25e Concours International de Musique Electroacoustique, Bourges: Prix Quadrivium, and: Compendium International Bourges 2001, and: 29e Concours International de Musique et d'Art Sonore Electroacoustiques, Bourges: Lauréats du Magisterium et du Trivium (review)

The renowned electroacoustic music festival and competition held yearly since 1973 in Bourges, France, continues to provide a point of reference for many practitioners of the sonic arts. From the early days of tape works to the currently expanding categories of programmatic work and work involving technology and live performance, the Institut International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges (IMEB) has championed experimental sonic art and has diligently documented and promoted the activities of the institute, festival, and competition by means of journals, composer portraits, audio compilations, and, of course, the illustrious prizes awarded to each year's competition winners. The annual CD compilation of prizewinners offers an overview of international compositional activity and has for a number of years included a retrospective of works from the early years of the competition and festival. This format, with master composers of the genre placed beside young upstarts in the prize categories and compilation recordings, has fostered a sense of breadth and commitment with regard to its practitioners and offers evidence of the historical context and development of the art form.

Each year's compilation is presented as a double CD and includes approximately ten to twelve works. (This is admittedly a small sampling of the more than 400 works typically submitted to the festival and competition and reflects the decision of that year's jury.) This review will give a brief overview of some of the works that were deemed worthy of distinction in the competitions of 1998, 2001, and 2002 as well as several of the early works included in the Coda Mémoire addenda of these recordings.

The 1998 compilation offers eight works representing prize-winning composers from England, France, Sweden, USA, Spain, and Italy, as well as winning works from the 1970s and 1980s. Natasha Barrett's Little Animals garnered an Electroacoustic Music Studio prize in the 1998 competition and is a good example of this accomplished composer's detailed, sensitive approach to sound and sonic design. The work is at moments playful and boisterous, at others reflective and serene, always animated by rich sound materials and masterful unfurling of sonic textures. There is in this work an infectious sense of curiosity and amazement at the glorious world of sounds, their shapes and colors, their trajectory and mass. Two other works offered from the Electroacoustic Studio category are Paul Koonce's Walk-about and Voz Oculta by José Manrique. Mr. Koonce's work is a study in the juxtaposition of environmental and traditional musical sound materials. It navigates an eclectic path of everyday sounds in collision or combination with materials and mannerisms of various musical traditions. Despite the dated sound of some of the synthetic materials and...