Announcements

L'Espace du Son

The thirteenth annual international fesival of acousmatic music, L'Espace du Son, will take place in Brussels, Belgium, on 19–22 October. The concert series is hosted by Musiques et Reserches, and is the occasion for the presentation of finalists and the announcement of winners of two competitions, one in the live spatialization of acousmatic works, the other in composition. The series will also include a concert paying homage to Francis Dhomont, who celebrates his 80th birthday this year. (See the interview in this issue.)

Web: www.musiques-recherches.be.

Seoul Computer Music Conference

The Korean Electroacoustic Music Society will host the 2006 Seoul International Computer Music Festival (SICMF) 23–25 November at the Seoul Arts Center in Korea. Submission categories include tape music, electroacoustic music with instruments, live electroacoustic music, and audiovisual media art. Twenty pieces selected from over 100 submissions will be chosen for performance during the conference.

Web: www.computermusic.or.kr/main_en.

Electroacoustic Music Festival in Chile

The Electroacoustic Community of Chile will host Ai-maako, the sixth edition of their annual electroacoustic music festival on 10–21 October 2006. Celebrating 50 years of electroacoustic music in Chile, the festival will present an international selection of acousmatic and "mixed" (electronic with instrumental) music.

Web: www.cech.cl.

Pushing the Medium

The Portugese artist-run cultural organization Binaural Media will host Pushing the Medium, an international meeting of sound, video, and media artists in Nodar, Portugal, on 14–25 September 2006. The theme of the symposium is "Place," and the landscape, villages, mountains, and valleys around Nodar will serve as both the topic for workshops and discussions, as well as primary material for artists to use in realizing work during the ten-day event.

Web: www.binauralmedia.org/projects/ptm2.html.

World Forum for Acoustic Ecology

The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE 2006) will be held in Hirosaki, Japan, on 2–6 November 2006. The forum will be presented by the Japanese Association for Sound Ecology and Hirosaki University International Music Center, and is supported by the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology and Soundscape Association of Japan. The opening symposium at the forum is titled "The West Meets the East: Physical, Spiritual, and Postcolonial Perspectives of Acoustic Ecology." Other activities include lectures, discussions, audiovisual presentations, and a two-day listening tour in areas surrounding Hirosaki.

Web: www.saj.gr.jp/en/hirosaki/WFAE2006.html.

An Ear to the Earth

An Ear to the Earth: A Festival of Music, Sound, and Ecology will take place across several venues in New York City on 6–14 October 2006. The idea behind the festival is the recognition that the interaction with our natural and human-created environments is a crucial issue of our time, and has inspired an enormous body of sonic artwork. The festival will include concerts, installations, encounters, and soundwalks by artists including Hildegard Westerkapmp, Barry Truax, Maggi Payne, Cécile Le Prado, and Jean-Claude Risset. Joel Chadabe will present a world premier of a new interactive work using material from New York and New Delhi. David Rothenberg will present Why Birds Sing. There will be a sound installation, Sound Map of the Danube River, by Annea Lockwood, and Laurie Spiegel will present her work Ferals based on a prominent part of the New York City soundscape, pigeons.

An Ear to the Earth was conceived by Electronic Music Foundation, and organized in collaboration with the UNESCO DigiArts Portal, World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, New York City Audubon, New York University Music Technology Program, New York Society for Acoustic Ecology, The Acoustic Ecology Institute, and Leonardo/ISAST.

Web: www.eartotheearth.org.

Seventh International Conference on Music Information Retrieval

The seventh International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR '06) will be held in Victoria, Canada, on 8–12 October 2006. ISMIR is an international forum for work on accessing digital musical material, addressing the issues and possibilites that arise now that so much musical material is available online. The conference targets the interests of researchers, developers, educators, librarians, students, and companies. The 2006 Music Information Retrieval Evaluation eXchange (MIREX '06) is a contest to compare state-of-the-art MIR...