Announcements

SEAMUS 2017

The Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) 2017 National Conference will be held 20–22 April 2017 at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The conference aims to present a broad range of electro-acoustic music and sound art spanning multichannel works, works for solo performer or ensemble, multimedia works, and sound installations. Musical selections will be presented in formal music venues on campus, at a nightclub located in downtown St. Cloud, and through so-called guerrilla concerts. In addition to musical programming, the conference will include presentations on the subject of electroacoustic music and panel discussions.

The 2016 edition of the SEAMUS National Conference took place 11–13 February 2016 at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia, USA. The conference venues were divided between on-campus locations and downtown areas with the goal of further bringing music and media art to the public. The 2016 conference’s theme was Transvergence, suggesting the potential of converging paths to lead to unforeseen outcomes. Concerts during the conference featured fixed-media works, works for performers and electronics, audiovisual works, and sound installations, in addition to more experimental forms. Paul Koonce discussed engineering and composition for Wave-Field Synthesis (WFS), and also presented his piece for WFS, Rotorelief.Ethan Greene’s Music for Large Array of Car Speakers at a Drive-In Theater was performed in tribute to the late composer; the work was generated by a collection of cars playing back prerecorded material through their stereos. A series of concerts were held in a planetarium with 5.1-channel sound and visuals projected onto an overhead half-dome. Papers presented at the conference covered topics such as aleatoric composition in the digital age, pedagogy of electroacoustic music, and technical considerations in creating an orchestra of diverse networked devices.

Web: www.stcloudstate.edu/music/seamus/default.aspx

BEAST FEaST 2017

The Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST) will hold its BEAST FEaST 2017 on 27–29 April 2017 at the University of Birmingham, UK, with three days of music, talks, and exchange of ideas related to electroacoustic music. The event will feature guest artists Paula Matthusen, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, and Sarah Farmer in addition to BEAST’s resident ensemble, the Pestova/Rees/Roche Trio. The festival’s theme is “Figure | Landscape | Seascape | Sky,” suggesting the broad expressive potential of music, from the intimate or minuscule to the grand or cosmic. The festival will include a wide array of musical works, including acousmatic pieces utilizing its spatial sound system of over 100 channels, musical works incorporating video, and works involving live instrumental performers. BEAST FEaST 2017 will also include sound installations reflecting the festival’s theme and a series of talks related to electroacoustic music. The organizers have stressed their intention that these talks are aimed at accessibility to general audiences, though potentially covering academic or intellectually demanding topics.

The festival’s previous edition, BEAST FEaST 2016, was held 28–30 April 2016. The festival’s theme was “Real/Unreal,” intended to highlight the dichotomy between the realistic and imaginary in the worlds evoked by electronic music. Featured artists included Jonty Harrison, the founder and former director of BEAST, Sergio Luque, who was noted for his work extending stochastic synthesis, and Barry Truax, who premiered his new work The Garden of Sonic Delights. Carl Stone performed his Chinjuuya, composed especially for BEAST, and Till Bovermann and colleagues performed a piece using custom-made PushPull instruments, each integrating a manually driven bellows with a variety of sensors. A series of presentations at the festival covered topics such as the relationships between acoustic and digital instruments, tools for working with ambisonics, and cybernetic sound games.

Web: www.beast.bham.ac.uk/beast-feast-2017-call-for-workstalksinstallations