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Concert reviews 2017

THU.

NOV

9TH.

Centro de Cultura Digital
Paseo de Reforma s/n Esquina Lieja, Cuauhtemoc, Juárez, 06600 Ciudad de México, CDMX  (bajo la Estela de Luz)

19:00 hrs.

Stephen Travis Pope (EEUU)
Secrets, dreams, faith & wonder (audiovisual)

At 7:15 PM on Thursday, November the 9th, Stephen Travis Pope’s presentation began at the cinema room in Centro de Cultura Digital. He started with an explanation and timeline of the piece showing the 15 years of work to get it done. Around 8 PM the audiovisual the 78 minute audiovisual piece started which was divided in 5 parts.

 

1: Jerusalem's Secrets, Lamentatio

2: Leur Songe de la Paix (Their Dream of Peace)

3: Evigt Dröm (Eternal Dream): A Ritual

4: Credo

5: Ora penso invece che il mondo... (Today, however, I think that the world...)

 

As an all the 5 parts make reference to rituals of different cultures and religions. Every piece was created with different visual artist which make them unique, but coherent all together, making everything interesting at any moment. At the end a little session of questions and answers started followed by Pope’s goodbye.

Opening of the third edition of the Ecos Urbanos festival by master Eric Perez Segura

Stephen Travis explains his piece

Q&A session between Stephen Travis and the public

FRI.

NOV

10TH.

Tecnológico de Monterrey en Santa Fe - Aulas 3, Salón 3006

Av de los Poetas 100, Santa Fe, La Loma, 01389 Ciudad de México, CDMX

11:30 hrs.

Stephen Travis Pope (EEUU)
Conference "Music and technology"

The conference began with a 15-minute video in which Stephen Pope shows us fragments of his works in a general panorama.
Later he explains his work based on the specific and detailed search of songs through a tempo, spectrum, genre, instruments, etceteta; used especially for search in the audiovisual industry.
Programs as max, java and C ++ were used in collaboration with more than 40 people, among them students, with whom programs that took time to design from weeks to years along with some others already existing.
The system is already used by several brands including Apple.

Stephen Travis talked about some of his works to the students of the Creative Industries Department of Tecnológico de Monterrey

FRI.

NOV

10TH.

Tecnológico de Monterrey en Santa Fe - Auditorio 1 EGADE

Av de los Poetas 100, Santa Fe, La Loma, 01389 Ciudad de México, CDMX

17:00 hrs.

During the concert there were presented 8 audiovisual works:

  • El náufrago de la aurora by Blas Patri from Spain: In reference to the many shipwrecked people who arrive at the European coasts of the Mediterranean, the castaway of the aurora was recorded before dawn on a Mediterranean beach (El Saler, València), with dancer butō Denis Sanglard.. The work is based on the incessant shooting of the character from the water to the beach, sometimes disappearing, but always reiterating the journey, as a metaphor for the flow of people that does not stop, and that does not always manage to arrive. Faced with this repetition of the journey, the landscape evolves with a clear reference to pictorial expressionism, going from a red sea on black to different color variants to the final white where the action vanishes. The music-image congruence of visual music  has been generated through sound processing, also made from sounds captured on the beach, changing from a realistic representation to a deformation that accompanies the transfiguration of the landscape. In The Shipwrecked I have also resorted to the sound of the waves on the beach, but having the image a non-naturalist treatment but clearly expressionist, with deformations of colors and light that are extreme, the sound has also been processed in a way non-naturalist, using resonant filters that maintain the temporal structure of the sound but deforming the frequency and generating "drones", while also prolonging the sound like a reverberation, which is equivalent to the light processing of motion blur that has been applied to the image.

 

  • Nothing-nomenings by Zach Dieron frontera United States: is a multimedia collage of found sound and found video. In my collages, I meld samples together to create new and unique entities - gestalts. Hundreds of sound and video clips are churned together, each providing their own distinct identity. The exact quality of every recording - the hiss, the static, the color - is kept intact. The samples represent exactly themselves, snippets of recorded media, no more and no less.

 

  • Ruin by Matt Petty from United States: is an indigenous turned colonial trading route that connects Mexico's urban center of CDMX to the rural outpost of Natchitoches, Louisiana. This path has seen centuries of social change and pain connecting the countries of USA and Mexico, which continues to this day. "Ruin" is the first piece in this series which uses field recordings from Mexico City's historic district blended with sounds made in the ruins of an abandoned school for African-American's in Natchitoches.

  • Zwei Planquadrate by Bernd Schuman from Germany: Two short cinematographic essays about the nature of destruction and the absurdity of human ambition.

 

  • Engi (2017) by Julián Scordato from Italy: is the transliteration of a Japanese term that means 'acting' and 'performance', but is also part of the English word 'engine' (mechanical device), from Latin 'ingenium' (virtue of making). It is  based on the sonification of stellar data represented as graphical objects in relation to sounds. Point and counterpoint. In the performing act, each element manifests itself in its unique particularity. Translation, transmission, and transposition. Hence, also lapse and error.

  • I looked at the pieces and still I wonder by Adam Lenz frontera United States: In looking back at our memories, we are left to reassemble the pieces and evaluate the moments. Often times the results leave us uneasy as we consider how the circumstances and outcomes could have been different. As we resurrect these moments, however, we often fight to reshape them as a way of coming to terms with the power that they hold over us.  The sound for the work is produced from a single wind chime sample that has been heavily manipulated and processed. The video is constructed from still images that are broken down through an altering of the hexadecimal code. No color corrections or alterations have been made following the code deterioration. After these minimal materials are destroyed, they are carefully reconstructed to form a new, reworked memory.

  • Chemistry of love byMarzena Majcher from Poland: The inspiration to create music are the chemical substances, responsible for the state of falling in love, which are commonly called - "Chemistry of Love".
    Title parts: I Dopamine (4'10"), II Phenylethylamine (4'30"),VI Endorphins (6'20")

 

  • Wake me when we get there by Davis Jason Snow from Poland: British scholar Paul Rennie has noted that a train journey offers an experience similar to that of cinema: a distanced, voyeuristic platform for observation of the world, and a systemic organization of time and motion. Rennie notes that this experience of being "on track” Is both comforting and disconcerting to the passenger, who abandons the autonomies of modernist identity in favour of being driven, provoking a powerful, terrifying sense of the train being unstoppable.

Frames from some of the pieces and the public of the festival

SAT.

NOV

11TH.

Tecnológico de Monterrey en Santa Fe - Velarias PrepaTec

Av de los Poetas 100, Santa Fe, La Loma, 01389 Ciudad de México, CDMX

13:00 hrs.

On November 11th, 2017 at around 13:00 hrs. The third concert of Festival Ecos Urbanos started. It consisted of 6 songs.

 

El vértigo de Eros:

This 11-minute. 8-channel piece was created by the argentinian Damian Gorandi. The title of the song is a reference to the work of the artist Roberto Matta which projects the imagination in space, something he calls “Spatial Morphologies”. El vértigo de Eros contrasts in two parts different ideas of space. First an immersive space architecture and then a more dynamic idea of space.

 

Everything will be shaken:

Everything will be shaken is was inspired by the unpredictable way earthquakes strike and the fear this idea caused in the composer, the american Seth Shafer. The 8-channel, 14-minute piece follows the first 24 hours of the great earthquake in Japan, 2011 which consequently provoked tsunamis, 3 nuclear reactor meltdowns and over 16,000 deaths.

 

Skrapa:

Created by the spanish Suriñe F. Gerenabarrena, this 9-minute, 8-channel piece uses a progression of timbrical material and connecting sounds that coexist around and generated by synthesis to mark different experiences of the author.

 

Urban Nature:

This 4-minute, stereo piece represents the nature of an urban technological world. Created by the british-israeli Bracha Bdill Urban Nature is trying to express the idea of a natural world dulled by an urban-technological world. The idea is to place you in a traffic jam and live the natural world from there.

 

Desian Gesture:

Jazer Giles, the author of Desian Gesture created this piece based on Frank’s Herbert phrase to define the moment when a hero dies at the hand of fate or an enemy in a way that ensures legendary mystique. Giles was able to fulfil this definition in a 8-channel, 7-minute piece.

 

Las voces de los muertos:

Created by the mexican Eric Perez Segura, this 8-channel piece is based in different murmured voices that simulates dead people speaking. Created with the help of MAX MSP to ensure every time the sequence of phrases will be different. It was also made so everyone will listen specially the phrases that catches more their attention. At the end the phrase “Have you killed your dreams? Have you kill someone else’s dreams” followed by an answer from the death “You are already dead”

The public in the octaphonic arrangement.

THU.

NOV

16TH.

Tecnológico de Monterrey en Santa Fe - Salón de Congresos

Av de los Poetas 100, Santa Fe, La Loma, 01389 Ciudad de México, CDMX

17:00 hrs.

During the fourth concert of the festival, at Tecnologico de Monterrey Campus Santa Fe, the pieces presented were:

  • “Futbol” by Alejandro Brianza from Argentina: Between the amateur and the professional, between the neighborhood and the court. It does not matter the age, the gender, or the interest or skill that you have for the sport. It is in the culture, in the tradition, in the everyday. All Argentine, at least bouncing, heard about soccer, its idols and legends.

 

  • “Hinderburg” by Luis Carlos Martinez Wilde from Argentina: The work rescues the sound narrative of the moment when the German Zeppelin is destroyed by a fire a few seconds before its landing in New Jersey on May 6, 1937. Additionally, there are a series of elements of both concrete and purely electronic music, that anticipate and then reinforce the event narrated by the speaker, thus framing the narration in a sound environment totally new to the original, complementing each other in the course of the work.


 

  • “A” by Pedro Fraguela from Spain: It is an acousmatic piece for quadraphonic system and was composed during the spring of 2017. You can observe an intimate use of the timbre in an introspective atmosphere. The scan describes the superposition of the figure of the line and the circle; Time is conceived as a series of consecutive circular stages that are differentiated by subtle changes.

 

  • “Hauku: printemps” by Annete Vande Gorne from Belgium: The author takes as a starting point the temporal brevity and the long imaginative resonance of the haiku to evoke universes contrasted in a space divided between 16 channels. Here, in first stage, in fact the spring is evoked by a series of four haiku: Sets of birds, dancing waters, sets of children and sets of sounds. The first three put snatches of classical repertoire and compounds soundscapes. The latter is inspired by the writing by inserts and substitutions of attacks of B.Parmegiani in 1st and 7th movement of his "de natura sonorum”.


 

  • “The Web” by Fernando Laub from Argentina: Is a fixed piece entirely made with acoustic instruments: a prepared piano, a cello and a violin. The author personally played all these instruments recording as many takes as possible in order to construct a solid structure that evolves navigating through different states of the same entity. 

 

  • “Kalamos” by Massimo Varchione from Italy: Kalamos follow the variation form. A very short theme, made of several clarinet' sounds and effects, is followed by three variations. The use of technology meets a classical form, to explore new possibilities of developing musical materials.


 

  • “Insektarion” by Lidia Zielinska from Poland: Is a piece about Wroclaw - one of the biggest cities in Poland. "Authors" Wroclaw is not so much the city’s audiosphere, but rather a mental sketch of memory. The work established anew the atmosphere, sound logos, symbols and sonic emblems recalling different situations and people in Wroclaw. She used a field recordings made by herself and from the archive of the Laboratory of the University of Wroclaw.

The public was very focused on the elements of the pieces.

FRI.

NOV

17TH.

Tecnológico de Monterrey en Santa Fe - Velarias PrepaTec

Av de los Poetas 100, Santa Fe, La Loma, 01389 Ciudad de México, CDMX

17:00 hrs.

This date of the festival was characterized by a series of live improvisations and performances. It is remarquable to say that this was the only date of the festival in which the pieces and their composers have had an interaction in real time with the public.

First, Hugo Solis and Gabriela Villa improvised with a viola and electronic media for an octaphonic arrangement, which contained a serie of viola sound pre-recorded by Gabriela Villa that were randomly reproduced to be a base or guide for the improvisation. At the same tiem, Hugo Solis processed the sounds and spatialized them. The improvisation was around 15 minutes long

Afterwards, Fernando Lomeli and Mauro Herrera improvised and audiovisual piece which was based on sonificate data from the most recent earthquake in Mexico City, also some recordings of people during and after the earthquake were added to remind among the spectators the sensibility of life.

Then, the Colectivo Improvable executed an octaphonic and acoustic improvisation with sonic objects, a drumset, a saxophon, guitars, a vibraphone and a trumpet. Which was of interest of the public since the combination of he pre-recorded sounds with the acoustic sounds generated unusual textures.

Finally, the audiovisual piece Calacas y Palomas by Hugo Rosales and Shilti presented a combination of pre-recorded elements with acoustic sounds of a violin, a saxophon and sonic objects which were completed by a live performance by two artists. As explained by the composer, this piece is an experience through elements of the popular mexican culture that remind death and childhood.

Dúo Júum: Hugo Solís & Gabriela Villa

Fernando Lomelí & Mauro Herrera

Colectivo Improvable

Hugo Rosales & Shilti

SAT

NOV

18TH.

Tecnológico de Monterrey en Santa Fe - Velarias PrepaTec

Av de los Poetas 100, Santa Fe, La Loma, 01389 Ciudad de México, CDMX

13:00 hrs.

On Saturday November the 18th, the sixth concert took place at Velarias at Tec de Monterrey Campus Santa Fe. The concert began at around 13:00 hrs with Animales Misteriosos by the Colombian composer Iván Alfredo Gutierrez Alhucema, a quadraphonic-11 minute piece. In this piece the memories of the composer are displayed by the moment he walked his dogs at night, after people go to sleep and the machinery sounds turn off leaving only the sounds of the night animals and the nature surrounding the city.

 

In second place, the piece Lessons of the Future from the Portuguese composer Jorge Ramos was played. This quadraphonic piece talks about the unknown of the future. Things we clearly feel will happen, but still we don’t know how and when. This is trying to make a reflexion on the future awaiting.

 

Then we heard there is no image…there is no poetry (Version II) from Sean Harold. The American composer shows the second part of this piece, where he eliminates the sax, making it only for fixed media, without the need of live interpretation. Still based on Mozart’s Oboe Quarter K. 370, but erasing the soloist.

 

The fifth piece was Tender Spirit II by the American composer Kyong Mee Choi. This 9 minute - audiovisual presentation is dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on  Connecticut, 2012. It shares the electronic parts of the original version of Tender Spirit.

 

After that we saw the audiovisual presentation of the Mexicans Aldo Lombera and Jessica Rodriguez, named Lucid. In this piece they refer to lucidness as the moment where humans  perceive his own existence in the world and realize how the surrounding are a distraction from their reality. This 11 minute piece was first premiered last year in Mexico.

 

Finally we ended with Hammering from the Mexican composer Eric Pérez Segura. This 7 minute - quadraphonic piece transforms the sound of a piano and then mixes it with a live one.

Public of the concert in the octaphonic arrangement

Eric Pérez executing Hammering

THU.

NOV

23TH.

Escuela Superior de Música - Patio Central

CNA: Avenida Río Churubusco 79, Country Club, 04220 Coyoacán, CDMX

19:00 hrs.

Hugo Solís explaining the structure of the improvisation of the Dúo Júum

Improvisation by Dúo Júum

Frames of some of the presented pieces.

FRI.

NOV

24TH.

Escuela Superior de Música - Patio Central

CNA: Avenida Río Churubusco 79, Country Club, 04220 Coyoacán, CDMX

19:00 hrs.

The eighth concert took place at Escuela Superior de Música on November, 24th and started at around 7PM. In this concert some pieces where live improvisation and other were prerecorded. For second time we had Colectivo ImproVable with a live impro (read review of November 17), Tender Spirit by Kyong Mee Chong, Lucid from Aldo Lombera and Jessica Rodriguez (read review of November 18) and Ground and Background from Fregal Dowling (read review of November 23).

 

We had new works such as De temperatures I ordres a quadraphonic piece by Francesa Llompart Pons. This 4-minute piece explores the behavior of small sound pieces, gathering like molecules that change conformation depending on temperature changes.

 

Moments of Liberty II is a piece by the Chilean composer Dimitrios Savva. This is another quadraphonic piece but with a 15-minute duration about the chase of freedom.

 

Finally we had a piece from the Brazilian composer Joshua Márquez, “Putrefaction”. This 5-minute piece was created using small sounds of a decomposing organic material, processing and desintegrating the sound to make it stronger and louder.

Improvisación del Colectivo Improvable y fotogramas de algunas de las obras presentadas

SAT.

25TH.

NOV

Audiorama del Parque Hundido

Av. Insurgentes Sur S/N, Extremadura Insurgentes, Benito Juárez, CDMX
13:00 hrs.

The closure of the festival took place on Saturday, November, 25th on Audiorama at Parque Hundido. We had again the live performance of Fernando Lomelí and Mauricio Herrera with Micro Historias (read review of November 17).

 

The concert begun with “Remembering Japan-Part 1” by Hans Tutschku This quadraphonic - 9-minute piece use recordings the compositor made on his journey to Japan creating different sound landscapes based on Japanese culture and mixing them with work from the compositor.

 

Reminiscences it’s a composition from the Brazilian Levi Oliviera. This piece is a reflexion to on life. It’s sets the listener on the mind of a person about to die, getting different sounds that evoke to memories of different parts of its life, some of they are cloudy and some are clear.  This piece was followed by Micro Historias.

 

Then we had the 3rd piece of Eric Pérez Segura, El parpadeo de Brahma. This is an improvisation with MAX MSP that mixes different visual and sound media. The base structure grows into a climax and then goes back to the origen.

 

The closure of the festival was in charge of Password a rock band that delight us with a live improvisation.

Openning by Colectivo Audiorama

Fernando Lomelí & Mauro Herrera explain their improvisation based on data of the earthquake of September 19th in Mexico City

Eric Pérez executes The blink of Brahma live

Password for the closure of the festival

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