International Computer Music Conference 2007: Live Electronics (review)

Presented as a joint initiative between the International Computer Music Association and Aalborg University Esbjerg, the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) 2007 took place 27–31 August in the picturesque Danish city of Copenhagen. Organizing chairs Kristoffer Jensen, Lars Graugaard (music), and Stefania Serafin (papers) did an admirable job of bringing together researchers and composers and presenting a very successful event.

Rather than having all events hosted at a single location, the entire conference was spread throughout the city, with paper sessions and a daytime concert at the Danish School of Architecture, afternoon concerts at various locations in the town center, and late night concerts in a local club. Although this certainly presented unique listening experiences in the various venues, it also presented some logistical complications. For example, the installations, only active during the daytime, were located at the same venue as the late night concerts, several kilometers from the paper sessions; therefore, one had to make the decision to leave the paper sessions for at least an hour in order to view any of the installations.

As is usual for ICMC, there were several concerts spread throughout the day. Perhaps more unusual was the clear division in theme between them. The daytime concerts took place at the same location as the paper sessions, and were limited to eight-channel fixed media works. The late-afternoon concerts alternated between the PLEX music theater, in which mixed chamber works with and without live electronics were presented, and the DGI-Byen, a conference center whose swimming pool area hosted several "water concerts." The impressive Black Diamond concert hall hosted the larger ensemble works, and video works were performed at the Tycho Brahe Planetarium.

Having attended the last few ICMC gatherings, I realized that there was no way I could attend all the concerts, listen to the paper presentations that interested me, as well as present my own two papers, and leave the event with any coherent memory. As such, I made a rather bold decision to only attend the concerts that presented live electronics, my specific interest. I realize that I missed some great music; however, in order to do justice to those works I did hear, I felt this was necessary.

A local club, Huset, hosted the late night concerts. For several years now, ICMC has presented an "alternative" venue for music events, sometimes called "off-ICMC," in which music closer to club culture (rather than the concert hall) has been presented. Performers interested in improvisation, loops, clear pulses, and longer time frames have had an opportunity to present their music in a more informal setting. Unfortunately, many delegates do not attend these events, most often due to their late hours (usually 10 or 11 p.m.) rather than considerations of musical aesthetics. Due to a wicked case of jet lag, I was able to attend, and, perhaps more importantly, appreciate, most of these late-night events.

A curious decision was made at ICMC 2007, perhaps inadvertently, to place almost all works that involved live electronics onto late night concerts. The result was up to three concerts per night (10 p.m., 11 p.m., and midnight) occurring each night, sometimes with three or four works per hour. (I remember the days when a single live electroacoustic show took all afternoon to set up, and only rarely succeeded on a technical level, whereas these concerts all came off smoothly. Kudos not only to the technical staff, but also to the composers and performers who had the nerve to set up in under 10 minutes in many cases.) Most of the works presented in these late-night concerts were not what I would normally associate with the club atmosphere; many should have been presented in more formal listening events because they required active listening by an audience not distracted by beer and loud conversation.

Some works that incorporated live electronics did occur in venues outside of the club environment. The PLEX was an intimate space, but I found that...