Vox Novus is inviting composers to submit recorded works 60 seconds or less in length to be included in its seventh annual 60×60 project. 60 compositions will be selected to be played continuously in a one-hour concert. The 60×60 concert season will begin with a debut in New York City and continue throughout the world in venues to be announced. Please submit recording(s) of work and submission form post marked before December 31, 2008.

During the concert each of the 60 pieces selected will begin precisely at the beginning of the minute, this will mark the end of one piece and the beginning of another. There will be no pause between the pieces. Works may be less than 60 seconds in length, but may not exceed 60 seconds. Works selected that are less than 60 seconds long will be “padded” with silence either before, after, or surrounding the composition. Please note that the total duration of the work including silence may NOT exceed sixty seconds. Continue reading

Re-circuiting the Social: Sound Tactics for Urban Public Space - Tactical Sound Garden [TSG] Toolkit by Mark Shepard :: October 22, 2008; 11 am :: Rhode Island School of Design, CIT / Mason Building 413, 169 Weybosset Street, Providence, R.I.

The Tactical Sound Garden [TSG] Toolkit is an open source software platform for cultivating public “sound gardens” within contemporary cities. It draws on the culture of urban community gardening to posit a participatory environment where new spatial practices for social interaction within technologically mediated environments can be explored and evaluated. Addressing the impact of mobile audio devices like the iPod, the project examines gradations of privacy and publicity within contemporary public space. Continue reading

1958 - 2008: from Philips Pavilion to Explorer Art … Tribute to “Electronic Poem” by Le Corbusier, Xenakis, and Varèse by Franck Ancel, Vincent Epplay, and Derrick Giscloux :: October 26, 2008; 6:00 - 7:00 pm :: La Tourette to Internet (streaming link to be posted here).

“Electronic poem” was conceived during the World Fair of Brussels, closed the last weekend of the fair in October 1958. The “Electronic poem” was a multimedia projection in the fleeting Philips House that Le Corbusier and Xenakis built the same period the Convent of the Tourette*, and Ancel will attempt to evoke the exploration of a numerical poetry from this same building. After celebrating under this contextual form last year … Ancel will light up these historic passages in art while connecting them in the big tradition of the video performances from the time of Dan Graham. Continue reading

Cut & Splice: From the Seven Days :: October 24-25, 2008 :: Wilton’s Music Hall, London, E1 8JB.

Sonic Arts Network and BBC Radio 3 present a two day festival based around Stockhausen’s “Aus den Sieben Tagen” (From the Seven Days) — an instructional score, made up of 14 pieces. Cut & Splice: From the Seven Days brings together some of the world’s leading contemporary avant-garde musicians for a unique and ground-breaking interpretation of one of Stockhausen’s most controversial works. Featuring over 20 performers, installations and a four day durational piece (see below), the festival is set in one of London’s most atmospheric spaces, Wilton’s Music Hall, the oldest grand music hall in the world. Continue reading

What is Music to Your Ears? The Science of Hearing:: April 29, 2009; 6:30 pm and 9:00 pm :: The New York Academy of Sciences, 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich St (at Barclay St), 40th Fl, New York.

McGill University music perception expert Daniel Levitin and Grammy-winning singer Rosanne Cash explain how the brain processes aural information and how our perception of sounds can inspire emotion. Cash will also give a live musical performance during this spectacular final senses event.

Learn More — Buy Tickets Now: scienceandthecity.org | nyas.org | or email: nymeetings [at] nyas.org.

[beyond] by MASH (Magnus Alexanderson and Sachiko Hayashi) :: October 28, 2008; 7:00 - 8:30 pm :: IDKA - Institutet för Digitala Konstarter, Gävle, Sweden.

[beyond] is an interactive audio-visual performance. Its interactive components (audio - visual) are linked via a computer programme (Max/Jitter) as well as via human perception to achieve flexible and yet complex structural audio-visual composition. Moreover [beyond] is an amalgam of various human expressions both on personal and collective levels. The divisions that have been inherent in our world - tradition / new, composition / improvisation, West / East, machine / human - are all fused in [beyond] as essential part of personal histories of the performers.

The audio, EAM performed live via midi-guitar, sampler, signal processor and looper, is based on various existing practices and experiences to compose and perform music. Continue reading

University of Minnesota West Bank Arts Quarter In partnership with the American Composers Forum Call for Works: 2009 Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts :: February 17 - 22, 2009 :: Minneapolis, MN :: Submission Deadline: October 31, 2008.

Now in its seventh year, the Spark Festival invites submissions of art, dance, theater, and music works incorporating new media, including electroacoustic concert music, experimental electronica, theatrical and dance works, installations, kinetic sculpture, artbots, video, and other non- traditional genres. Although Spark does not force submissions to adhere to a annual theme, we are especially interested this year to feature wearable and mobile technologies, and events will include the first Spark Fashion Show. Continue reading

[Image: Gil Alterovitz’s translation of genes (circles) into music … via A Musical Score for Disease] EvoMUSART 2009 - 7th European Workshop on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design :: April 15-17, 2009 :: Tubingen, Germany :: CALL FOR PAPERS - Deadline: November 5, 2008.

EvoMUSART 2009 is the seventh workshop of the EvoNet working group on Evolutionary Music and Art. Following the success of previous events and the growth of interest in the field, the main goal of EvoMUSART 2009 is to bring together researchers who are using biologically inspired techniques for artistic tasks, providing the opportunity to promote, present and discuss ongoing work in this area.

Accepted papers will be presented orally at the workshop and included in the EvoWorkshops proceedings, published by Springer Verlag in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. Continue reading

Returning for its third year, the Electronic Music Foundation’s acclaimed sound art, music and ecology festival Ear to the Earth will take place this month in locations all over New York City. Ear to the Earth is organized around the principle that sound’s distinct emotional impact makes it a significant medium in which to explore environmental concerns such as global warming, extinction and habitat destruction. Divided into two sections, “New York Soundscapes” and “Other Soundscapes,” this year’s events maintain a strong urban emphasis. Andrea Polli’s installation Cloud Car, takes the automobile, a key force within the development of American cities, as its locus. With the aide of special effects technician Chuck Varga, Polli will envelop a Ford Taurus station wagon entirely in mist. Visitors will be invited to sit in the car and listen to environmental sound compositions. Resembling a broken down vehicle on the side of a highway, the work is a poignant symbol for America’s current predicament in regards to oil dependency. Cloud Car will be on display at Eyebeam October 18th and will then move to the New York Hall of Science on October 25th. Continue reading

Petit Mal’s Crisis In The Credit System is the first (and only) great pop song about the financial crisis. Combining an elegiac-compulsive piano riff, twanging synths and waves of spooked electronics with sparse, melancholy vocals this is a unique and addictive electro anthem for the end of capitalism as we know it. Emusic, iTunes, Myspace.

Petit Mal, AKA Ben Seymour and Melanie Gilligan, fuse ’80s synth pop and ’00s electronica to create emotional, intelligent and irresistible new music. Poetic, oblique and compelling, Crisis in the Credit System collides a Pet Shop Boys-style pop drama with autistic vocal repetition a la Lora Logic and ends up somewhere completely unique and contemporary. Continue reading