The Theremin Orchestra

Mercedes Blasco

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

• Year: 2012
• Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.

Abstract:

Program notes: The Theremin Orchestra is a composition for three voices and a modular system of four spheres with built-in Theremin Sensors. Two of those spheres will control different effects on the voices and the rest will be played as Theremin instruments. The performance is presented as a sound event where initially the three voices appear raw and naked and as the composition unfolds the voices will be increasingly distorted through different effects applied with the Theremin controllers. In the climax of its progression the other two Theremin balls will become audible merging their sound with the mesh of vocal reshaped sources, not allowing to distinguish where the human ends and the machine starts. Composer(s) Credits: Mercedes Blasco Instrumentalist(s) Credits: Mercedes Blasco (voice, Theremin controllers, EMS synth), Thessia Machado and Sonia Megías (voice, Theremin instrument) Artist(s) Biography: Merche Blasco: Trained as a Telecommunications Engineer, Merche Blasco developed in parallel to her studies a more creative path related with music, video, installation and performance. She created her alter ego ``Burbuja'' as a vehicle for her own musical exploration and since its conception she has participated & collaborated with various artists, establishing a strong relationship between different mediums of artistic expression & her own musical direction lsuch as Lucy Orta at the Venice biennale, Chicks on Speed and Cristian Vogel. Her debut,``burbuja'' (station55 records) was presented in Sonar 2007 and has been touring in different cities in Europe, USA and Canada in the past years: Mapping Festival (Geneve), Sonic Art Circuits (Washington), Queens Museum of Art (New York). Thanks to a Fulbright Grant she is currently a MPS Candidate in the Interactive Telecommunications Program (NYU) where she is mainly researching about new tools for Electronic Music Performance. Thessia Machado, Brazil/NY, investigates the physicality of sound and its effect on our perception of space. Many of her recent sculptures and installations function also as unorthodox instruments---pieces that have a real-time, live component. The expressive potential is active and changeable as the viewer interacts and performs with it. Thessia's installations and video pieces have been exhibited in New York, London, Philadelphia, Paris, Amsterdam, Dublin, Berlin and Athens. She has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Vermont Studio Center and she is a recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, The Experimental Television Center and The Bronx Museum. Performing as link, Thessia Machado, a self-avowed noisician, employs a changing line-up of handmade, found and modified instruments to build driving, meditative soundscapes. Sonia Megias was born on June 20th 1982 in Almansa, a village at the southeast of Spain. Since she was a kid, she has been abducted by the arts, nature and spirituality. Even today, some years later, she tries to interweave these beautiful disciplines, with the goal of transmit to the world her perception of Beauty or True. Thanks to the intensity of her musical production, she finds herself living in New York since 2010, on the Fulbright and a NYU Steinhardt grants. Here, she combines her studies at the New York University with the compositions of her last commissioned pieces. Her music has been performed in different music halls and festivals, underlining the following: Auditorio 400 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art ``Queen Sophia'' (2012, 2008); Cervantes Institute of New York (2012, 2011); Houston University, at Opera Vista Festival (2011); Consulate of Argentina in New York, at a Tribute to Alfonsina Storni (2009); Embassy of France in Spain (2009); United Nations Headquarters (2008). Concert Venue and Time: Necto, Wednesday May 23, 9:00pm

Citation:

BibTeX Entry:

  @incollection{nime2012-music-Blasco2012,
 abstract = {Program notes:

\emph{The Theremin Orchestra} is a composition for three voices and a modular system of four spheres with built-in Theremin Sensors. Two of those spheres will control different effects on the voices and the rest will be played as Theremin instruments. The performance is presented as a sound event where initially the three voices appear raw and naked and as the composition unfolds the voices will be increasingly distorted through different effects applied with the Theremin controllers. In the climax of its progression the other two Theremin balls will become audible merging their sound with the mesh of vocal reshaped sources, not allowing to distinguish where the human ends and the machine starts.

Composer(s) Credits:

Mercedes Blasco

Instrumentalist(s) Credits:

Mercedes Blasco (voice, Theremin controllers, EMS synth), Thessia Machado and Sonia Meg\'{i}as (voice, Theremin instrument)

Artist(s) Biography:

Merche Blasco: Trained as a Telecommunications Engineer, \textbf{Merche Blasco} developed in parallel to her studies a more creative path related with music, video, installation and performance. She created her alter ego ``Burbuja'' as a vehicle for her own musical exploration and since its conception she has participated \& collaborated with various artists, establishing a strong relationship between different mediums of artistic expression  \& her own musical direction lsuch as Lucy Orta at the Venice biennale, Chicks on Speed and Cristian Vogel.
Her debut,``burbuja'' (station55 records) was presented in Sonar 2007 and has been touring in different cities in Europe, USA and Canada in the past years: Mapping Festival (Geneve), Sonic Art Circuits (Washington), Queens Museum of Art (New York). Thanks to a Fulbright Grant she is currently a MPS Candidate in the Interactive Telecommunications Program (NYU) where she is mainly researching about new tools for Electronic Music Performance.

Thessia Machado, Brazil/NY, investigates the physicality of sound and its effect on our perception of space. Many of her recent sculptures and installations function also as unorthodox instruments---pieces that have a real-time, live component. The expressive potential is active and changeable as the viewer interacts and performs with it. Thessia's installations and video pieces have been exhibited in New York, London, Philadelphia, Paris, Amsterdam, Dublin, Berlin and Athens.
She has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and the Vermont Studio Center and she is a recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, The Experimental Television Center and The Bronx Museum. Performing as link, Thessia Machado, a self-avowed noisician, employs a changing line-up of handmade, found and modified instruments to build driving, meditative soundscapes.

Sonia Megias was born on June 20th 1982 in Almansa, a village at the southeast of Spain. Since she was a kid, she has been abducted by the arts, nature and spirituality. Even today, some years later, she tries to interweave these beautiful disciplines, with the goal of transmit to the world her perception of Beauty or True.
Thanks to the intensity of her musical production, she finds herself living in New York since 2010, on the Fulbright and a NYU Steinhardt grants. Here, she combines her studies at the New York University with the compositions of her last commissioned pieces.
Her music has been performed in different music halls and festivals, underlining the following: Auditorio 400 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art ``Queen Sophia'' (2012, 2008); Cervantes Institute of New York (2012, 2011); Houston University, at Opera Vista Festival (2011); Consulate of Argentina in New York, at a Tribute to Alfonsina Storni (2009); Embassy of France in Spain (2009); United Nations Headquarters (2008).

Concert Venue and Time: Necto, Wednesday May 23, 9:00pm},
 address = {Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.},
 author = {Mercedes Blasco},
 booktitle = {Music Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 day = {21-23},
 editor = {Georg Essl and Brent Gillespie and Michael Gurevich and Sile O'Modhrain},
 month = {May},
 publisher = {Electrical Engineering \& Computer Science and Performing Arts Technology, University of Michigan},
 title = {The Theremin Orchestra},
 year = {2012}
}