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Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928–2007)

Karlheinz Stockhausen (see Figure 1), one of the most important, innovative, and influential composers of our time, passed away at his home near Cologne, Germany, on 5 December 2007. Stockhausen pushed conventional musical boundaries over the entire course of his 60-year career. In the early 1950s, Stockhausen experimented with recorded sounds and tape manipulation at Pierre Schaeffer's RTF (Radiodiffusion-television) studio in Paris. In 1953 he produced what is recognized as the first scored and published work using purely electronic sound sources (Electronic Study II, 1954) at the NWDR (Nordwest Deutsche Rundfunk) studio in Cologne. Gesang der Jünglinge, composed in 1956, combined recorded and electronic sound sources, multichannel presentation, tape manipulation, and serial compositional techniques applied to multiple musical dimensions.

Figure 1.

Karlheinz Stock hausen (October 1970, Rehersal of MANTRA, Rastatt). Photo: Werner Scholz, reproduced with the permission of the Stockhausen Foundation for Music.

From his very earliest work to his most recent, Stockhausen explored spatial aspects of music through multichannel tape works, careful positioning of performers (Gruppen, 1957), and instruments that move. He developed the "moment" form in early works such as Kontakte (1960), focusing on stable, quasi-independent musical moments. He developed performance aspects in his works such as Trans (1971), in which the orchestra appears behind a veil and bathed in violet light, and the ceremonial Sirius (1977), using musicians in costume performing with synthesized tape. Much of his output during the later decades of his career was devoted to Licht, an expansive opera of over 29 hours of material, designed to be performed in seven parts over the days of a week.

Through his musical innovations, personal charisma, and a life-long devotion to teaching, Stockhausen exerted a deep influence over a vast range of composers from Boulez to the Beatles, and forever enriched our experience and understanding of music. Stockhausen was laid to rest in a forest cemetery near his home of Kürten, Germany.

[Editor's note: Computer Music Journal is planning to publish a recent interview with Stockhausen in a forthcoming issue. His letter in CMJ 25:4 (Winter 2001) may also be of interest.]

Seville Contemporary Music

The 4th Contemporary Music festival was held in Seville, Spain, 10–15 December 2007. The festival included conference presentations, video screenings, installations, and a concert series. Conference presentations featured a master class by Andrew Lewin-Richter, and covered topics in electronic music such as complexity and interactivity. Performances included music by Jean Claude Risset, Eduardo Polonio, José Manuel Berenguer, Rodrigo Sigal, and Gregorio Jiménez.

Web: www.congreso-musica.org/ 2007.html

Electroacoustic Music in Lisbon

The International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music (IREM) was held in Lisbon, Portugal, 17–20 December 2007. Hosted by Miso Music Portugal and RTP Antena 2, the festival was composed of conference and listening sessions during the day for delegates, and three evenings of public concerts and radio broadcasts. The evening performances included Electronic Music with the Miso Music Portugal Loudspeaker Orchestra playing a world premier of Mecanomachia by António Ferreira, the Sond'Ar-te Electric Ensemble performing works including a world premier by João Pedro Oliveira, and a multimedia opera, Salt Itinerary by Miguel Azguime.

Web: www.misomusic.com/ingl/ internatio/icem/timei.html

Re:New 2008 in Denmark

The Re:New 2008 digital art forum was scheduled to be held 19–23 May 2008 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The forum hosts a wide selection of new works of digital music, video, installations, performative, and distributed/ collaborative art. A variety of venues were engaged, from clubs to high-profile concert halls as well as public and non-standard venues. In addition to hosting 30 individual events and approximately 150 art-works, other conferences being co-organized for the occasion of Re:New 2008 included the 5th International Symposium on Computer Music Modeling and Retrieval (CMMR) 2008—The Genesis of Meaning in Music and Sound. CMMR brings together computer and engineering sciences such as information retrieval, programming, acoustics, signal processing, with the humanities such as perception, cognition, musicology, philosophy.

Workshop topics included Max/MSP for Beginners with Gregory Taylor, Advanced Jitter...