musical events

BiLE (Birmingham Laptop Ensemble) a collaborative group of performers and instrumental and electroacoustic composers. BiLE has an open attitude towards experimentation with sound, allowing members of the group to bring their own tools and musical experience to the ensemble. This enables composers with varied backgrounds to contribute to every aspect of the performance. BiLE will perform a selection of improvisational pieces and newly composed work, formed through techniques including live sampling, network performance and interactivity between laptops and instruments. The pieces will be accompanied by live generative visuals. Julien Guillamat, Les Hutchins, Shelly Knotts, Norah Lorway, Jorge Garcia , Moncada and Chris Tarren. BiLE regularly performs with glitch visuals artist Antonio Roberts"

About the music… Julien Guillamat – Electroacoustic Sonata for Cello No. 1 (2011) 11:00 From very soft noises to distorted harmonics, I used some cello extended techniques to produce random and controlled rhythms as well as a large collection of harmonic range. The live electronics bring more mass, colour and gesture to the piece. The laptop players are interacting with the cellist using sample of the instrument; they develop those sounds until an improvised middle section before entering a bright and dramatic finale.

Karlheinz Stockhausen – Right Durations (1968) ca. 10:00 Stockhausen’s Right Durations comes from a collection of 15 text pieces, Aus den Sieben Tagen, which the composer wrote during a week of self-imposed isolation in May 1968. Rather than expressing musical instructions, the pieces suggest a particular mental state where no actions are described but instead the performer is acting on intuition. At best the performer should be absent of intention and profoundly in touch with the sounds being created. The idea being that if one completely removes the ego from the performance one can reach beyond oneself to create something completely new and unexpected.

Jorge Garcia Moncada - 15 Minutes for BiLE (2011) 15:00 In this piece an improvisatory graphic scheme is given to the performers where, even though onsets, durations and relative dynamics of the sound events are given to the performer, the actual sound material is free to be chosen. The performers are given relative characteristics for the sound sources, which are to be recorded and prepared in advance. In the present performance the pre-recorded sound sources are representative soundscape materials typical of specific locations of the city of Birmingham, creating an urban sound canvas.

Scot Lancaster-Gresham – Stuck Note ca. 10:00 Stuck Note was designed to be easy to implement for everyone. The basic idea was that every player can only play one continuous sound. There are only two allowable controls for changing that sound as it plays: a volume control, and an "x-factor" control – a control for which the user can choose a particular function, for example the pitch of the sound. The two controls belonging to each player are also always available to be played by any other player in the group, creating an ensemble situation in which all players are together shaping the whole sound of the group. An interesting social and sonic situation develops when more than one player controls the same controller, resulting in rapid changes in the sound due to the different signals sent by each player. The sound of "Stuck Note" is of a large complex drone woven from individual strands of sound that might be changing very rapidly. The performance of Stuck Note will be followed by an interactive demo of the piece.

Charles Celeste Hutchins – Paritally Percussive (2011) ca. 10:00 My friend suggested I write something with a percussive quality. I’m meeting his suggestion part way.

H2 level heading

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