MTI Wins Funding for Cultural Projects with Onassis Cultural Centre, IRCAM, ZKM + others

Compose With Sounds (cws.dmu.ac.uk)

The MTI has just been informed that the large proposal, hosted by the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens and including 8 partners including IRCAM and ZKM for €3.8 million has not only been one of the fifteen successful projects, but also gained the highest mark this year within the Creative Europe scheme. This 3-1/2 year initiative includes dozens of cultural actions of which ten will be led by the MTI. Its focus is to make innovative forms of new music, in our case those involving technology, accessible to new audiences.

The MTI’s initiatives cover areas ranging from electroacoustic music in general to DIY approaches, sound art, telematic as well as live and mediated performance. Community and pedagogical initiatives will include further developments of EARS 2 and Compose with Sounds and DIY workshops. Research hubs will be created regarding international initiatives in community music (including an international conference) and reception of new music by new audiences throughout Europe. The MTI is to receive 14% of the project funding.

The Grand Finale of the Composing with Sounds EU Culture Project

On the 26th and 27th of May, the Composing with Sounds EU Culture project led by the DMU’s MTI Research Centre reached its climax in the form of a two-day mini-festival at the famed ZKM’s Kubus theatre in Karlsruhe, Germany.

This project (5-2011 – 4/2013) consisted of two phases, a software development phase in which the software Compose with Sounds was developed and a phase in which schools workshops were held in the six participating countries – France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Norway and Portugal – after which time commissions were offered to two professional composers in each country. Furthermore, a number of students ranging in age from 9 to 17 all made compositions using this new software, some individually, in pairs and in larger class groups. In the final project months, schools and public concerts were held in all six countries. The DMU concert formed part of this year’s Cultural Exchanges Festival. Other concerts were also held, for example in the GRM annual series in Paris and at the Oslo Opera House’s Recital Hall.

For this final event, there were two full concerts of works composed within the project, a symposium with papers by major project participants (including the MTI’s Andrew Hill and Leigh Landy, project leader) and German specialists, such as Rudolf Frisius and Hans W. Koch. The final part of the symposium was a round table that included a public evaluation of the project in which, other than understandable criticism about the late software completion, strong praise was offered for this project that will allow for creativity in sound-based musical production to become much more accessible than ever for young people and amateurs of all ages. The final concert was of the project directors including two works that had been made especially for the Kubus’s Sound Dome (Ludger Brümmer and Leigh Landy) and others by Daniel Teruggi, Jøran Rudi and a première by Andreas Mniestris.

A double CD will appear with project compositions in the next few weeks and the project website will go public in late June: www.cws.dmu.ac.uk

Leigh Landy's ‘Radio Series’ in Madrid, Bordeaux, Karlsruhe & Shenyang

In March and April, all three of Professor Leigh Landy’s radio compositions are receiving international performances. To BBC or Not was presented on the 14th of March in the Reina Sofia Concert Hall in Madrid as part of the international conference/festival, Sound Spaces and Visual Spaces (where he also gave two talks). On the 21st of March Oh là la radio will be performed in Bordeaux at l’Agora du Haut Carré as part of the national TPMC (Tout pour la musique contemporaine – Everything for Contemporary Music) series. On the 26th of April, Radio-aktiv will be performed in the closing concert of the MTI’s EU Culture project Composing with Sounds concert at the ZKM’s Kubus concert hall (Centre for Art and Media Technology) in Karlsruhe, Germany. Landy will be creating the fourth work in the series in Mandarin with students from the Shenyang Conservatory of Music in the autumn.

Leigh Landy Premieres New ZKM Commission

In November, Leigh Landy presented two works in the main Kubus concert at the ARD Hörspiel Tage (Radio Play Festival) at the ZKM – this included his new ZKM commissioned work, Radio-aktiv, composed in 24-channels for the Sound Dome and his work, To BBC or Not. Both works contain samples taken from national radio recording which are recomposed. All three of his radio pieces, along with other works, will be presented during De Montfort University's Cultural Exchanges Festival in late February 2012.

He will also present a keynote talk and a composition at the Symposium for Performance of Electronic and Experimental Music (SPEEC) at Oxford University 6-7 January 2012.