Philippe Manoury - En Echo / Neptune (1999)

Philippe Manoury is one of the world's leading composers and computer music researchers. He studied composition with Gerard Condé and Max Deutsch (one of Schoenberg's first students in Vienna), and at the Conservatoire National de Musique de Paris, with Michel Philippot and Ivo Malec. He studied computer-assisted composition with Pierre Barbaud beginning in 1976.

In 1978, Philippe began teaching in Brazil at universities in Sao Paulo, Brasilia, and other locations. A major appointment followed at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Lyon (1986-96). Most significant is his long association with the world's leading center for computer music research, IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), a branch of the Centre George Pompidou in Paris. Philippe has worked as a musical researcher (in collaboration with Miller Puckette) since 1981, and as a Professor of Composition since 1993. At IRCAM Manoury composed Zeitlauf (1981), a work for mixed choir, instrumental ensemble, synthesizers, and tape.

For the European Year of Music, the Council of Europe commissioned Manoury to compose Aleph, which premiered in 1985. He also wrote a series of chamber works, including Musique I and II, and Instantanés. In 1992 and 1993 he composed La Nuit du Sortilège, which won an award from the UNESCO International Composers' Tribune. In 1999, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Cleveland commissioned Sound and Fury, premiered by Pierre Boulez.

Philippe has composed three operas, 60e Parallèle, K..., and La Frontière. K... was commissioned and premiered by the Paris Opera in 2001. One of his most important works is Sonus ex Machina, a series of compositions (Jupiter, Pluton, Neptune and La Partition du Ciel et de l'Enfer) for solo instruments, ensemble and real-time computer processing. Mr. Manoury was also composer in residence at the Orchestre de Paris where he composed Noon, a large piece for soprano, choir, orchestra and electronics. It was premiered by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

In 2005, Philippe composed Identités remarquables and Strange Ritual for the Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Modern Ensemble. Recently, Mr. Manoury premiered On-Iron, a 75-minute oratorio for choir, percussion, electronics and video which toured five cities in France.

Mr. Manoury will have an immediate impact on our composition, computer music, and ICAM (computer music) programs. He will be available as a senior mentor to Ph.D. candidates in composition, teach the Music 203 composition seminar, 103 undergraduate composition seminar, 270 computer music seminars, and 210 musical analysis.

"Philippe Manoury's Jupiter (1987) is a pioneering work, the first to use score-following to synchronize live electronics with the performer."-James Harley, composer

"Manoury's score (Last, 1997) puts the unlikeliest of musical partners, a bass clarinetist and a marimbist, through an exhilarating relay race."-John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune

"En echo is a succulent extravaganza of computer-generated sounds interacting with the purity of a solo soprano."-Keith Potter, The Independent (London)

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En echo

En echo (1993-1994) pour soprano et dispositif électronique en temps réel

d’après des poèmes de Emmanuel Hocquart

1. La rivière
2. Un jardin
3. Broadway
4. Mea lux
5. Betty
6. Mon visage
7. La table

commande de Françoise et Jean-Philippe Billarant ;
oeuvre réalisée à l’IRCAM (Miller Puckette : concepteur scientifique ; Cort Lippe et Leslie Stuck : assistants musicaux)
durée : 32 min.
première audition : 26.02.1994, Paris, IRCAM / Donatienne Michel-Dansac (S), Philippe Manoury (projection sonore) Technique IRCAM

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Neptune

Neptune (1991)

pour trois percussionnistes et dispositif électronique en temps réel

commande de l’association Les Amis du Centre Georges Pompidou ; oeuvre de réalisée à l’IRCAM (Miller Puckette : concepteur scientifique ; Cort Lippe : assistant musical)
durée : 40 min.
première audition : 26.06.1991, Paris, Centre d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou,

Vincent Bauer (perc), Michel Cerutti (perc), Daniel Ciampolini (perc), Philippe Manoury (projection sonore)

link@320

Jonathan Harvey - From Silence, Nataraja, Ritual Melodies (1993)

There’s a strange dichotomy, a paradox almost, at the heart of Jonathan Harvey’s music. On the one hand he has been more involved with exploring the possibilities of electroacoustics and computer techniques than any other British composer of his generation. That is the Harvey represented on the Bridge compilation: From Silence was the result of a residency at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988, and involves electronic keyboard, computer and pre-recorded tape; Ritual Melodies is a tape piece realised at IRCAM in 1990. Both are supremely accomplished works, elegantly crafted and full of beautifully imagined sound complexes. Yet the other Harvey is the composer of religious works, often for unaccompanied chorus, exemplified by the Joyful Company’s survey. It shouldn’t seem paradoxical, but in an age when radicalism has been equated with rationalism it does, though the broad range of Harvey’s sympathies (the most substantial piece on the ASV disc, Forms of Emptiness, combines texts by e e cummings with Sanskrit and English extracts from the Buddhist Heart Sutra) takes these pieces far beyond any narrow prescription of a specific religious tradition. Apart from some of the compositional techniques, it is hard to find many points of contact between the portraits of Harvey offered on these two discs; he remains one of Britain’s most intriguing composers and, I suspect, probably one of the most important ones.

-- Andrew Clements, BBC Music Magazine [in arkivmusic]

	Nataraja by Jonathan Harvey
	Performer: Harrie Starreveld (Flute), René Eckhardt (Piano), Harrie Starreveld (Piccolo) Period: 20th Century Written: 1983; England		Venue: Sweelinck Conservatory, Amsterdam Length: 10 Minutes 2 Secs.
	Ritual Melodies by Jonathan Harvey
	Period: 20th Century Written: 1989-1990; England		Length: 13 Minutes 26 Secs.
	Notes: This selection was realized at IRCAM, Paris.
	From Silence by Jonathan Harvey
	Performer: John MacDonald (Keyboard), Philip Sohn (Computer), Kathleen Supové (Keyboard), Dean Anderson (Percussion), Marcus Thompson (Viola), Lucy Chapman Stoltzman (Violin), Karol Bennet (Soprano), David Atherton (Tapes), Diana Dabby (Keyboard), Brent Koeppel (Computer), Ken Malsky (Computer) Conductor: Barry Vercoe Orchestra/Ensemble: MIT Chamber Ensemble Period: 20th Century Written: 1988; England		Length: 21 Minutes 45 Secs.
	Notes: This selection was realized at the Media Laboratory at MIT. link@320

Evan Parker + Lawrence Casserley - Solar Wind (1997)

"I approached Solar Wind by Evan Parker (soprano Sax) and Lawrence Casserley (signal processing instruments) without looking at covers, titles or liner notes. Waves of acoustic, electronic, analog and digital cyclic delays, inseparable music expanding in all directions at once. Particles/waves of sound some with no discernible mass, shooting through. My perception is without pause for association. The intended equal with the unintended. Muffled bottom end and difference tones are sieved from the colliding systems above. I go looking for Parker in this mist - his instrument has expanded into a metasax. Four minutes into the second track he suddenly emerges, the rasp of his reed chased by an attentive delay which diffuses into overall washes and strangely vocal-like side effects. Computational number crunching produces digital glitches and pops that provide a topography, a surface, like the dust in Duchamp's Large Glass. Serene long tones against a faint tapping evolve into sculptured slithers of shimmering unstable filtered tones. At one point there are lots of raucous little harmonized Parkers sounding like my modem. Foreground and background crossfade as new distortions evolve.

This music mimics natural open-ended systems because this is a chaotic natural phenomena itself. The byproducts of process are everywhere, nagging difference tones and the gritty dirt of chaos. Gated turbulence is engulfed by searing long tones that fry your ears with intensity (phased sherbetty tingly sensations). Key clicking foregrounds with power and presence: digital drips in a sea of bright white sound. It's an awesome CD. After listening I peruse the photos of Karen Mirza, Jon Wozencroft's design, the quote from Borges in the booklet and the ambiguous titles. None would have harmed my experience." Jim Denley, Resonance

1. Pachacamac
2. Epicycles
3. Coyolxauhqui
4. The Central Region [for Michael Snow]
5. Tlaloc
6. Solar Wind

Evan Parker - Soprano Sax
Lawrence Casserley - Signal Processing Instruments

link @320 (back again)

Read an article by Casserley himself on the technical apparatus behind this recording here.