

Music Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

• Year: 2011
• Location: Oslo, Norway
• PDF link

Abstract:

Program notes: The performance between electric violinist Victoria Johnson and Diemo Schwarz playing his interactive corpus-based concatenative synthesis software CataRT is an improvisation with two brains and four hands controlling one shared symbolic instrument, the sound space, built-up from nothing and nourished in unplanned ways by the sound of the instrument, explored and consumed with whatever the live instant filled it with. It creates a symbiotic relationship between the player of the instrument and that of the software. Live corpus-based concatenative synthesis permits here a new approach to improvisation, where sound from an instrument is recontextualised by interactive, gesture-controlled software. Not knowing what can happen is an integral part of the performance. About the performers: Victoria Johnson works with electric violin, live electronics, improvisation and musical technological issues in her artistic work. Trained as a classical violinist in Oslo, Vienna and London, she gave her debut recital in Oslo in 1995. She has established herself internationally as a soloist, chamber musician and improviser in contemporary, improvised and experimental, cross-disciplinary music and art. Diemo Schwarz: Researcher and developer at Ircam, composer of electronic music, and musician on drums and laptop with gestural controllers. His compositions and live performances, in solo as Mean Time Between Failure, or improvising with other musicians, explore the possibilities of corpus-based concatenative synthesis to re-contextualise any sound source by rearranging sound units into a new musical framework using interactive navigation through a timbral space.

Citation:

BibTeX Entry:

  @inproceedings{nime2011-music-Schwarz2011,
 abstract = {Program notes:

The performance between electric violinist Victoria Johnson and Diemo Schwarz playing his interactive corpus-based concatenative synthesis software CataRT is an improvisation with two brains and four hands controlling one shared symbolic instrument, the sound space, built-up from nothing and nourished in unplanned ways by the sound of the instrument, explored and consumed with whatever the live instant filled it with. It creates a symbiotic relationship between the player of the instrument and that of the software. Live corpus-based concatenative synthesis permits here a new approach to improvisation, where sound from an instrument is recontextualised by interactive, gesture-controlled software. Not knowing what can happen is an integral part of the performance.

About the performers:

Victoria Johnson works with electric violin, live electronics, improvisation and musical technological issues in her artistic work. Trained as a classical violinist in Oslo, Vienna and London, she gave her debut recital in Oslo in 1995. She has established herself internationally as a soloist, chamber musician and improviser in contemporary, improvised and experimental, cross-disciplinary music and art.

Diemo Schwarz: Researcher and developer at Ircam, composer of electronic music, and musician on drums and laptop with gestural controllers. His compositions and live performances, in solo as Mean Time Between Failure, or improvising with other musicians, explore the possibilities of corpus-based concatenative synthesis to re-contextualise any sound source by rearranging sound units into a new musical framework using interactive navigation through a timbral space.},
 address = {Oslo, Norway},
 author = {Diemo Schwarz and Victoria Johnson},
 booktitle = {Music Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 editor = {Kjell Tore Innervik and Ivar Frounberg},
 month = {June},
 publisher = {Norwegian Academy of Music},
 title = {Suspended Beginnings},
 url = {https://vimeo.com/26679877},
 year = {2011}
}