News

ICMC 2010

The 2010 International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) took place 1-5 June 2010 in New York City and Stony Brook, New York, USA. Drawing from over 1,700 music submissions and nearly 200 paper submissions, the conference presented numerous papers, demonstrations, installations, performances, and workshops. A new "Piece Plus Paper" category provided a platform for presenting musical performances alongside discussion of the compositional and technological processes used in their creation. This year's ICMC also featured a parallel "UnConference" for more informal discussion and collaboration. Doug Van Nort, Pauline Oliveros, and Jonas Braasch of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Deep Listening Institute received the conference's Journal of New Music Research Best Paper Award for their paper titled "Developing Systems for Improvisation Based on Listening." Pauline Oliveros also delivered the conference keynote, titled "Sex As We Don't Know It: Computer Music Futures."

Web: www.icmc2010.org

ICMC Proceedings Online

The proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference from the years 1990 to 2008 are now available in a searchable and browsable on-line archive, hosted at the University of Michigan.

Web: quod.lib.umich.edu/i/icmc/browse.html

Prix Ars Electronica

The winners of the Prix Ars Electronica, an international media art and cyberart competition, have been announced. Ryoichi Kurokawa won the Golden Nica prize in the Digital Musics and Sound Art category for the audiovisual installation rheo: 5 horizons. Awards of distinction in the same category went to Michel Décosterd and André Décosterd for the mechanical sound sculpture Cycloïd-E, and to Martin Bédard for Champs de fouilles (Excavations), an acoustic tribute to the city of Québec. A list of all winners and honorable mentions is available on-line.

Web: www.aec.at/prix history_en.php?year=2010

EMS10

The Electroacoustic Music Studies Network presented its seventh conference 21-24 June 2010 in conjunction with the Shanghai Conservatory in Shanghai, China. The conference featured paper sessions devoted to music analysis, aesthetics, and pedagogy, in line with this year's theme of "Teaching Electroacoustic Music: Tools, Analysis, Composition." The conference also included two concerts of pieces by composers from China and around the world, as well as a roundtable discussion with Chinese composers. Yang Liqing of China gave the keynote address.

Web: www.ems-network.org/ems10

Figure 1.

The Cycloïd-E sound sculpture by Michel Décosterd and André Décosterd, which won an Ars Electronica Distinction Award. A motorized sculpture with individually articulated horizontal components, it measures 10 m in diameter and moves in a chaotic trajectory. Each arm segment contains a loudspeaker that emits a sound related to the arm speed and position and to the state of the larger structure and movements. (Photo:Xavier Voirol.)

IAWM Competition Winners

The International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) has announced the winners of its 2010 Search for New Music Competition, several prize categories of which are relevant to the computer music community. Kala Pierson received the Ruth Anderson Prize for Singing

Figure 2.

Kathrin Stumreich's Fabricmachine, exhibited at NIME 2010. Two fabric loops are driven by a motor while light sensors measure the opacity of the textile. Different fabrics are sewn together to create different soundtracks. (Photo: Kirsty Beilharz.)

Stones, a new sound installation with electroacoustic music. Karen Power received the New Genre Prize for the colourful digestive palette of slugs. Bik Kam Lee won the Pauline Oliveros Prize for Getting Hammered, a composition for marimba and computer. Aya Nishina received the PatsyLu prize for her tape piece WATER HOMAGE: I Kuramitsuha. Tsai-yun Huang received the Judith Lang Zaimont Prize for the flute and two-channel CD composition, The moon lost in the frost sky. Other winners and honorable mentions are listed at the IAWM Web site.

Web: www.iawm.org

NIME 2010

The University of Technology Sydney hosted the New Interfaces for Musical Expression conference in Sydney, Australia, 15-18 June 2010. The program consisted of over 100 paper presentations and demonstrations, several installations, an extensive schedule of evening concerts, and a day of tutorials. The Australian...