recording of Victoria Counts II

September 29+29 I did a recording of Victoria Counts II by Henrik Hellstenius. The recording took place in my studio at the Academy. Mats Claesson kindly agreed to record the music and make a “nice” sound of my electric violin. We used his equipment from his studio and my speakers for listening back. Henrik Hellstenius was producing and Edvin Østvik did the live electronics. The result will appear as an installation in Lydgalleriet in Bergen opening at November 13.

On photo: Mats Claesson and Henrik Hellstenius

info seminar

For more info about the seminar please follow the links:

http://www.ultima.no/nb/program/details/42-workshop-hyperimprovisasjon

http://www.nmh.no/Konserter/71481

videoanalysis

August 24 and 25 I had a workshop with video-analysis together with Alexander R Jensenius. Based on his research he made patches which could track my movements in a room. I used the sound to interact with recorded material from the violin. We used a big space ar the Academy hanging a web-camera in the roof.
on photo Alexander with research and development on a HIGH level! More about this later.

MCO/and indeed keeping in shape

I was in the beginning of May asked to play in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in a project in Germany. I was really glad to be asked and thinking about my earlier posting keeping in shape;  I am indeed in a good shape after playing with this wonderful orchestra for 2.5 weeks. The orchestra play very well together with good intonation and great energy. Although I work with more experimental music and art I really need the “normal” playing and music making in order to develop as a musician. From this music and tradition all the new possibilities has emerged. I also used my time lately to finish the written project in pedagogics about “Contemporary music in string teaching” at the Academy of Music, a project I do together with collogue fellow Sigurd Imsen.

Live broadcast on ARTE of Weber’s Freischütz on 1 June 2009 and of the concert on 31 May 2009 featuring Schumann’s Symphony no.3 and selected works of Mozart.

After giving the MCO Residence in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) a festive start with a concert performance of Weber’s opera Der Freischütz under the direction of Thomas Hengelbrock, orchestra, conductor and soloists move on to the renowned resort city of Baden-Baden. The production, staged by Robert Wilson, will be broadcast live from Baden-Baden by ARTE and will also be available on www.arte.tv as a live-stream.
The MCO’s concert with Thomas Hengelbrock will also be broadcast live. The programme includes Schumann’s lively Third Symphony in E-flat major as well as Mozart’s Symphony no.25 in g minor and selected arias of Mozart. Soloists will be soprano Véronique Gens and baritone Peter Mattei.

Der Freischütz: 1 June 2009, 7 pm

MCO Concert: 31 May 2009, 7 pm

audiovisual satelite

On May 7th Mattias Arvasstson and I had our performance at the Museum of contemporary Art in Oslo. We tried out the idea of using the movement, colours and pulsation of the video as a musical score, using Mattias,s object for projection. That meant that we did not have to have any walls for projection and did not have to interfere into the exhibition as such. Originally it had been the meaning that the concert installation should take place in the big exhibition room. It is very light in Norway during the summertime and i realised that during one of the visits to the museum that this room was much too light for projection. We ended up to get a beautiful empty room at the second floor. Many thanks to Anna Lindblad at the the Museum of Contemporary Art who helped us to get this space and to arrange the concert.

On photo: The original space for the performance.

For the first time I played a concert without any soundperson there. I realised that the acoustics changed  a bit when the audience came, and I think I will bring a stage monitor for the next performance. I used 6 genelecs, one on the object and the one with pure violinsound behind  me, and the rest in in each corner. Again I used the a granulation process using 3 buffers with different lengths, pitching and grainlength. Thanks to Edvin Østvik for the beautiful and user-friendly maxpatch !We had to carry all the equipment ourself which was really hard!

After rigging up we got visitors from the Academy of music, the electroacoustic composition class came to see what we where doing.

On photo: The performance space

Having 9 footpedals I got a very broad setup. I am looking forward to experiment more with some smaller controllers and setup.

I will also for the next performance have visual monitor in order to see the visuals better.

Satelite on the top of the opera

It has been a very busy but interesting process working and performing the two Satellite concerts. The first one taking place at the Roof of the Norwegian opera and Ballet April 28 and the second one in a beautiful big space at the Museum of contemporary Art. Being in charge of the planning of the operaroof I had to go into the topic of projection, choice of lenses, amount of ansilumens when the goal is to have the projection as clear and big as possible. The size of the wall we wanted to project on was 14.5x 32 meters, and sunset was around 9 pm. I decided to go for 10 pm and hoped for good weather. I also had a “bad weather plan” hiring party -tents, but fortunately I did not have to go for that. On the actual day it was some scary black cloud, but it never rained! A bit cold though about 10 degrees.

To rig up PA and projectors took more planning than I would have thought. It felt like having a concert on the top of a mountain except that we had access to electricity.  I got very good support and help from Knut Vik and lot of people from the Academy of Music helped to rig down after the concert. I had decided because of the wind not to use music but have it on a PDF on the computer. Ivar Frouberg had made me a beautiful little maxpatch that could turn pages. I worked very well and secure. I was practising with the patch for about a week, in order to be able to use the foot for turning the pages (Yamaha midi FC) as well as using other pedals (fuzz, octaver, delay) For Elektra I also had to follow the maxpatch (triggers and timing) on another computer. All this technical issues worked out very well, although I from time to time during Elektra was very busy!

To get the projection as big as we got it worked out well, surrounded by the city on the big marmoreal roof. The volcano in Elektra became huge, and I became very small, which I see as an interesting contrast. The fact that the size of the projection was so big made a better communication between the music and the video. At the most I think it was around 400 people at the roof, something I founded very good.

Thanks to Ellen Roed who took some photos!

I got a lot of press on the project, also at Østlandsendingen (TV)
For links (in Norwegian only see links)

http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/distrikt/ostlandssendingen/verdi/98274
http://universitas.no/s0k/et%20samtidseventyr/
http://www.ballade.no/nmi.nsf/doc/art2009042413190695170061

On photo: The city of Oslo seen from the top of the opera photo Lena Nielsen Universitas

more Vinterlyd

On photo: Henrik Hellstenius, Ivar Frounberg and Edvin Østvik discussing the sound set-up.

The weekend og February 7-8 we used the Levinhall at the Academy to work on Victoria Counting II. It was the first possiblility to see how the video workes together with the music and live prosessed sound. We were working on different orders of the music and visuals as well as the narrative content og the video together with the music. How loud should the levels of the  soundscapes be? On Friday 13.2 we worked for the first time with director Jon Tombre. It was very interesting and challenging to see the piece from a dramatic point of view.

vinterlyd 26.9 09

Counting, Memory and Interrogation

Counting, memory and interrogation appear as a single coherent process where the audience surrounds the arena and is surrounded by four video screens. In the arena meanings-supporting events are unfurling – they extends towards the open horizon: the private sphere (in Hellstenius), the Mongolian desert (in Frounberg) and the psychopathic space (in Krunglevicius). We reach out for an extended meaning in relation to the abstraction classical music often represents. The desire is that the idea relates to general human psychological conditions and other universal human issues. We will examine what it is doing, to impact the formation and experience for the audience.

The performance is part of Vinterlydfestivalen and appears as a presentation of parts of the work of Norwegian Academy of Music target area for research and development: musical creation and renewal. The projects presented are all parts of the main subject area; Interactions and new sound possibilities. Interactions are in this context interpreted as the relationship between the public and private, distraction and concentration (in Hellstenius), relationships between memory and myth (in Frounberg) and the boundary between expression of power and assault (in Krunglevicius).

The performance includes three works:

Henrik Hellstenius: Victoria Counting II

Victoria Johnson, electric violin

Edvins Østvik, sound design

Mattias Arvastsson, video

Jon TOMBRE, director

Ivar Frounberg: dal niente

Kari Anne Bjerkestrand, dance,

Ivar Frounberg, laptop

Kjell Tore Innervik, laptop

Alexander Refsum Jensenius, laptop

Kristian Nymoen, laptop

Ignas Krunglevicius: interrogation

Rolf Erik Nystrøm, saxophone

The performance is financed by pilot funds from the Norwegian Academy of music

(text by Frounberg, Hellstenius, Kruglevicius and Johnson)

realtime-video and audio

I had my first experience with real-time video/audio improvisation on my stay in Bergen  January 15-17 th.

Being able to have space at BEK Mattias Arvastsson and I worked on Victoria Counting II as well as  real-time improvisation together. I also got to meet Trond Lossius at Bek Jørgen Larsson at Lydgalleriet to discuss a project for the Autumn. More about this later. Fortunately I got to see see the opening of the exibition “Composers in Space” at Lydgalleriet as well as the exibition Looking is Political at Bergen kunsthall the same evening.

From “Composers in space at Lydgalleriet”, work by: Bjørn Erik Haugen

The electric guitarist and composer Thomas Dahl from Bergen  is also one of the composers in my project. We luckily now founded time to work together, and trying out some sound material in live and guitar rig.

Thomas Dahl working at BEK.

teaching

Last Wednesday 14.1 I had a small workshop with the contemporary music interpretationclass at the State Academy. I made a short introduction about my project, but very soon moved into practical use of 2 different max patches. I let the students improvise with  11 sec delay with a great amout of rewerb. It is the same patch I use for Arne Nordheim Partita für Paul.  The students used a condensator mic so we had to be really careful with feedback. I do not have these problems on the electric violin so I am not used to deal with that challenge. After we worked with a granulationpacth I have used a lot in Fat Battery. In the end I did some basic improvsiation in LIVE which I think the students enjoyed the most.