Array, the journal of the International Computer Music Association

Rosemary Mountain, Concert 5Momilani Ramstrum, Concert 13Jeffrey Treviño, Concert 1

--, -

English

ICMC 2004 Concert Reviews

31 32
contribute to the personality of  the whole 
being.  Sonically, events emerge from a 
context of  filtered noise, making explicit as 
they do so the fine distinction
between tightly filtered noise bands and 
pitches.
Signals - Michael Klingbeil 
Contrast String Quartet (Jordi Claret, 
Claudia Farrés, Elias Porter, Noemí 
Rubio), Michael Davidov, piano and MIDI 
keyboard
This piece for string quartet and piano/
keyboard explores the boundaries between 
sustained clusters of  tones and the clustered 
overtones of  a piano pitch drawn out 
through the use of  electronic effects.  The 
musicians, a local student string quartet, 
handled the music with great care and 
maturity of  approach.
in-s-cape II - Aikaterini Tzedaki - Tape
As stated by the composer, the aim of  this 
composition is the sonic realization of  a 
journey through imaginary soundscapes. 
An imaginary soundscape is a type of  inner 
soundscape  (in-scape).
Ajunennuline - Shawn Pinchbeck - Tape
This piece derives its material from a 
collection of  found sounds with textural 
properties that are surprising in their 
relatedness—drills, cats growling, dogs 
barking and corks popping.  The title
Ajulennuline is a word that the composer 
made up, but derives from the Estonian 
The last piece of  the concert was Javier 
Garavaglia’s Ableitungen des Konzepts der 
Wiederholung (for Ala) for viola and computer, 
played by the composer himself. The piece, 
clearly based on the idea of  repetition of  
a sequence performed by the instrument, 
showed to be very poor in its form, creating 
a development based on an eternal loop 
that went on and on. The relation between 
the sound of  the instrument and the sound 
transformed through loudspeakers was 
never very clear. In brief, it was a very long 
and simplistic piece that seemed to be a 
rehearsal by a performer triggering sounds 
from a computer rather than a creative 
work where performer and computer really 
interact with each other. Unfortunately, this 
is a very common practice nowadays.
Wednesday, 7 September 2005, Noon 
Concert
by Sile O’Modhrain
This lunchtime concert featured a well-
balanced program of  works. Pieces for 
tape interleaved with pieces for acoustic 
instrument and/or live electronics.  As for 
most of  this year’s concerts, the performers 
were, for the most part, local student 
ensembles.
Vivencias - Beatriz Ferreyra - Tape
Vivencias was commissioned for Musiques 
& Recherches in Belgium in 2001.  In 
Spanish, the word means experiences that 
effective use of  the synthesized tape sounds, 
creating diverse types of  interactions with 
the natural sounds of  the instruments, 
contrasting their sound most of  the time, 
and blending them in timbre and space 
at certain moments during the piece. The 
performance of  the players (Sergi Rovira, 
saxophone and Carles Guisado, guitar) 
lacked a bit of  naturalness, and at moments 
it became clear that the performers were 
just waiting for cues to play their part. 
There was no vivid sense of  integration of  
the tape and the instruments.
The fourth piece of  the concert was the 
tape piece L’uomo by Massimo Fragalà. 
This piece, based on texts as well as diverse 
sonorities and theatrical approaches of  the 
voice, resembled pieces by Nono and Berio 
of  the sixties and seventies. The piece 
worked quite well, creating dramatic and 
hilarious situations where the text worked 
as a framework and a sort of  vehicle for 
dramatic voice gestures. This was a simple 
piece structurally, but it was very effective 
in its use of  the material.
The fifth piece of  the concert was the tape 
piece A romance of  rust by Antonio Ferreira. 
This acousmatic piece explored different 
types of  timbral nuances of  sound following 
constant evolutions in the transformations 
of  sound. The piece showed an interesting 
combination of  tonal sounds with other 
more granular sonorities.
ICMC 2005 Reviews
ESMuC  Barcelona, Spain
Tuesday, 6 September 2005, Noon 
Concert (ESMuC Concert Hall)
by Felipe Otondo
The first tape piece of  this concert, 
Iron Emerald by Andrew Czink, was 
developed spatially in an interesting 
way in terms of  the use of  the timbres 
employed in the piece, which fit well in 
the wide room where the concert took 
place. Unfortunately, the piece evolved 
in a very predictable and simplistic way 
towards a very predictable climax.
The second tape piece of  the concert, 
Sleep Driver by Martin Stig Andersen, 
showed a clever use of  long transitions 
of  very steady sounds in a sort of  
meditative way. The audience seemed 
to like the gentle character of  the piece 
and its calm pace. Unfortunately, the 
sound projection of  the piece was not 
at the level of  the quality of  the sound 
material, because it created a very steady 
and fixed spatialisation.
The next piece, Litania for saxophone, 
guitar and tape by João Pedro Oliveira, 
was probably the best piece of  the 
concert. The composer made an 
Sile O’ModhrainICMC 2005 Reviewsarray 2007/2008
33 34
Prayer of  a King for alto saxophone and 
computer was a gentle piece, with the 
saxophone dominant, being enhanced by 
computer processing. Perhaps the hall was 
too large for this work, which would have 
been better in a chamber music setting. 
Its gentle sounds were too much for my 
neighbour, who slept through it.
Un caracol manchado by Alfonso Garcia de la 
Torre was the other piece for saxophone 
and electronics. I had problems perceiving 
where the electronic component was for 
much of  the opening section, and while 
there were a number of  nice moments, I 
was left with a feeling of  missing the unity 
of  the whole work. Seeking clarification 
in the program booklet, I found that the 
notes were in Spanish, a language I do not 
know, and so I remain uncertain what was 
intended.
The concert ended with Panayiotis 
Kokoras’s Shatter Cone. The work for violin 
and tape, played by Jordi Claret, explored 
the way in which the violin’s sounds are 
created, and the program notes suggest that 
the tape sounds originate from the violin. 
The processing was such that sounds were 
quite distant from the live instrument; there 
were uses made of  string-like glissandi in 
the tape part, but I lost the thread rather 
too soon. The piece ended with what I 
took as a joke, with a burp after the violin 
had ended.
did not detract from the overall effect. I 
thought that at about 15 minutes it was 
perhaps too long. My notes comment 
on the ending: there appeared to be an 
extraneous voice, out of  character with the 
previous sounds, but this could have been 
outside the auditorium.
The second work was for guitar and tape, Sol 
y sombra...L’espace des spectres, a joint creation 
by Francis Dhomont and the performer 
Arturo Parra. This work also contrasted the 
tape component with a traditional Spanish 
guitar sound, although the tape sounds were 
created from samples of  the same guitarist. 
In the concert, the relationship between 
these strands was not clear, and I was not 
convinced that they belonged together. I 
also failed to understand the structure of  
the piece and so was disappointed overall. I 
could of  course appreciate that the playing 
was of  a very high standard.
Clandestine Parts by Paulina Sundin was the 
high point of  the concert for me. A tape 
work that started with a slow, thoughtful 
passage clearly established the sound world, 
and when this later changed to a fast section 
the unity continued, maintaining interest 
while continuing to have something to 
say. The sounds were all well crafted; this 
is definitely a work I would like to hear 
again.
There then followed two works that used the 
saxophonist Xelo Giner. Stefan Klaverdal’s 
texture is extremely fluid.
Fluctuations - Seung Hye Kim - Flute and 
live electronics
Finally, Fluctuations explores the sonic world 
on the borders of  pitched and unpitched 
flute tones.
Thursday, 8 September 2005, 
afternoon concert 
by John ffitch
What I privately thought of  as the evening 
concert took place in the large concert hall. 
The comfort of  the seats contrasted with 
the uncomfortable bright blue backscreen 
behind the performers, which made looking 
at the performance a little of  a trial.
The concert opened with Séparé et invisible by 
Yasuhiro Takenaka. The composer stated 
in the booklet that “the work describes the 
relationship between the saxophone part 
and the electronic part in accordance with 
that between the two worlds,” but I did 
not read this until after the concert. It is a 
tribute to the work that my initial reaction 
was to appreciate the juxtaposition of  
the two streams; the sounds worked well 
together and managed that difficult task of  
unifying the physical and electronic within 
the same sound world. I was less convinced 
by the second section, and at times there 
seemed a resort to trite solutions, but this 
word “linnulennuline” or “bird’s-eye view.” 
Literally, it translates as “brain flying like a 
bird,” and is intended to capture the act 
of  the mind drifting from one thought 
to another.  In this case, the thoughts are 
related through the sonic environment 
they provoke.
Stream - Arne Eigenfeldt - Computer and 
data glove
Stream is an exploration of  different meanings 
of  the title: moving water, moving people, 
moving data.  It is a journey in which the 
listener inhabits the stream in its changing 
meanings, observing the sonic environment 
through which the stream passes as both 
sources of  sound and their reflections on 
the surfaces of  imaginary objects.  As the 
piece progresses, the meaning of  ‘stream’ 
becomes more abstract, and the sound 
environment becomes more complex.
Psalm 06 - Douglas Scott - Tape
Psalm 06 is a portrait in sound of  the sixth 
penitential psalm from the Old Testament. 
The source material for the entire piece 
is the text of  the psalm, recited in both 
English and Latin by Denise
Gill.  Its overlapping sections mirror the 
division of  the text into ten two-line stanzas. 
However, this is not a setting of  the text 
in a traditional sense.  The accompanying 
material is derived from the vocal material 
using a granular synthesis approach, and 
the result is a texture where the division 
between vocal material and accompanying 
John ffitchICMC 2005 Reviewsarray 2007/2008
35 36
music is Harika Hirayama.  Her works 
have been recognized in competitions and 
by inclusion in recent ICMC concerts. 
Her virtuoso double bass solo was superbly 
performed.  The inharmonic string-
like attacks were striking and sometimes 
even grotesque.  Noticeable in many works 
like this one performed at the conference 
was the return of  feedback techniques 
updated through granular synthesis.
 
Das Bleierne Klavier - Hans Tutschku
Composer and pianist Tutschku’s 11-minute 
work seemed to last an eternity.  Filled with 
the tired gestured of  the European avant-
garde, this second-rate import featured 
the most simplistic delay and processing 
modifications of  the strident piano timbres. 
Harvard University, Tutschku’s home, 
has proved itself  again to be an ultra-
conservative bastion of  “modernism.” 
Many in the audience were angered by 
being subjected to this drudgery.  
Seven Lonely Rivers - Kristi McGarity
A rising star of  the American computer 
music scene is oboist-composer Kristi 
McGarity.  Her work for oboe and tape 
was a wandering, impressionistic, modal 
melody over a tonic pad with contrasting 
sections of  wildlife sounds.  Verging on 
new-age ambiance, it occasionally breaks 
out in unexpected and adventurous ways. 
les jeux sont faits - Tommaso Perego
Violinist Viktoria Horti of  the Onix 
ICMC 2006 Reviews
Tulane University
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
Concert V: Tuesday, 7 November
1:30pm, McAllister Auditorium
by Jon Appleton and Daniel Shapira
Path to the Serene - Yuriko Kojima
Japanese composer Yuriko Kojima’s 
chamber work for the Azure Ensemble 
was beautifully performed.  It was a 
lovely, gentle, colorful, post-Debussy 
work without any significant appearance 
of  computer-generated sound or 
modification of  the flute, violin, cello, 
harp or piano.
Balacoire #15 - Jeremy Baguyos
Goelle Leandre’s vocal techniques are 
the source of  Jeremy Baguyos’s Balacoire 
#15.  An arresting and highly original 
work, it suggests life in a surrealistic 
bird sanctuary.  Sometimes the music 
alternated between the effective use of  
silence and highly humorous organic 
sounds.  Perhaps the looping audio was 
excessive, even if  the repetition was 
intentional.  
Fragmentary Seven - Haruka Hirayama
A rising star of  Japanese computer 
Throughout the concert, Xelo Giner played 
the saxophones with great versatility and 
conviction.
A review of  this concert would be incomplete 
without mentioning an aspect of  all the 
19:30 concerts: there was no interval and 
minimal gaps between the pieces. Preparing 
for the next work by checking the title or 
program notes was not possible unless one 
had brought a torch. My notes on some of  
these pieces were written in total darkness 
and so hard to read. In ICMC 2003 the 
conference pen incorporated a light, and I 
wished I had that with me to record more 
fully my impressions.
Jon Appleton and Daniel ShapiraICMC 2005 Reviewsarray 2007/2008


ICMC 2005 Reviews

Mathews, Max

Lektrowsky’s Will

Bernard Merkowitz, Jennifer

4
As Mara Helmuth wrote in the Array 
newsletter in 2008, we are always 
interested in hearing from potential 
ICMC conference hosts. If  you would 
like information, have any questions 
regarding what hosting an ICMC entails, 
or are considering organizing an ICMC 
conference please contact the VP for 
Conferences Meg Schedel and me (the 
most up-to-date email addresses can be 
found on the ICMA website).  
If  you have any other questions, 
suggestions, comments, or concerns 
regarding the ICMA or the ICMC, please 
do not hesitate to contact me or the 
appropriate ICMA directors or officers. 
We hope to see y’all at the 2011 ICMC in 
Huddersfield! 
Sincerely,
Tae Hong Park
Associate Professor, Composition Program 
Head, Music Science and Technology  
 Programs
Tulane University Music Department
Letter from the Editor
Since our last issue, Array has undergone 
some changes.  The first relates to the 
editorship: as of  January 2010, Margaret 
Schedel has taken on the position of  Vice 
President for Conferences on the ICMA 
board and will no longer be a co-editor 
of  Array.  We thank Meg for her years of  
service to Array, and also for her leadership 
with ICMC 2010.
The second change has to do with the 
format of  Array.  In the past few years, we 
have released issues electronically as PDF 
files.  While that will still occur, Array has 
created a blog to enable a more frequent 
release of  content with an opportunity 
for member feedback.  Please point your 
browsers and RSS readers to http://
arrayblog.wordpress.com.
If  you would be willing to write something 
for Array, have feedback about this issue or 
ideas for future issues or blog posts, please 
send email to array@computermusic.org. 
Those interested in writing a review should 
also include a mailing address and any 
particular areas of  interest, so that I can 
send you any appropriate materials. CD/
DVD and book reviewers will be able to 
keep review copies free of  charge.  If  you 
have materials you would like reviewed, 
please send to:
Tae Hong Park 2009/2010
5
but perhaps that would be easier (because 
of  copyright and performance rights, legal 
and money issues) if  you can appropriately 
protect the mp3 recordings’ access to 
ICMA members only.**
Best regards,
Kari Vakeva
**PS: Note that many composers (at least 
those in Europe, like me) have delegated 
their compositions’ public performance, 
radio and netsite play rights ownership to 
organizations, so general public access to 
the stored recordings may need to bring 
the organizations that own the rights into 
the process? (It’s possible, but may be costly 
and bureaucratic.)
*  *  *  *  *
March 20, 2009
Dear Array editors,
I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed 
this latest issue of  Array. It was nice to 
reminisce via those concert reviews of  the 
past few years, and Max’s short story was 
an unexpected treat.
I thought the discussion of  review purpose 
and integrity was very important. It does 
seem like because the ICMA is such a 
small community that not wanting to upset 
our peers and/or challenge friendships is 
a big part of  the epidemic of  niceness. I 
Dr. Jennifer Merkowitz
Music Department
One Otterbein College
Westerville, OH 43081
USA
Please consider contributing; the success of  
Array depends on input from its readers.  I 
look forward to hearing from you!
Thank you,
Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz
Letters to the Editors
The letters below were received from Array 
readers about the 2007-08 double issue.  
The final letter is from ICMA’s former 
webmaster, Toine Heuvelmans, about the 
possible implementation of  some of  the 
ideas introduced in “The Future of  the 
Concert Review” (pp. 75-76).
February 21, 2009
Dear Array editors,
Here is my answer to your question (ref: 
“The Future of  the Concert Review”) 
“Do you read the reviews in Array as they 
currently stand?”:  Yes, I enjoyed the Array 
2007/2008 issue’s concert reviews! Please 
keep publishing the reviews also in the 
future. Debate, riots and keen journalism, 
even, are most welcome. Maybe you could 
also include some works on the website...
Lettersarray


Letter from the Editor

Wolek, Nathan

5
and allow (as Proverbs reminds us) iron to 
sharpen iron.
I will start by saying that wherever Bob 
has made factual corrections, I of  course 
defer to his statements.  Far be it from me 
to claim to know Bob’s personal history or 
compositional techniques better than he 
does himself.  I read through the liner notes 
included with his CD and tried to use the 
details it provided throughout my review. 
I also researched his biography using a 
variety of  online sources and did my best to 
enrich my listening experience with context 
wherever possible.  If  I there were any 
factual errors with regard to his creative 
process or musical training, I apologize.
Bob’s primary critique of  my review 
centers around the thesis that I injected 
too much of  myself  into the review.  His 
point was that when “the concerns and 
judgments of  the critic take center stage” 
the criticism is “[l]ess useful”.  On this 
point, I must wholeheartedly disagree with 
Bob.  I feel that a review that simply relays 
the facts and organizes that information 
for the reader is more reporting than 
criticism, and to me it often comes across 
as flat and bland.  It is precisely this type 
of  criticism that I took to be one of  the 
things being brought to light by our current 
Array editor (“The Future of  the Concert 
Review”) and Leigh Landy (“Why Haven’t 
I Written about the Pieces Played at 
ICMC?”).  Computer and electronic music 
look forward to seeing it evolve over under 
new leadership in the coming years.
Thank you,
Jennifer Bernard Merkowitz
Letter to the Editor
December 31, 2010
Dear Array editor,
When I opened the PDF of  the latest 
edition of  Array back in August, I was 
tickled to find among the letters to the 
editor a response from Bob Gluck to 
my review of  his CD Electric Brew.  As a 
graduate student, I remember one of  my 
musicology professors telling me about 
the back and forth debates that would 
sometimes ensue in the pages of  academic 
journals as colleagues responded to each 
other.  To suddenly find myself  in the 
midst of  such a debate is a genuine thrill!  
I mean this with all sincerity, something 
we have to be increasingly sure to state 
because of  internet communication’s 
tendency to default to sarcasm.  Fostering 
an environment where such debates can 
happen is a vital function of  professional 
organizations and their publications.  I 
will echo Bob’s call for such exchanges to 
be conducted “in a spirit of  collegiality 
and friendship with the goal of  engaging 
ideas”.  I hope that our open and honest 
discussion will be good for the discipline 
Letter to the Editorarray
6
Miles Davis and either misrepresents or 
misunderstands my point.  He states, 
“Nathan’s position is that the standard 
by which my work should be judged is 
Miles’s original recording.”  I don’t think 
my position was meant to be this extreme.  
It is better understood as an attempt to 
wrestle with the questions of  intertextuality 
that Bob raises himself  through the motifs 
he has excised and connections made in 
his liner notes.  I merely followed these 
leads as a method of  engaging with the 
material and made comparisons where 
they felt most natural.  Imagine if  I were 
to hear only Stravinsky’s Ragtime and never 
investigate what Scott Joplin sounds like.  
What if  I hear Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog 
and never bother to check out Big Mama 
Thornton’s original version?  If  I hear a 
mashup, should I never bother to give the 
two source recordings a listen?  Personally, 
I find these types of  intertextual journeys 
to be incredibly rich and rewarding 
experiences and would encourage such 
engagement from listeners whenever the 
opportunity arises.
Second, Bob took issue with my dismissive 
tone regarding his piece In the Bushes and 
I believe that here he may have a valid 
point.  Instead of  engaging the work in 
question, I took the opportunity to make 
comments on the mini-trend of  “Bush 
pieces” and questioned the long-term 
viability of  such works once the speeches 
used as source material are a faded 
criticism must (to use Bob’s own words) 
“engage the ideas, sounds and processes 
that organically emerge from the work of  a 
composer”.  To me, truly engaging includes 
an attempt to wrestle with aesthetics, what 
works and what doesn’t.  
Injecting oneself  into the writing is an 
accepted form of  criticism, most notably 
by what is known as New Journalism.  This 
form of  writing has roots in the 1960s 
and 1970s, and is associated with such 
American writers as George Plimpton, 
Norman Mailer, Robert Christgau and 
Hunter S. Thompson.  I am by no means 
an expert in New Journalism history or 
all of  its method, but as a reader I am a 
fan.  Readers are invited to compare their 
experiences with those of  the author and 
determine for themselves if  their opinions 
and response to the work in question might 
align.  By bringing elements of  subjectivity 
to the fore and talking about oneself, the 
author can be more open about any biases 
that have informed his opinion instead 
of  pretending to hide behind the veil of  
objectivity.  I believe this is a valid method 
for addressing the call for enhanced 
criticism and stand by my use of  this tactic 
in my writing.  
Aside from the method of  my review, 
there are three specific points that Bob 
raises for which I feel compelled to offer 
a rebuttal.  First, he takes issue with my 
attempts to compare his work to that of  
Nathan Wolek 2010/2011
7
this is an opinion that I can hold without 
it impairing my ability to write an 
informative critique for potential listeners.  
Rather than mask my subjective opinion 
by feigning objectivity, I chose to frame my 
review as an essay that wrestled with the 
question, “Why did I not like this CD?”  I 
followed all of  the leads that Bob’s liner 
notes provided, from Miles Davis to the 
eShofar to The Rite of  Spring to George 
W. Bush.  In my opinion, I think the 
reader comes away with a clear picture 
of  the process I went through trying to 
contextualize and understand this CD.  In 
the end, I was satisfied with my conclusions 
and stand by them.  Of  course, readers are 
always encouraged to listen for themselves 
and judge the work based on what they 
hear.  However, I doubt that most of  
them will be able to give as much time 
and energy to the experience as I did.  To 
engage is hard work!
--Nathan Wolek
memory.  In fact, I really did not address 
Bob’s work at all and hope that readers did 
not confuse my critique of  the trend for a 
critique of  his specific piece.  I apologize 
for letting my injection of  subjectivity 
distract me from addressing the work in 
question, but given the biases I outlined 
perhaps it was for the best.
Finally, Bob mentioned the recording 
techniques used to capture the duets 
between the human and computer-
generated layers on the Disklavier and the 
fact that I “[criticize] the recording for not 
separating these two layers”.  While I do 
not think it would be necessary to go to 
the legendary extremes of  Glenn Gould, 
providing a perspective different from that 
of  a distant concertgoer might help the 
listener appreciate this interplay of  layers 
more.  I will admit that I am a sucker for 
recordings that put me in the perspective 
of  the pianist; I like the low notes on 
the left and the high notes on the right.  
Perhaps this is because I am not a pianist 
and envy the position of  sonic power that 
pianists have at the keyboard.  Regardless, I 
merely hypothesized that such a change in 
the listening perspective on the recording 
might convey the technical feat of  this 
Disklavier piece better than the distant 
stereo pair did.  I’ll leave the debate as an 
exercise for listeners.
I’ll end by restating the bottom line: I 
did not like Electric Brew.  But I believe 
Letter to the Editorarray


Letter to the Editor

Erbe, Tom

5 6
Letter from the President
by Tom Erbe
August 31, 2014
Dear ICMA Members,
I am very happy to see a new issue of  
Array, just in time for the 2014 ICMC 
in	Athens,	Greece.	This	is	our	first	
issue	since	2011,	and	the	first	issue	with	
our new Array Editor, Christopher 
Haworth. I’m thankful for Christopher’s 
contribution to the ICMA, and hope 
that this means we will return to a 
yearly publication schedule.
I want to take a moment to thank 
all of  our new and our continuing 
board members. These are completely 
voluntary, uncompensated positions, 
and without the generous donation of  
time and energy, the ICMA and ICMC 
would not continue.
This year is somewhat of  a reboot of  
the ICMA, with many new faces joining 
us on the ICMA board, or as ICMA 
officers.	In	addition	to	Christopher	
Haworth as our Array Editor, I would 
also like to welcome Arshia Cont of  
IRCAM as our new European Regional 
Director, Eric Honour of  the University 
of  Central Missouri as our new American 
Regional Director, PerMagnus Lindborg 
of  the Nanyang Technological University 
as our new Music Coordinator, and 
Michael Gurevich of  the University of  
Michigan as our new VP of  Membership. 
And	of 	course,	this	is	my	first	year	as	
President of  the ICMA.
With such change, it will probably take 
us a few beats before we can get things 
going smoothly, but soon we’ll be able 
to maintain the high level of  excellence 
set by our former president, Tae Hong 
Park. Under his direction, we have 
accomplished many important things. 
First in my mind is the online archive 
(at the University of  Michigan) of  all 
papers presented at the ICMC since 1974. 
Having this online will expose anyone 
interested in computer music and audio 
to the important work our members 
have done over the years. Second are the 
student travel grants. It is very important 
to us to encourage new researchers to 
present their work at the ICMC, and 
the travel grants aim to reduce one 
potential obstacle. Finally, Tae Hong 
has maintained the consistent excellence 
of  the ICMC conference, keeping it a 
truly diverse and international forum for 
computer music research.
In the upcoming year, we have several 
goals. First is to increase the student travel 
scholarships. Second is to increase the 
Letter from the President Letter from the Editor
communication between the ICMA and 
our members through social media, email, 
and of  course, this publication. Third, 
we plan to collaborate with the Electro-
Acoustic Music Mine project to archive 
all of  the music performed at the ICMC 
(NYU libraries have committed their 
support, and server space, for this project). 
We anticipate this will be as important a 
research resource as the ICMC proceedings 
archive at the University of  Michigan. 
Finally, we are committed to our main 
purpose, putting on and improving the 
yearly ICMC conference. And for this, we 
are always looking for potential conference 
hosts. If  you have any interest in hosting, 
please contact our Vice President for 
Conferences, Meg Schedel, or myself.
For all these activities, we rely on your 
input, comments, and participation. Please 
feel free to contact us with any suggestions, 
ideas, or concerns.
Hope to see you in Athens!
Tom Erbe
President, ICMA
Associate Professor of  Computer Music, 
UC San Diego
Letter from the Editor
by Christopher Haworth
As Tom mentioned, we are keen to have 
Array return to an annual publication 
schedule as of  this year. The next issue 
will be broadly directed to a theme: 
the changing relationship between ‘art’ 
and ‘popular’ musics in the computer 
music community. Ten years ago, genres 
such as noise, electonica and electronic 
dance	music	were	represented	at	‘off-
ICMC’ concerts; fringe events scheduled 
simultaneously with the main conference. 
But the introduction of  club events and 
late night concerts, not to mention the rise 
of  boundary genres such as live coding, 
suggest that important changes are taking 
place. If  you have something to say about 
this changing relationship, either as a 
concert-goer, composer, or otherwise, then 
please get in touch with me at the address 
below. We are keen to hear from you.
As always, Array needs reviewers. If  you 
would like to write about a publication, 
concert, new record, or similar, then 
again, write to me at address below.
Finally, I’d like to say a big thank you to 
the former editor, Scott McLaughlin. 
Much of  the credit for this larger-than-
usual issue goes to him.  
array.journal@gmail.com. 
array 2010/2011
6
3 4


Letter from the President

Kim-Cohen, Seth

ICMC 2012 Keynote Address

After the sad news of David Wessel’s&nbsp;death at the end of 2014, John&nbsp;Chowning collected the following&nbsp;tributes from David’s friends,&nbsp;colleagues and former students. Array&nbsp;is pleased to be able to publish a&nbsp;selection here (with special thanks to&nbsp;Chryssie Nanou).
By John Chowning,&nbsp;Jean-Claude Risset, Roger Reynolds, François Bayle,&nbsp;Vijay Iyer, Chris Chafe, Adrian Freed, Fred Lerdahl, Mark Applebaum, Aaron Einbon

7 8
David Wessel Remembered John Chowning et al
David Wessel Remembered
After the sad news of David Wessel’s 
death at the end of 2014, John 
Chowning collected the following 
tributes from David’s friends, 
colleagues and former students. Array 
is pleased to be able to publish a 
selection here (with special thanks to 
Chryssie Nanou).
John Chowning
In my first years of  teaching at 
Stanford University, I was listed as 
faculty in percussion in addition to 
computer music and theory.  I was 
approached in 1966 by a graduate 
student in Psychology who asked me 
to give him percussion lessons and 
thus began a friendship with David 
Wessel that continued until his sudden 
death on Oct 13, 2014.  In fact, he was 
already an accomplished jazz drummer, 
but he wanted to work on new music 
repertoire—reading and performing.  
I was intensely interested in what he 
knew about perception and he was 
equally interested in the work that I was 
pursuing in computer music.  He saw 
immediately the vast research and musical 
potential of  Max Mathews’ application 
of  the sampling theorem to music.  It 
became the seed from which most of  
his work sprouted because it allowed the 
manipulation and study of  sound in a 
new way - and even David’s most abstract 
ideas and creations were never far from 
sound! 
It is not easy to write about someone who 
has been such a close friend and colleague 
for so many years.  Writing thoughts and 
feelings about David seems to stop him 
in place, when his personality and ideas 
were always evolving — in motion.  I 
am also aware that my knowledge of  
David is bounded by my own limitations; 
there is much of  David’s work that is 
beyond my capacity to know.  And so I 
asked colleagues and friends to write a 
few sentences regarding David, whether 
as artist, teacher, colleague, friend — 
whatever.  Thus, we find solace in reading 
these tributes.  We see how his ideas 
sprout ideas that continue to evolve — in 
motion — through generations!  
David was remarkable and so are those 
who worked with him — and that is not 
by chance, I believe.
Jean-Claude Risset
David Wessel has been a most inspired 
and inspiring figure in computer music. 
His inventiveness, his insight, his 
imagination, his curiosity, his dedication, 
his communicative enthusiasm, his 
generosity, his warmth have been great 
assets to the development of  computer 
music. His numberless contributions were 
of  great importance for musical creation, 
performance and theory. His speculative 
ideas were potent and audacious, well 
organized and clearly formulated. His 
bold visions were always practical. He 
was instrumental in establishing standards 
helping to share musical data and to make 
the development of  computer music 
resources a collective endeavor.
David contributed to make the notion 
of  timbral space familiar and useful. 
As a performing musician with deep 
skills in mathematics and psychology, 
he developed methods to establish 
personalized timbre maps permitting 
predictions about the combination of  
sounds. Such maps provided navigational 
help for musicians interested in exploring 
the continuum of  timbre.
David was like a beacon. Many musicians, 
scientists, and students were set in motion 
by David’s flow of  suggestions. David 
played an extremely useful role in IRCAM 
in the 1970s and 1980s, and he created 
and developed CNMAT, a most original 
and active institution for musical research 
and creation.  I always enjoyed working 
with David, and I am personally deeply 
grateful for his help and his incentive 
proposals. His death is a great loss for 
the community, but he leaves a path to 
continue and an example to follow.
Roger Reynolds 
We encounter, in the course of  our 
lives, many people. But also few. Some 
categories of  people have only one 
occupant. David Wessel was one of  those. 
He had a singular ability to catalyze 
creative awareness and growth, whatever 
the circumstances. His capaciousness of  
mind was disconcerting. I encountered 
him at Ircam in the early 1980s. He 
seemed almost magical, a migratory bird, 
a stork of  the intellect who delivered 
bundles of  useful insight and perspective 
both inevitably, and inexhaustibly. It 
was like this: the geometry of  Ircam 
involves several levels of  offices and 
studios. Different (often very) individual 
researchers and teams inhabit these 
spaces. David followed a meandering 
path through the facility that resulted, 
for the occupants of  each space, in 
unexpected visits. One day he would 
appear. He wanted to know what you 
were up to, what difficulties you might be 
array 2015/2016
9 10
David Wessel Remembered John Chowning et al
having, what discoveries were emergent. 
He was a gifted listener in that he 
grasped quickly what the center of  the 
situation was – whether all was well or 
whether components in the mix needed 
to be realigned in some way so as to 
become more productive. He gave away 
insights, references, parallels, enabling 
connectivities and proposals for action in a 
prodigious way. Then – suddenly realizing 
that something else called he would 
exclaim (it always seemed genuine) “I’ll 
be right back!”, upon which he would exit 
the space and continue his unknowable 
route through ‘the house’. His return 
could easily be weeks later, but he would 
pick the discussion up where it had been 
left as though it had only been a few 
minutes. Anyone who knew David could 
tell story after story of  ways in which his 
zest for life, for ideas, for experience, and 
for the tenderly caramelized pleasures of  
food and drink and companionship was 
made manifest for them. (I remember the 
perilous elasticity of  the ancient floors in 
his Rue Quincampoix apartment, and 
the delicious experience of  enduring 
Syberberg’s 5-hour Parsifal with him.) 
David made not one but many impacts 
on my life for which I will be always and 
deeply grateful. His accomplishments as 
a person and as an actor in this pageant 
of  life we inhabit are to be admired and 
remembered for themselves but also 
because of  the generosity of  mind and 
spirit that they displayed. Always.
François Bayle
David Wessel, with his lucid and generous 
sensitivity: an emeritus figure of  our 
beautiful musical history!
Vijay Iyer
Today my dear friend and mentor, 
Professor David Wessel of  University of  
California, Berkeley, passed away very 
suddenly. 
It’s difficult to convey the impact this 
man had on my life.  Twenty years ago I 
was in a confused spiral out of  a physics 
PhD program, and he found me, took 
me under his wing, calmed me down 
and helped me study music on my own 
terms, in the special place that he founded 
-- the Center for New Music and Audio 
Technologies (CNMAT).  
I spent those next four years in constant 
contact with him. He taught me about 
the ear, the brain, the body, pitch, timbre, 
rhythm, improvisation, perception and 
cognition, mathematics, computation, 
neuroscience, signal processing, statistics, 
and psychology.  Through him I met 
George Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell, Jonathan 
Harvey, Oliver Johnson, J.D. Parran, 
Erv Hafter, Anthony Braxton, Steve 
Lacy, David Zicarelli, Salamat Ali Khan, 
and dozens of  other amazing folks.  I 
programmed in Max, witnessed the 
beginnings of  MSP, and learned about 
electroacoustic music. I gave my first 
conference talks, saw my first academic 
publications, and wrote a dissertation 
under his guidance.  
We also made music together: me on 
piano, and David on his interface of  
choice -- a keyboard connected to a 
sampler, or the Buchla Thunder, or finally 
his own Slabs (shown above) -- along with 
computers that fit in two suitcases and 
later in one backpack, running programs 
he created that implemented ideas he 
developed. Inspired by the creative 
music movement and by experimental 
psychology, he was a totally original artist 
who thought for himself.
A true leader, teacher, and friend, David 
Wessel left an immeasurably huge legacy 
of  ideas. He changed dozens if  not 
hundreds of  lives. He will always be a 
guiding force in my life and work.  
So long, David. I don’t know where 
I would be right now if  you hadn’t 
intervened at that moment in 1994, but I 
know that this was the better path by far. 
Chris Chafe 
This might not be well known. In addition 
to everything David and I did 
together (mentor, boss of  the best kind, 
colleague, musical partner, 
advisor) he had a campus radio show in 
Michigan when I was a college 
student living in the same town. The 
music was the finest selection of  
new work from all over the world with a 
special focus on Chicago and his 
colleagues in improvised music. It was 
awe-inspiring and life-changing.
Adrian Freed
David certainly did exactly as Jean-
Claude Risset described at IRCAM 
then, and it was a pleasure to help him 
in that endeavor by using the awkward 
opportunity of  replacing the PDP10 with 
the UNIX system. One of  my first memos 
as Responsable du Service Informatique 
was sent to the entire staff. I introduced 
the new system and mentioned that 
everyone’s desk would have a terminal 
on it so we could e-mail each other and 
use the system for word processing, music 
production and scientific research and 
analysis. This caused an uproar from 
the factions who thought the system 
should be for them exclusively. Boulez 
called a plenary meeting to sort it out, 
listened carefully to everyone’s concerns 
and posturing, and then simply declared 
that everyone should cooperate with my 
array 2015/2016
11 12
David Wessel Remembered
proposal. I had never seen such power 
wielded so quietly before - the efficiency 
of  a mostly benevolent dictatorship.  
Underwriting the promise was hard work, 
but the resources kept appearing to do it 
- another staff member, consultants from 
the US etc. David was behind that. 
David loved this environment of  ‘rolling 
up the sleeves’ to move things forward and 
made it easy for me to forge friendships 
and collaborations with Bennett Smith, 
Steve MacAdams, Xavier Rodet and so 
many others. 
These last days I have been called very 
much to the present and future - helping 
David’s family and the CNMAT family 
through this difficult time.
Thanks for bringing me to think back 
to those early days with David - the 
beginning for me of  a fabulous ride on 
that magic carpet he made for us to fly on.
Fred Lerdahl
David and I became acquainted in 
the early 1980s, first at a music-brain 
conference in Ossiach, Austria, and then 
during residencies that I had at Ircam. 
He was a living library of  information 
in experimental psychology, music 
perception, and computer music. His 
brain was the ultimate parallel processor. 
When he had an abstracted air, as he 
often did, it was because he was juggling 
five trains of  thought at once. He also 
exuded personal magic, a reflection of  
his boundless enthusiasm and generosity 
of  spirit. Exchanging ideas with him was 
always exciting.
At Ircam he was my first and most 
important instructor in psychoacoustics 
and computational thinking. He 
helped guide my attempts to adapt the 
theoretical constructions in A Generative 
Theory of  Tonal Music (at the time 
not yet published) as a computer aid to 
composition. A few years later, inspired by 
his pioneering work on timbral spaces and 
by our many conversations about the role 
of  timbre in contemporary composition, I 
explored the proposition that timbre could 
be organized hierarchically. This project, 
though only a qualified success, proved to 
be fruitful in a larger sense, for it set me 
on the path toward a far more successful 
model of  pitch space. Thus much of  my 
work in music theory and cognition is 
indebted to conversations with David. 
This is typical of  him: all his life, out of  
his vast knowledge and imagination, he 
sparked ideas in students and colleagues, 
ideas that changed their careers.
After the Ircam years we saw each other 
intermittently. But in 2011, while I was 
the visiting Bloch professor at UC/
Berkeley, we resumed our conversations 
in earnest and devoted several sessions 
of  my graduate seminar, which he 
regularly attended, to issues of  timbral 
organization. It is unspeakably sad to 
John Chowning et al
bnz
realize that the conversations are over. 
I will remember him above all, beyond 
his intellectual brilliance, for his personal 
kindness.
Mark Applebaum
I think that this tribute could even invite 
some mention of  his passion for the 
culinary arts, particularly molecular 
gastronomy and other super fussy, 
meticulous, assiduous approaches 
involving subtle techniques and esoteric 
apparatuses for making delicate foams 
and the like.  David so often had a twinkle 
in his eye.  But it was particularly bright 
when he discussed his latest culinary 
obsession.  I always inferred that the 
acumen he demonstrated in the musical 
lab as a creative thinker, researcher, and 
artist—brilliant, insightful, and often with 
a twinge of  ‘naughty nerd’—was applied 
in parallel service of  his foodie fetish.  It 
struck me as a kind of  portable genius 
personality trait.
(On another food note: I once had 
dinner with David and Matt Wright at a 
restaurant near IRCAM; midway through 
the meal he looked around and, 
as if  having a flashback, noted ‘I had 
dinner here once with Karlheinz 
Stockhausen.’) More generally, the quality 
that I so appreciated was his kindness 
and support.  He was such an important  
mentor for so many people—both formal 
students and everyone else who came in 
contact with him.  That was an important 
‘competence’ that, particularly for the 
community he touched, is equal to his 
impressively broad ‘disciplinary’ legacy.
Aaron Einbond
When I was a young graduate student 
at CNMAT in Berkeley, in one of  his 
seminars generously overflowing with 
ideas, David said, paraphrasing Paul Klee, 
that he wanted to ‘take a walk in timbre 
space’. All of  my own composition and 
research since then has been inspired by 
this idea. But it was his way of  life as well: 
moving in a multi-dimensional space, 
always curious, crossing borders and 
categories, sharing knowledge and joy with 
everyone along the way.
array 2015/2016


David Wessel Remembered

Lindborg, PerMagnus

Styles, Suzy J.

Special Issue: Proceedings of Si15

From a first-­person research method, using&nbsp;the perspective of Singaporean experimental Chinese music&nbsp;group SA, this paper discusses the questions of motivation for incorporating technology with ethnic Chinese&nbsp;music instruments from a socio-cultural perspective; how this incorporation of technology&nbsp;is performed and&nbsp;has affected&nbsp; the perception of sound performance for the musicians; what were the initial challenges and how&nbsp;the challenges were overcome

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