Concert, Saturday 20 October 2012, 20:00-21:00
STEIM

Susanna Borsch (blockflute & electronics), Antonio Politano (blockflute & electronics), Sarah Jeffery (clogs & electronics), Jos Zwaanenburg (flute & electronics), Matthijs Koene (panpipes & electronics). Demonstrations Live Electronics Masters programme Amsterdam.

Programme:

Ned McGowan (1970): Workshop (2004)
Susanna Borsch - blockflute & electronics

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007): SOLO für Melodieinstrument mit Rückkopplung (1966)
Matthijs Koene - panpipes & electronics

Paolo Perezzani: Studio n.1, 'Enigma e stupore' (2004)
Antonio Politano - blockflute & electronics

Enrique Mendoza (1978): Sikanda (2011)
Jos Zwaanenburg - flute & electronics

Felipe Ignacio Noriega (1982): The mill song (2012, world premiere)
Sarah Jeffery – clogs, Felipe I. Noriega - live electronics
Cinthya Oyervides - scenography and theatrical advisor

Susanna Borsch

Susanna Borsch is one of the few instrumentalists able to interpret both contemporary and early music with complete ease. She studied at the Amsterdam Conservatorium with Walter van Hauwe with her final solo examination in the year 2000. Her first solo CD from 2006 featured many new works for recorder and live-electronics written especially for her. She plays in many different ensembles: Mezzaluna, a recorder ensemble committed to exploring the depth of 16th century renaissance vocal polyphony. Susanna also plays with Hexnut, a band formed in 2004 comprising the unusual combination of flute, recorder, trumpet, voice and piano; and ELECTRA, an all-female modern music ensemble combining the latest music with visual and theatrical elements. Since 2009 Susanna plays in Dapper’s Delight, a duo of recorder and anglo concertina, formed to explore popular dance music and songs of the period 1550-1750, particularly pieces that are found in both high and low cultural sources.
http://susannaborsch.com/

Sarah Jeffery

Sarah Jeffery (born 1985, Liverpool) is a recorder player currently based in Amsterdam. She has toured and performed throughout England, Wales, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Belgium and Luxembourg as both a soloist and chamber musician. Her performance CV presents such prestigious venues as the Gaudeamus Music Week, Hudderfield Contemporary Music Festival, Holland festival, Sonorities Belfast, and the Muziekgebouw aan 't Ij, Amsterdam. In her chamber ensembles, she has appeared on BBC, Swiss and Dutch radio as well as Dutch television, and has recorded on three studio CDs.
In 2007 Sarah gained a first class honours degree in music at the Birmingham Conservatoire in England, under the tuition of Ross Winters and Annabel Knight. She then went on to study at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in the Netherlands, with Jorge Isaac and Paul Leenhouts. Here she experimented with live electronics, new compositions, collaborations with artists and composers, and contemporary improvisation. She graduated from the Bachelor programme in 2010.
As well as her classical studies, Sarah also has deep roots in British folk music and dance. Having toured extensively with Joe Broughton's Folk Ensemble, she watched the group grow from twelve members to eighty. She was also a founder member of The Old Dance School, one of the brightest new acts on the UK folk scene.
She has received a number of prizes, including the Derbyshire Arts Recorder Prize, the Birmingham Conservatoire recorder competition, and bursaries from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and Walter Bergmann Foundation. She was also a finalist in the ERTA Consort Competition, the Park Lane group, and the Julius Isserlis Scholarship Competition. Sarah has recently won a prestigious scholarship from the Leverhulme Trust, in order to support her master studies in the Netherlands.
The past season has seen the completion of extensive tours of the Netherlands with Jeugdtheater Sonnevanck and TIME Musictheater; performing a leading role in the productions Woestijnwind and WE ARE GOLDEN. Sarah has also been performing with the PRIME Recorder Ensemble in Switzerland under the direction of Antonio Politano, and the Ligeti Academy contemporary ensemble, under coaching from AskoSchoenberg.
Sarah is currently studying for her Master's degree in Amsterdam, exploring the combination of percussive clog dance, live electronics, karnatic improvisation and theatrical aspects with contemporary recorder playing.
http://www.sarahjeffery.com/

Matthijs Koene (Purmerend/NL, 1977) concluded his studies Cum Laude in 2001 at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. Already during his studies, Matthijs developed a new technique that allows him to meet the very different tones, articulations and dynamics that are specific in use by classical and modern music. His vision and playing style has a high technical level as well as musical expression which brings Panflute to a complete new level. Up to now, more than 70 works has been written for him. With his panflute-guitar duo, Verso, he won several awards including the Vriendenkrans and Concertgebouw prize in 2003, the prize for contemporary music of the Comradio Competition in Barcelona and the IBLA Grand Prize in Italy. Together with Duo Verso he performs regularly at international venues. In 2007 the duo played in Carnegie Hall in New York. Matthijs also works closely with the organist Jos van der Kooy and he plays in various contemporary music ensembles. Since September 2005, Matthijs Koene is a Panflute professor at the Conservatory of Amsterdam.
http://www.panflute-guitar.nl/

Antonio Politano was born in Catania (Sicily) in 1969. Since 1997 he is professor for recorder and chamber music in the « Haute Ecole de Musique-Lausanne » - Switzerland. He gave lectures and master classes in Berlin (Universitat der Kunste), Leipzig (Hochschule F. Mendelssohn), Paris (Ircam), Urbino (International early music courses). He collaborated as soloist with Ictus Ensemble (Bruxelles), Ensemble L’Itinéraire (Paris), Ensemble Recherche (Freiburg), Chamber Orchestra of Potsdam. He gave the first performances of solo pieces by Oscar Bianchi, Emanuele Casale, Pasquale Corrado, Agostino Di Scipio, Franco Donatoni, Aaron Einbond, Nicola Evangelisti, Ivan Fedele, Stefano Gervasoni, Adriano Guarnieri, Francesco La Licata, Junghae Lee, Gabriele Manca, Giorgio Netti, Francois Paris, Paolo Perezzani, Maurizio Pisati, Fausto Romitelli, Horacio Vaggione, most of which are dedicated to him. He played in Berlin (Konzerthaus), Bonn (Beethoven Saal), Bourges (Festival Synthese), Bruxelles (Ars Musica), Darmstadt (Ferienkursen), Paris (Ircam, Cité de la Musique), Helsinki (Sibelius Akademie), Rome (Villa Medici), Siena (Accademia Chigiana), Venice (Biennale Musica) etc.
In 1993, together with Kees Boeke, he created DUIX, a duo specializing in contemporary music for bass recorders and electronics. In 2006, with the basson player Sergio Azzolini, he did the world premiere of the double concerto « Les microbes de dieu-Conduites d’approche IV » by Gabriele Manca. In 2008 he created the PRIME Recorder Ensemble. Together with the violin player Haesung Choe, he formed the duo OCTOPUS. His recordings are released by RCA-BMG Ariola, Stradivarius, Nuova Era, Edipan, Olive Music, Ricordi-BMG. http://www.politanorecorder.com/

Jos Zwaanenburg is currently a teacher at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam teaching ‘Contemporary Music Through Non-western Techniques’, ‘Advanced Rhythm’ and ‘Live Electronics’. Zwaanenburg is also a guest lecturer at the music departments of York University and of Oxford Brookes University where he has been appointed as a Research Associate.
Zwaanenburg graduated with distinction from the Amsterdam Conservatory in 1985 where he studied flute and composition. In the previous year he won the Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition, receiving an honourable mention for performing his own compositions. Zwaanenburg completed an M.A. in musicology and contemporary performing arts at Leeds University (in 1998), and studied Karnatic music theory privately with Rafael Reina since 1996, leading to further studies in India with Jahnavi Jayaprakash and other top Karnatic performers.
He has performed classical as well as improvised music extensively throughout Europe, the U.S., South America, India, Russia and Japan, giving solo performances and playing as part of orchestras and chamber music ensembles. Many composers from around the world have written works for him.
Zwaanenburg is known for his research into extended playing techniques for the flute, combining his interest in performance, theatre, composition and the use of live electronics. He is also known for initiating the development of the open hole alto flute in co-operation with the Dutch flute makers Eva Kingma and Dirk Kuiper in 1986/87, often using it to display his command of these extended techniques.
Zwaanenburg has conducted groups such as 'The Barton Workshop', the English 'Cornelius Cardew Ensemble' (which he founded and of which he was the artistic director), the 'AXYZ ensemble' and various other groups.
Zwaanenburg has published scores including studies for contemporary flute techniques and has given lectures, workshops and master classes at a great many international venues throughout the world. In 1994 he founded an experimental Rock group "Kxtahpaph", with which he performed and for which he composed most material.
In 2004 Zwaanenburg started touring with his new live electronic music theatre ensemble called WATT?, performing his multi-media composition 'The Longest Mauvais Quart d'Heure'.
http://www.electronicsamsterdam.info/

Felipe Ignacio Noriega (1982): The mill song (2012, world premiere)
A piece inspired by the origins and social implications of clog dancing, where escapism, fantasy, and pride become the main resources for everyday life.
The Mill song was made possible thanks to a long period of research and intense collaboration between performer, composer and dramaturg. Each of their input was essential for the final form of the piece.

Ned McGowan (1970): Workshop (2004)
“A particularly impressive piece is Workshop by Ned McGowan... McGowan creates a wonderful environment of machine and construction ‘noises’, placed in timbral and rhythmic interplay with rapid, flashy recorder lines that travel into quieter sections and end exuberantly.” Tom Bickley

SOLO für Melodieinstrument mit Rückkopplung (1966) Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007). Work no. 19
A soloist performing a piece together with him or herself. This used to be a dream of Stockhausen for a long time. With the modern technology in the sixties, it became possible to realise this idea.
Material played during a period of time is recorded and played back in the next period. The Rücckkopplung (which today is called a delay) can keep on playing back the material including the new recorded information in the following periods.

The score consists of 6 pages of notated music. The order is free. According to a very strict interpretation schedule the soloist has to choose material from one or more pages. In general a greater part of the notated material won't be played. The soloist can choose the music that fits best the instrument.

Apart from the soloist playing his line, 4 technical assistants were needed to handle the tape delay. Today computers are very well capable of doing the same job. Composer and programmer Danny de Graan designed a patch in Max/Msp especially for SOLO. With this software any version of the piece can be played, with or without assistants.

Solo was commissioned by a Japanese broadcasting company, and was premiered in April 1966 in Tokyo.

Enrique Mendoza (1978): Sikanda (2011)
In Michael Ende’s “Die Unendliche Geschichte”, we can find a very important character called Sikanda; the lightest, swiftest and most agile sword there is. In a metaphor, the performer will have to deal with a conflict between live electronics and flute, in which the sound of one cannot exist without the sound of the other, as the fight is with the reflection of oneself.

Sikanda was written for Jos Zwaanenburg in 2011 and premiered in London, February 2012. Max/MSP programming by Mendoza and Zwaanenburg.

Demonstrations with live electronics software (MaxMSP and Ableton Live).
The Conservatorium van Amsterdam (CvA) holds since September 2012 a high-level Master's programme Live Electronics.

It is designed to accommodate the aspirations of performers from any musical background who wish to specialize in combining their traditional instruments with live electronic extensions. The programme is primarily designed for performers with a music-driven interest in electronics and technology, which could also include, for instance, 'laptopists' as long as they can show proficiency in music theory and performance practice.
In a world in which electronics are more and more present, and at the same time more accessible and affordable, there is an increasing interest in musicians that can deal with (live) electronics.
The Amsterdam two-year master's programme provides profound education in combining the traditional instrument with live electronic extensions. Through balanced training in using dedicated soft and hardware on one hand and the traditional instrument on the other, students are enabled to develop their artistic, creative and technological skills in an area which asks for consistent development. Performance, composition, improvisation, multimedia, music technology, computer programming, synthesiser programming, new and vintage hardware, theatre are key subjects.
The programme is completely cross-genre and is not based towards just one music style or tradition.
Lessons, lectures, workshops are given by an experienced team of CvA teachers and special guest teachers from all around the world.

Check the site of the programme for more info: http://www.electronicsamsterdam.info/