December 6-7, 2024
Enharmonic interfaces and controllers for keyboard instruments
Kunstuniversität Graz, Brandhofgasse 21, 8010 Graz
Schedule
DAY 1 – December 6th:
10:45 – Official Opening
11:00 – Paper Session 1:
Alyssa Aska // Exploring ancient tuning systems on the keyboard
BIO:
Alyssa is fascinated with the architecture of music, both spatially and temporally. She composes works which explore extremes in time and space, using rigid proportions to generate forms in acoustic works and exploring the unpredictable duration and lack of control in gamified works. This is closely tied to her compositional style, which is concerned with a delicate balance between elements of functional form and elements of pure aesthetic purpose. As much structure as possible, as many ornaments as necessary (and vice versa).
She studied composition in the United States with Robert Kyr, David Crumb, and Jeffrey Stolet, in Canada with Robert Pritchard, Keith Hamel, and David Eagle, and in Graz, Austria with Marko Ciciliani and Klaus Lang. Alyssa’s work and research are performed worldwide at various concerts and festivals such as Wien Modern, Ars Electronica Linz, Forum Wallis, ICMC, EMS, Impuls, Darmstadt Summer Courses, Musikprotokoll, Tonraum21, ComposIt, Mirkofest Helsinki, Microtonal Festival Prague, and many others. She was selected for participation at many academies and workshops such as WasteLAnd Academy (2019), CrossROADS Festival (2019), Kalv Festival Academy (2020), and reMusik.org (2021). She was also selected for performance at the Gamified Audiovisual Performance and Performance Practice (Gappp) Symposium 2019. Alyssa is a founding member of the Graz facere collective, which presents every year concerts in various formats, and is a current member of the Graz collective Die Andere Saite. Her scores are published by Babel Scores and Verlag Zeitschleife.
Pablo Mariña // d.b.a. 2 – spatial modulation as a means of realtime pitch manipulation
BIO:
Pablo Mariña is a Mexican composer of acoustic and computer music living and working in Graz, Austria. His focus lies in live electronics, structural approaches, and iterative processes. In his work, the composer has been searching for methods of creating pieces of live electronics that unfold sonic homogeneity between processed and non-processed sound materials. In his latest work, Pablo has also been exploring spatialization configurations and cross-perceptual phenomena.
In addition to concert music, Pablo Mariña is also creating sound installations, collaborates with video artists, and takes part in composers collectives GONaD and facere. In conjunction with his creative practice, Pablo Mariña is developing electronic and electroacoustic music performance and composition tools.
Pablo Mariña graduated from Composition and Music Theory studies at the Center for Music Studies and Research (CIEM) in Mexico City and from Computer Music at the Institute of Electronic Music (IEM) in Graz. Currently he is enrolled in a Master´s Degree in Classical Composition studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.
Martin Ritter // A C Series: works for microtonal e-piano
BIO:
Martin Ritter studied composition in Canada and currently lives in Graz, Austria. He writes both electronic as well as instrumental works and is performed across Europe, North America, and Asia. As a composer he is interested in the spaces sounds emerge in/from and the intersection of music, technology, and performance/performance practice. In recent years he has started to explore microtonality as a conceptual space for his work. As a researcher he works with digital tools in order to analyze and understand electronic music.
His music and research are featured regularly at conferences and festivals such as Wien Modern, MikroFest Helsinki, ICMC, NIME, EMS, Audio Mostly, eContact!, Impuls, Darmstadt, ComposIt, MusCan, TENOR, Ars Electronica. He has received scholarships like the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, the University of Calgary Technologies International Inc. Fellowship Scholarship, Alberta Innovates – Technologies Futures Scholarship, the Joseph and Melitta KANDLER Scholarship for Advanced Music Study. He founded, co-founded, or is on the board of several arts organizations such as Zeitschleife, Die Andere Saite, OEGZM, Graz Orchestra of Noise and Distortion. He currently holds the National Composition Scholarship of Austria.
He holds a DMA in composition from the University of British Columbia where his primary teachers were Drs. Keith Hamel and Robert Pritchard, and a PhD in Computational Media Design from the University of Calgary where he studied with Drs. Friedemann Sallis and Jeffrey E. Boyd. At the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz he studied with Klaus Lang and Dr. Marko Ciciliani.
12:30 – LUNCH
13:30 – Concert 1
Featuring works by: Alyssa Aska, Hans Martin, Forrest Moody, Mat Muntz, Soheil Shirangi
Composer Biographies:
Alyssa Aska
Alyssa is fascinated with the architecture of music, both spatially and temporally. She composes works which explore extremes in time and space, using rigid proportions to generate forms in acoustic works and exploring the unpredictable duration and lack of control in gamified works. This is closely tied to her compositional style, which is concerned with a delicate balance between elements of functional form and elements of pure aesthetic purpose. As much structure as possible, as many ornaments as necessary (and vice versa).
She studied composition in the United States with Robert Kyr, David Crumb, and Jeffrey Stolet, in Canada with Robert Pritchard, Keith Hamel, and David Eagle, and in Graz, Austria with Marko Ciciliani and Klaus Lang. Alyssa’s work and research are performed worldwide at various concerts and festivals such as Wien Modern, Ars Electronica Linz, Forum Wallis, ICMC, EMS, Impuls, Darmstadt Summer Courses, Musikprotokoll, Tonraum21, ComposIt, Mirkofest Helsinki, Microtonal Festival Prague, and many others. She was selected for participation at many academies and workshops such as WasteLAnd Academy (2019), CrossROADS Festival (2019), Kalv Festival Academy (2020), and reMusik.org (2021). She was also selected for performance at the Gamified Audiovisual Performance and Performance Practice (Gappp) Symposium 2019. Alyssa is a founding member of the Graz facere collective, which presents every year concerts in various formats, and is a current member of the Graz collective Die Andere Saite. Her scores are published by Babel Scores and Verlag Zeitschleife.
Cory Harper-Latkovich
Cory Harper-Latkovich (b. 1988, he/him) is a Canadian-American composer, improviser, and bandleader. Cory performs on cello, bass, medieval fiddles, and various other instruments. He has recorded two eps and one full-length album with his experimental rock bands Clarinet Panic and Imaginary Flesh. As a creative lead in the T oronto-based collective Jelly Ear, he collaborates with improvisers on imaginative adaptations of European medieval music.
Currently pursuing a Master’s in Composition at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague, Cory’s music and research delve into temporality, historical practices, and the political economy of music.
Forrest Moody
Mat Muntz
MAT MUNTZ is a composer, bassist, and bagpiper whose music has been described by The Wire as “rare and rewarding” and by The Guardian as “filled with a wild, distorted energy.” In 2024, Mat was nominated for a German Jazz Prize for Phantom Islands, an album of microtonal chamber free jazz for the Croatian bagpipe primorski meh and ensemble. He has been commissioned by The Shed, Brooklyn Arts Council, and New York State Council for the Arts, has written for Wet Ink Ensemble, Yarn/Wire, and Del Sol Quartet, and co-leads the cross-cultural experimental music ensemble The Vex Collection.
Soheil Shirangi
Now is a student of San Francisco State University at Master of Composition.
Graduate of Tehran Conservatory. Second Person Tehran International Electronic Music Festival Award(2017).Candidate best composers Thirty-third Fajr festival(2018).
Earning a diploma of the III International Contest of Choral Composing named after AD Kastalsky(2018). Scholarship holder at the Hamburg Media Festival(2019).Earning a diploma of the third person of the Orginsky International Composing Competition(for orchestra) in Belarus(2020),- 2022 The winner of the second place of the composition of the CBU University scholarship for writing the work of Samat(Duet For Violin and Cello).
Among his other works can be mentioned To compose several theatres and short films.
His works have also been performed in countries such as Iran, Greece, Italy, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Romania, and United States.
Performers: Maria Iaiza, Forrest Moody, Aleksey Vylegzhanin
Performer Biographies:
Maria Iaiza
Maria Iaiza – Deutsch
Da sie sich sehr für zeitgenössische Musik interessiert, widmet sie sich häufig diesem
Repertoire, sowohl als Solistin als auch in Kammermusik und Ensembles. Sie spielte in
Solokonzerten für die DEstate Saison in Mailand, für die Tage der neuen Klaviermusik in
Graz, für Bobbio Classica, Mittelfest, für das Satierose Festival in Triest mit einer
Uraufführung von Claudio Ambrosini und bei V eranstaltungen wie Spuren in Graz, Piano
City Pordenone, V eneto Contemporanea, Approdi und andere.
Sie vertieft ihre Studien an der Kunstuniversität in Graz im Fach der zeitgenössischen Musik
und studiert bei Mitgliedern des Klangforums Wien, insbesondere bei dem Pianisten Florian
Müller. Dort arbeitete sie mit Komponisten wie Helmut Lachenmann, Beat Furrer, Clemens
Gadenstätter und anderen.
Sie studierte bei Maria Grazia Bellocchio am Divertimento Ensemble und kam in Kontakt
mit Komponisten wie Stefano Gervasoni, Alessandro Solbiati, Salvatore Sciarrino und
Tristan Murail; außerdem studierte sie bei Nicolas Hodges in Darmstadt.
Maria Iaiza – English
V ery passionate about contemporary music, she often devotes herself to this repertoire both as
a soloist and in chamber music and ensembles.
She has performed in solo concerts for the DEstate season in Milan, for Tagen der neuen
Klaviermusik in Graz, for Bobbio Classica, Mittelfest, for the Satierose Festival in Trieste
with a premiere by Claudio Ambrosini and for seasons such as Spuren in Graz, Piano City
Pordenone, V eneto Contemporanea, Approdi and others.
She furthered her studies at the Kunstuniversität in Graz in the study of contemporary
repertoire, studying with members of the Klangforum Wien, in particular with pianist Florian
Müller. There she collaborated with composers such as Helmut Lachenmann, Beat Furrer,
Clemens Gadenstätter and others.
She studied with Maria Grazia Bellocchio at the Divertimento Ensemble, coming into contact
with composers such as Stefano Gervasoni, Alessandro Solbiati, Salvatore Sciarrino and
Tristan Murail; she also studied with Nicolas Hodges in Darmstadt.
Forrest Moody
Aleksey Vylegzhanin
DE:
Aleksey Vylegzhanin wurde 1987 in Nowosibirsk (Russland) geboren. Erste musikalische Impulse erhielt er von seinen Eltern, einer Chorleiterin und einem Sänger. Mit sechs Jahren begann er Klavier zu spielen, einige Jahre später Orgel. Er studierte am Konservatorium seiner Heimatstadt bei Natalya Baginskaya. Seit Herbst 2010 studiert er an der Kunstuniversität Graz in der Orgelklasse von Gunther Rost. Darüber hinaus nahm er an zahlreichen Meisterkursen teil, z. B. bei D. Roth, Z. Szathmary, L. Lohmann, J. van Oortmerssen, E. Bellotti, W. Porter und N. Hakim. Werke von Naji Hakim interpretierte er auch im Rahmen eines Soloalbums der CD-Reihe “Klangdebüts” der Kunstuniversität Graz. Konzerte führten ihn bereits durch Russland, Slowenien, Kroatien, Deutschland, Österreich und England, wobei er sowohl als Solist und Kammermusiker als auch mit Chören und Orchestern auftritt. Aleksey Vylegzhanin war Preisträger des Internationalen Orgelwettbewerbs Bach und Moderne Graz 2008 und wiederholt erster Preisträger des Martha-Debelli-Stipendienwettbewerbs.
EN:
Aleksey Vylegzhanin was born in 1987 in Novosibirsk, Russia, and received his first musical impulses from his parents, a choir conductor and a singer. He began playing the piano at the age of six and discovered the organ a few years later. He initially studied at the Conservatory in his hometown under Natalya Baginskaya before continuing his studies in the organ class of Gunther Rost at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz in the autumn of 2010.
He participated in numerous masterclasses with renowned musicians such as Daniel Roth, Zsigmond Szathmáry, Ludger Lohmann, Jacques van Oortmerssen, Edoardo Bellotti, William Porter, and Naji Hakim. Works by Naji Hakim were also featured on a solo album he recorded for the Klangdebüts CD series of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.
His concert activities have taken him through Russia, Slovenia, Croatia, Germany, Austria, and England, where he has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and with choirs and orchestras. Aleksey Vylegzhanin is a multiple prizewinner: he won the International Organ Competition Bach and the Modern Era Graz in 2008 and was repeatedly awarded first prize at the Martha Debelli Scholarship Competition.
14:30 – Coffee BREAK
14:45 – Paper Session 2
Germán Toro Pérez // Feedback Tubes: Construction and Artistic Use of a DIY Modular Electroacoustic Instrument
At the invitation of the festival ZeitRäume Basel in 2018, Nicolas Buzzi and I started developing an instrument based on feedback tubes at the ICST. Feedback tubes are tubes made from sheet metal, PVC or other materials, including paper, that contain a speaker chassis and a microphone to form a feedback loop. This allows overtones and complex spectra to be generated. The system developed initially consisted of five tubes with fundamental tones spaced 150¢ apart, which created an irregular microtonal tone space. This lecture explains the instrument and interface as well as the compositional approaches used in the piece “Lot” for clarinets, trombone and feedback tubes.
BIO:
Germán Toro Pérez (Bogotá *1964)
Studies in music theory at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá and composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. Studies on electroacoustics and computer music in Vienna and Paris.
His output includes instrumental, electroacoustic compositions and cross-disciplinary works. His music theater work «Journey to Comala» after «Pedro Páramo» by Juan Rulfo was premiered 2017 in Zurich. Recent pieces were commissioned by the Mondrian Ensemble, Basel, the ORF Radio Symphonie Orchestra/Wien Modern, the ensemble soyus21, Zurich, and the ensemble XXI jahrhundert, Vienna.
He was head of the computer music course (1999-2006) and visiting professor for composition (2006-7) at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. Since 2007 he is professor for electroacoustic composition and head of the ICST – Institute for Computer Music and Sound Technology – at the Zurich University of the Arts.
Publications in the fields of composition, theory and aesthetics of electroacoustic music, artistic research, and the performance practice of electroacoustic music. His current research topic at ICST is the pedagogy of electronic music for children.
Farzad Daemi Milani // Persian 17-tone System as a Microtonal Extension to the keyboard
The widespread adoption of twelve-tone equal temperament as the cornerstone of global music owes its origins to the Western classical paradigm, driven by the need to standardize a limited set of musical intervals for keyboard implementation. However, this temperament fails to capture the intricate tonal nuances inherent in traditional Persian modal music. This paper embarks on an exploration of the distinctive qualities residing within the second, third, sixth, and seventh degrees of the heptatonic scale, pivotal to the Persian tradition for evoking major, minor, and neutral variations. This distinctive approach ultimately gives rise to a pitch system encompassing seventeen tones, historically represented by seventeen Abjadic letters in early thirteenth-century treatises from the Systematist School.
At the heart of this inquiry lies an investigation into the varying sizes of stepwise intervals within Persian modal music, achieved through ratios derived from the natural harmonic series. The presentation of these intervals takes the form of an illustrative bubble diagram , seamlessly encapsulating the seventeen-tone system and lending itself to diverse practical and theoretical pitch set interpretations. Furthermore, the paper delves into the elucidation of eight prominent tetrachord genera prevalent in Persian modal music, which I explore as an extended collection of the pre-existing three tetrachord genera on which the western modal system is based. The alignment of these tetrachords becomes the bedrock for establishing primary scales within each distinctive modal category.
BIO:
Farzad Milani is a distinguished music theorist and composer with a Master’s degree in Music Theory from McGill University, where he researched the Persian-Arabic Seventeen-Tone Temperament, supervised by Prof. Dr. Robert Hasegawa. His innovative work explores microtonality and non-Western musical systems, bridging traditional and contemporary approaches.
Farzad has presented his research at esteemed international forums, including the European Seminar in Ethnomusicology (Spain), the SMT Interest Group on the History of Music Theory (USA), Music Theory in the Plural Symposium (Australia), the 2022 York University Graduate Music Colloquium (Canada), the International Conference on New Music Concepts (Italy), and the Enharmonic Interfaces and Controllers for Keyboard Instruments Symposium (Austria). His academic contributions have been published in prestigious journals, including Honar-e Musiqi and Fine Arts: Performing Arts & Music.
Recipient of numerous awards, including the CIRMMT ResonatorTube Award and the Phyllis and Bernard Shapiro Fellowship, Farzad also excels as a composer, arranger, and performer. His innovative compositions and arrangements have earned accolades such as the Best Arrangement award for Nostalgi-Nameh at the Fadjr Music Festival in Iran.
With a deep passion for Persian, Arabic, and Turkish maqam music, Farzad’s work combines scholarly rigor and artistic creativity, fostering cross-cultural connections and expanding the boundaries of music theory and performance.
Mat Muntz // New approaches to old instruments: The Croatian bagpipe mih/meh and extended just intonation
Since 2018, I have conducted hands-on research concerning the Croatian bagpipe Istarski mih/Primorski meh. This instrument is tuned according to the non-tempered, non-standardized, “so-called Istrian scale” which has vexed composers and musicologists for over 100 years. In learning to perform on and compose for the mih/meh, I have developed methods for theorizing its unique tuning as part a system of extended just intonation, allowing the bagpipe to be combined in ensembles with other instruments: justly tuned guitar, East Asian mouth organs, and the Alois Haba 1/6-tone harmonium in Prague, to name a few.
In my presentation, I will outline my research process and discoveries so far, with a focus on mapping extended JI tunings generated from the meh for keyboard layouts. I will demonstrate an original, 21-tone 13-limit tuning designed to be mapped to two conventional midi keyboard manuals. This tuning can also be easily realized in the Microtonal E-Piano max patch. If time allows, I would present a short performance as part of the presentation, demonstrating approaches to harmonizing the mih/meh with the Microtonal E-Piano.
Bio:
MAT MUNTZ is a composer, bassist, and bagpiper whose music has been described by The Wire as “rare and rewarding” and by The Guardian as “filled with a wild, distorted energy.” In 2024, Mat was nominated for a German Jazz Prize for Phantom Islands, an album of microtonal chamber free jazz for the Croatian bagpipe primorski meh and ensemble. He has been commissioned by The Shed, Brooklyn Arts Council, and New York State Council for the Arts, has written for Wet Ink Ensemble, Yarn/Wire, and Del Sol Quartet, and co-leads the cross-cultural experimental music ensemble The Vex Collection.
16:15 – Coffee BREAK
16:30 – Concert 2
Featuring works by: Miika Hyytiäinen, Marc Perez, Martin Ritter, Hans Straub, Willyn Whiting
Composer Biographies:
Miika Hyytiänen
Composer Miika Hyytiäinen is known for his masterful use of the human voice in the context of experimental music theatre. His humorous works combine different art forms and academic research. He completed his doctorate in music at the DocMus programme of the Sibelius Academy and the composition diploma at the Universität der Künste in Berlin, focusing on experimental music theatre. Hyytiäinen has been awarded a Finnish Cultural Foundation working grant for 2024-2025. His compositions have been performed at the Darmstadt and Tampere Biennales, the Munich Biennale, the Helsinki Festival and März-Musik, among others. He has also worked with prestigious opera houses such as Deutsche Oper Berlin, Glyndebourne and the Finnish National Opera. www.miika.info
Memories of Songs My Grandfather Could Have Sung to Me:
palisa ≈ long hard thing
ali ≈ all
li ≈ [particle between subject and verb]
pali ≈ work on
e [≈ particle before direct object]
moli ≈ dead
lili ≈ small
Marc Perez
Trombone Player, Composer, Improviser, Artist & Author Marc Perez utilizes his unique understanding and approach to improvisation in a broad range of interdisciplinary practices. His approach to sound, music perception & non traditional notation is quickly making Marc a sought-after collaborator and making his work quickly known.
Marc is part of the experimental jazz duo “Frog n’ Toad”, makes electronic music under “Chilaquiles” & leads the exciting and experimental large ensemble, “The Tapestry”.
Marc has won various awards such as numerous awards from the Herb Alpert Foundation. He has also recently been a Featured Composer for The 5th Annual Toy Music Festival, based in Seoul, Korea & a Finalist in The IntAct International Competition Institute of Thailand Competition, based in Bangkok, Thailand .
Marc has also participated as an artist in festivals such as Angel City Jazz Fest, SOUNDPEDRO & High Desert Soundings.
Martin Ritter
Martin Ritter studied composition in Canada and currently lives in Graz, Austria. He writes both electronic as well as instrumental works and is performed across Europe, North America, and Asia. As a composer he is interested in the spaces sounds emerge in/from and the intersection of music, technology, and performance/performance practice. In recent years he has started to explore microtonality as a conceptual space for his work. As a researcher he works with digital tools in order to analyze and understand electronic music.
His music and research are featured regularly at conferences and festivals such as Wien Modern, MikroFest Helsinki, ICMC, NIME, EMS, Audio Mostly, eContact!, Impuls, Darmstadt, ComposIt, MusCan, TENOR, Ars Electronica. He has received scholarships like the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship, the University of Calgary Technologies International Inc. Fellowship Scholarship, Alberta Innovates – Technologies Futures Scholarship, the Joseph and Melitta KANDLER Scholarship for Advanced Music Study. He founded, co-founded, or is on the board of several arts organizations such as Zeitschleife, Die Andere Saite, OEGZM, Graz Orchestra of Noise and Distortion. He currently holds the National Composition Scholarship of Austria.
He holds a DMA in composition from the University of British Columbia where his primary teachers were Drs. Keith Hamel and Robert Pritchard, and a PhD in Computational Media Design from the University of Calgary where he studied with Drs. Friedemann Sallis and Jeffrey E. Boyd. At the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz he studied with Klaus Lang and Dr. Marko Ciciliani.
Hans Straub
Curriculum Vitae
straub@datacomm.ch
http://neo.mx3.ch/hstraub
* 1964, Swiss citizen.
Education:
9 years of classical piano lessons (Konservatorium Winterthur, Roger Brügger).
Study of mathematics and computer science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, master´s thesis in the field of mathematical music theory (supervision: Guerino Mazzola, Jürg Marti).
Main profession: Software developer.
Amateur composer, mainly for piano, but also chamber music and rock music, with a special interest in microtonality. For the latter, the methods and results of mathematical music theory are very useful.
Willyn Whiting
Willyn Whiting (he/him) is a Canadian composer of both acoustic and electronic music. His works feature diverse stylistic trends and personal conceptualizations of metaphor and orientation.
Over the years he has written for both professional and emerging ensembles including the Bozzini Quartet, Del Sol String Quartet, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, and RE: duo. His music been featured at such festivals as the Winnipeg New Music Festival (CA), the Manchester Theatre in Sound Festival (UK), the Resilience Festival (IT), the annual conference of the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (US), the Electronic Music Midwest Festival (US), Napoleon Electronic Media Festival (US) and the SPLICE Institute (US) and Canadian workshops such as Orford Academy, Montréal Contemporary Music Lab, and Domaine Forget de Charlevoix.
His teachers include Jon Nelson, Joseph Klein, Panayiotis Kokoras, Kirsten Soriano, Paul Frehner, Gary Kulesha, James Rolfe, and Vincent Ho, among others.
Performers: Maria Iaiza and Forrest Moody
Performer Biographies:
Maria Iaiza
Maria Iaiza – Deutsch
Da sie sich sehr für zeitgenössische Musik interessiert, widmet sie sich häufig diesem
Repertoire, sowohl als Solistin als auch in Kammermusik und Ensembles. Sie spielte in
Solokonzerten für die DEstate Saison in Mailand, für die Tage der neuen Klaviermusik in
Graz, für Bobbio Classica, Mittelfest, für das Satierose Festival in Triest mit einer
Uraufführung von Claudio Ambrosini und bei V eranstaltungen wie Spuren in Graz, Piano
City Pordenone, V eneto Contemporanea, Approdi und andere.
Sie vertieft ihre Studien an der Kunstuniversität in Graz im Fach der zeitgenössischen Musik
und studiert bei Mitgliedern des Klangforums Wien, insbesondere bei dem Pianisten Florian
Müller. Dort arbeitete sie mit Komponisten wie Helmut Lachenmann, Beat Furrer, Clemens
Gadenstätter und anderen.
Sie studierte bei Maria Grazia Bellocchio am Divertimento Ensemble und kam in Kontakt
mit Komponisten wie Stefano Gervasoni, Alessandro Solbiati, Salvatore Sciarrino und
Tristan Murail; außerdem studierte sie bei Nicolas Hodges in Darmstadt.
Maria Iaiza – English
V ery passionate about contemporary music, she often devotes herself to this repertoire both as
a soloist and in chamber music and ensembles.
She has performed in solo concerts for the DEstate season in Milan, for Tagen der neuen
Klaviermusik in Graz, for Bobbio Classica, Mittelfest, for the Satierose Festival in Trieste
with a premiere by Claudio Ambrosini and for seasons such as Spuren in Graz, Piano City
Pordenone, V eneto Contemporanea, Approdi and others.
She furthered her studies at the Kunstuniversität in Graz in the study of contemporary
repertoire, studying with members of the Klangforum Wien, in particular with pianist Florian
Müller. There she collaborated with composers such as Helmut Lachenmann, Beat Furrer,
Clemens Gadenstätter and others.
She studied with Maria Grazia Bellocchio at the Divertimento Ensemble, coming into contact
with composers such as Stefano Gervasoni, Alessandro Solbiati, Salvatore Sciarrino and
Tristan Murail; she also studied with Nicolas Hodges in Darmstadt.
Forrest Moody
DAY 2 – December 7th:
11:00 – Paper Session 3
Forrest Moody // pond
Presentation of new work “pond” for Organon’s Frescobaldi organ and piano from the perspective of composer as well as performer.
Basile Huguenin-Virchaux // Using psychoacoustics to build new consonances
In this presentation, we will see how one can easily design timbres that are adapted to specific tunings, allowing for more stable chords and harmonies that would not be achievable with a natural spectrum.
I will introduce the general context that led to this project in the first part, specifically how the notion of consonance has evolved from ancient to more recent times with authors such as Helmholz and Sethares.
In the second part, we will have a closer look at two specific tunings (11-ed2 and 13-ed3) and pay attention to their intervals, switching back and forth between a sine wave and a square wave as the sound source.
We will then see how we can use a simple algorithm to build a timbre that is related to the underlying tuning, which is a simplification of the ideas developed by Sethares in his book Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale. We will compare the resulting spectrum with its natural version in order to examine how both affect our perception of the tuning’s intervals.
Finally, we will discuss the pros and cons of this implementation as well as some improvements that can be made in future iterations.
BIO:
Basile Huguenin-Virchaux was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and was in contact with music since a young age, as his family was involved in the local cultural live. Beginning to learn saxophone at the age of 14, he quickly had his first show experiences through his music school and his first musical projects. At first mainly focused on jazz, he started to develop an interest in a lot of other music genres like punk, metal, as well as traditional music from around the world like balkan music and sebene, and started to learn other instruments. He took part (and still takes part) in many different bands, jam sessions and shows.
In parallel to his passion for music, Basile Huguenin-Virchaux studied Languages of Antiquity, Economics and Ethnology at the university of Neuchâtel (UNINE). During that time, one of his teacher suggested to him that he should write an article about musical practice in ancient Greece, and this is when he really discovered the concept of microtonality. Basile then explored on his own this new way of conceiving music, which was not straightforward at that time as there were almost no plugins allowing microtonal intervals. It is only a few years later, after his master in Statistics, that Basile developed a good knowledge in programming and was able to implement his own tools using the program Pure Data, allowing him to freely explore microtonality. He also started to learn the oud which opened the great world of maqam music to him.
Today, Basile Huguenin-Virchaux regularily composes microtonal music, explores and experiments with Pure Data, and recently developed a microtonal breakcore live performance using this same program. He also participated in a research trip with Samuel Karugu where both musicians explored traditional tunings from Africa with the goal of making them accessible to electronic/computer music. Basile is also actively learning to play maqam music (and broader microtonality) on the saxophone, among many other projects.
Sergey Kim // Early Russian Experiments: Odoyevsky’s 19-Tone “Enharmonic Klavitsin” (1864)
This presentation explores the unknown history of the “Enharmonic Klavitsin,” a 19-tone piano designed by Vladimir Odoyevsky in 1864 in Moscow. Although Russian microtonal music is often associated with composers like Iwan Vyshnegradsky, Russia’s exploration of enharmonic tuning began much earlier with figures such as Odoyevsky, who was not a professional musician but a pioneering thinker in the arts. This presentation will examine Odoyevsky’s motivations for creating the “Enharmonic Klavitsin,” including his interest in accurately performing Russian plain chant and his proposal for a Just Intonation tuning system. The construction of the piano will be detailed, along with its unique 19-tone per octave configuration. Today, the instrument is housed in the Glinka’s Museum in Moscow, yet remains largely overlooked by modern musicians and scholars. This talk aims to highlight the historical and theoretical significance of Odoyevsky’s instrument and its potential relevance for contemporary explorations in microtonality and keyboard design.
EN:
Sergey (Sehyung) Kim is a composer and educator based in Austria, specializing in microtonality and alternative tuning systems. He graduated from the Moscow State Conservatory and the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, where he studied with Dmitri Kourliandski, Beat Furrer, Pierluigi Billone, and Bernhard Lang. Sergey’s works span solo, orchestral, and theatrical genres and have received many international awards. He has collaborated with leading ensembles such as Klangforum Wien and Ensemble Modern. Sergey teaches microtonality course at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, exploring innovative approaches to tuning and highlighting the work of composers from different regions, including Southeast, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
DE:
Sergey (Sehyung) Kim ist ein Komponist und Pädagoge mit Sitz in Österreich, der sich auf Mikrotonalität und alternative Stimmungssysteme spezialisiert hat. Er absolvierte das Moskauer Staatliche Konservatorium und die Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz, wo er bei Dmitri Kourliandski, Beat Furrer, Pierluigi Billone und Bernhard Lang studierte. Sergeys Werke reichen von Solostücken über Orchesterwerke bis hin zu Musiktheater und wurden mit zahlreichen internationalen Auszeichnungen geehrt. Er hat mit führenden Ensembles wie Klangforum Wien und Ensemble Modern zusammengearbeitet. Sergey unterrichtet Mikrotonalität an der Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz, wobei er innovative Ansätze zur Stimmung erforscht und die Werke von Komponisten aus verschiedenen Regionen, darunter Südostasien, Zentralasien, Osteuropa und Lateinamerika, hervorhebt.
12:30 – LUNCH
13:30 – Keynote Lecture
Klaus Lang // the long field.
An analysis of my 19tone meantone string quartet „the long field“.
BIO:
Klaus Lang, born in Graz in 1971, lives in Vienna and in Styria. He studied composition and music theory with Hermann Markus Preßl and Beat Furrer in Graz, where he also studied organ performance with Otto Bruckner. His professional training then took him to Bremen, where he studied with Younghi Pagh-Paan.
As a composer and as an organist, Lang is a regular guest at contemporary music festivals including Wien Modern, MaerzMusik Berlin, TIME:SPANS NY, Ultima Oslo, and Klangspuren Schwaz. One focus of his is on the development of new, multimedia forms of contemporary opera (as heard at the Bayreuth Festival, the Munich Biennale, Oper Bonn, and in many other settings). Klaus Lang loves tea. He has no love for lawnmowers or for Richard Wagner. Lang does not employ music as a means of conveying anything outside of music—be it affects, philosophical or religious ideas, political programmes, or similar. To him, music is not a language that serves to communicate non-musical content but rather a free acoustic object that stands for itself. In his works, sound is explored through the act of listening and is given the opportunity to manifest its inherent beauty. If sound is simply sound, intended to refer to nothing else, then it becomes perceptible as that which it truly is—namely, a temporal phenomenon, audible time. Lang hence regards time, the composer’s true working material, as simultaneously being music’s central subject. Musical material is time perceived through sound, with music being about the experience of time through hearing. Music is time made audible.
14:45 – Keynote Lecture/Demonstration
Georg Vogel // The 31-tone Split-keyed CLAVITON – About The Instrument And The Music
This lecture gives an overview on the enharmonic instrument with 31 tones per octave and it´s musical possibilities.
The Claviton is part of the family of keyboard instruments based on multiply spilt keys for distinguishing the diesis. This tradition can be traced back to 15th, 16th & 17th century organs and harpsichords (Cimbalo Cromatico, Clavemusicum Omnitonum, Archicembalo, Clavicymbalum Universale).
Coming from quarter comma meantone temperament, the applied 31-tone equal temperament is an ideal tool to investigate tonalities constructed by interlocked tetrachords – as known as diatonic, which later also results to chromatic and enharmonic situations. Forming conjunct groupings these structural sets can appear in various intonations involving more prime limits unheard before.
Based on this theoretical overview several methodes to analyse and synthesise improvisational and compositional techniques will be shown; five different approaches to 31edo will be discussed: Ways of visualising and navigating through the expanded diatonic space, triad based harmony, connecting candences, progressions. A second approach enlarges the potentials of the tetrachords and the ut-la solfege by diesis changes to enter higher prime-zones of the harmonic series. Very connected to the third approach, which is about imitating selections of the harmonic series, that have some precise and some pseudo approximations in 31edo (which features tempered 3, almost just 5 & 7, pseudo 11 & 13). The fourth path is connected to the piano: twelve tone octave varying subsets out of 31, that were created to play the repertoire of the 31-tone ensemble Dsilton before the 31-tone split sharps Claviton instruments were built. As a last approach, 31edo will be analysed using the techniques of set theory – interval vectors, the series of all intervalls, i.a.. All these techniques appear in recent compositions for various 31-tone projects and will be presented and exemplified on the M-Claviton 157E, a fully enharmonic synthesizer built by Georg Vogel.
Georg Vogel, pianist/keyboard instrumentalist, composer and instrument maker. Georg Vogel gives concerts especially in the following formations: the 31-tone band DSILTON, with the GVT TRIO, VOGEL/LETTNER, GEOGEMA, FLOWER and TREE as well as SOLO on the piano and Claviton, the new 31-tone instrument, developed and built by Georg Vogel 2012-2023. The latest album releases include NARRISCH Georg Vogel, Robin Gadermaier & Aaron Thier (2023), DSILTON Georg Vogel, David Dornig & Valentin Duit (2023), NATUR AUFNAHME Bodo Hell, Martin Leitner & Georg Vogel (2023), GEOGEMA VOL. 2 Gerald Preinfalk, Georg Vogel & Matheus Jardim (2023), GEORG VOGEL PIANO SOLO live in Hellbrunn (2022), FLOWER+ Jure Pukl, Georg Vogel, Raphael Preuschl & Michael Prowaznik (2022), DDIOFEO Elias Stemeseder & Georg Vogel (2022) and TREE Y Georg Vogel, Andreas Waelti & Michael Prowaznik (2022). Georg Vogel is the composer of his solo programs and ensembles (among others) in various tonal systems for newly developed enharmonic instruments with over seventy works. In addition to his work as a pianist, Georg Vogel publishes music theory treatises and also gives lectures on the topics of musical tuning systems, intonation, tone and rhythm systems in connection with composition and improvisation techniques. www.georgvogel.net
16:45 – Coffee BREAK
17:00 – Final Concert
Featuring works by: Alyssa Aska, Jack Langdon, Pablo Mariña, Cory Harper-Latkovich, Yifan Shao
Composer Biographies:
Alyssa Aska
Alyssa is fascinated with the architecture of music, both spatially and temporally. She composes works which explore extremes in time and space, using rigid proportions to generate forms in acoustic works and exploring the unpredictable duration and lack of control in gamified works. This is closely tied to her compositional style, which is concerned with a delicate balance between elements of functional form and elements of pure aesthetic purpose. As much structure as possible, as many ornaments as necessary (and vice versa).
She studied composition in the United States with Robert Kyr, David Crumb, and Jeffrey Stolet, in Canada with Robert Pritchard, Keith Hamel, and David Eagle, and in Graz, Austria with Marko Ciciliani and Klaus Lang. Alyssa’s work and research are performed worldwide at various concerts and festivals such as Wien Modern, Ars Electronica Linz, Forum Wallis, ICMC, EMS, Impuls, Darmstadt Summer Courses, Musikprotokoll, Tonraum21, ComposIt, Mirkofest Helsinki, Microtonal Festival Prague, and many others. She was selected for participation at many academies and workshops such as WasteLAnd Academy (2019), CrossROADS Festival (2019), Kalv Festival Academy (2020), and reMusik.org (2021). She was also selected for performance at the Gamified Audiovisual Performance and Performance Practice (Gappp) Symposium 2019. Alyssa is a founding member of the Graz facere collective, which presents every year concerts in various formats, and is a current member of the Graz collective Die Andere Saite. Her scores are published by Babel Scores and Verlag Zeitschleife.
Jack Langdon
Jack Langdon (b. 1994, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians) is a musician, filmmaker, and writer with concentrations in experimental music, minimalist documentary, and cultural politics. Across mediums, Jack’s work stages elusive, complex encounters with commonplace subjects, scenes, and sounds. As a musician, he has created extensive work for pipe organs, and regularly performs on a variety of keyboard instruments as well as the Ojibwe wooden flute (bibigwan). His films focus on landscape and memory. He writes on the political economy of cultural production and the workplace politics of American independent music making.
Jack has composed works for Yarn/Wire, Schallfeld Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, Talea Ensemble, Prague Quiet Music Collective, Southland Ensemble, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Trio SÆITENWIND, Yoshi Weinberg, Jack Yarbrough, Miroslav Beinhauer, Sara Constant, Jonathan Hannau, and Graeme Shields. His works have been supported by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, the Fromm Foundation, MISE-EN_PLACE, and the Prague City Gallery. As an improviser, he has projects with Jeff Kimmel, Hunter Brown, Olivia Shortt, Taylor Ho Bynum, Adam Shead, Webb Crawford, Anthony Vine, Erica Miller, Sam Scranton, Ishmael Ali, and Weston Olencki.
His recordings have been released by IMPREC, Sawyer Editions, Dinzu Artefacts, and Lobby Art Records. His written work has been published by Sound American, Cacophony, and Shred Magazine. Jack is a founding editor for Culture as Care Journal with Eli Namay and John Pippen. He runs an independent record label and music journal based in Chicago called Empty Stage.
He is currently studying for his PhD in Composition and Music Technology at Northwestern University, and holds degrees from Dartmouth College and Saint Olaf College.
Pablo Mariña
BIO:
Pablo Mariña is a Mexican composer of acoustic and computer music living and working in Graz, Austria. His focus lies in live electronics, structural approaches, and iterative processes. In his work, the composer has been searching for methods of creating pieces of live electronics that unfold sonic homogeneity between processed and non-processed sound materials. In his latest work, Pablo has also been exploring spatialization configurations and cross-perceptual phenomena
In addition to concert music, Pablo Mariña is also creating sound installations, collaborates with video artists, and takes part in composer collectives GONaD and facere. In conjunction with his creative practice, Pablo Mariña is developing electronic and electroacoustic music performance and composition tools.
Pablo Mariña graduated from Composition and Music Theory studies at the Center for Music Studies and Research (CIEM) in Mexico City and from Computer Music at the Institute of Electronic Music (IEM) in Graz. Currently he is enrolled in a Master´s Degree in Classical Composition studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.
Hans Martin
Yifan Shao
Yifan Shao (Chinese: 邵易凡; born 2003) is a Chinese composer, singer, theatremaker, visual artist, and curator. His works explore the fragile and subtle fluidity between controllable and uncontrollable elements, constructing dreams of flying and falling occur simultaneously. With the incorporation of interdisciplinary practices, he focuses on how creative process in one field applies to others and how different dimensions of precision affect live performances.
His works have received recognition in more than 10 countries, including but not limited to venues like Carnegie Hall, Center for New Music San Francisco, Blank Wall Gallery; festivals like CEME Festival, St. Petersburg International New Music Festival, Monteluce Music Festival, Nordingrå Konstrunda, Getxophoto International Image Festival; conferences like Kunstuniversität Graz Enharmonic Interfaces and Controllers for Keyboard Instruments; and exposures like PhotoVogue, CultureNow Greece, and KPOO San Francisco. Among his collaborators: Moscow Soloists Contemporary Ensemble, Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble, Corale di Monteluce, Telegraph Quartet, Ania Karpowicz, Fabio Afrune, Letizia Moretti, Jacques Desjardins, Amelia Krinke, Pontus Kraft, Alexandra Pink, and so on. He has been in residence at Carnegie Hall and Nordingrå Konstby. He is the co-founder and co-owner of Kooperativet Vännerstaskolan. His music scores are published by Universal Edition since 2024. He is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Music degree in composition at San Francisco Conservatory of Music under Elinor Armer.
Performers: Forrest Moody, Aleksey Vylegzhanin
Performer Biographies:
Forrest Moody
Aleksey Vylegzhanin
DE:
Aleksey Vylegzhanin wurde 1987 in Nowosibirsk (Russland) geboren. Erste musikalische Impulse erhielt er von seinen Eltern, einer Chorleiterin und einem Sänger. Mit sechs Jahren begann er Klavier zu spielen, einige Jahre später Orgel. Er studierte am Konservatorium seiner Heimatstadt bei Natalya Baginskaya. Seit Herbst 2010 studiert er an der Kunstuniversität Graz in der Orgelklasse von Gunther Rost. Darüber hinaus nahm er an zahlreichen Meisterkursen teil, z. B. bei D. Roth, Z. Szathmary, L. Lohmann, J. van Oortmerssen, E. Bellotti, W. Porter und N. Hakim. Werke von Naji Hakim interpretierte er auch im Rahmen eines Soloalbums der CD-Reihe “Klangdebüts” der Kunstuniversität Graz. Konzerte führten ihn bereits durch Russland, Slowenien, Kroatien, Deutschland, Österreich und England, wobei er sowohl als Solist und Kammermusiker als auch mit Chören und Orchestern auftritt. Aleksey Vylegzhanin war Preisträger des Internationalen Orgelwettbewerbs Bach und Moderne Graz 2008 und wiederholt erster Preisträger des Martha-Debelli-Stipendienwettbewerbs.
EN:
Aleksey Vylegzhanin was born in 1987 in Novosibirsk, Russia, and received his first musical impulses from his parents, a choir conductor and a singer. He began playing the piano at the age of six and discovered the organ a few years later. He initially studied at the Conservatory in his hometown under Natalya Baginskaya before continuing his studies in the organ class of Gunther Rost at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz in the autumn of 2010.
He participated in numerous masterclasses with renowned musicians such as Daniel Roth, Zsigmond Szathmáry, Ludger Lohmann, Jacques van Oortmerssen, Edoardo Bellotti, William Porter, and Naji Hakim. Works by Naji Hakim were also featured on a solo album he recorded for the Klangdebüts CD series of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.
His concert activities have taken him through Russia, Slovenia, Croatia, Germany, Austria, and England, where he has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and with choirs and orchestras. Aleksey Vylegzhanin is a multiple prizewinner: he won the International Organ Competition Bach and the Modern Era Graz in 2008 and was repeatedly awarded first prize at the Martha Debelli Scholarship Competition.