FLOATING SOUND GALLERY

Vienna

Circuit Fantôme - Prelude

Season 4 Episode 0

23.02.2024 > Acousmatic Minifestival SECOND DAY

curated by Todor Todoroff, Sophie Delafontaine a-nd Anton Iakhontov
co-production of Belgian Federation for Electroacoustic Music (BeFEM) Alcôme and Floating Sound Gallery Vienna
in cooperation with 4lthangrund

L O C A T I O N – 4 L T H A N G R U N D

19.00-22.00
Doors open at 18.30
Pay as you wish

︎Althangrund für alle, Augasse 2-6, 1090 Wien

Supported by Stadt Wien Kultur

Information
About the Event

MINIFESTIVAL

Circuit Fantôme Season 4 Episode 0
Composers

@4lthangrund

- - - - - - 23.02.2024 - - - - - -

Sophie Delafontaine
Boris Shershenkov

Elizabeth Anderson
Laryssa Kim
Daniel Perez Hajdu
Gaëtan Arhuero
Raphaël Vens

Programme

_{Sophie Delafontaine}

Since the age of four, Sophie Delafontaine has loved and discovered several genres of music through her dance practice. She stumbled upon acousmatic music while dancing and moving. At age 20, she left Switzerland on a piece of advice from Sylvette Vezin and moved to Belgium where she studied acousmatic composition at the Conservatoire royal de Mons / Arts2 — École supérieure des arts (Mons, Belgium) with Annette Vande Gorne, Philippe Mion, and Ingrid Drese. She obtained her master’s degree in 2014. She gradually understood that what drives her interest for acousmatic art — the concrète approach — is the relationship between acousmatic music and contemporary dance she was taught through Alwin Nikolaïs’s philosophy.

Creux-du-Van, 11'56"

Although I spent all my childhood in Lausanne (Switzerland), my family comes from the Jura region. I did not go there often but I keep a vivid memory of a stroll in Creux-du-Van. It is a huge rock amphitheatre. From its heights, one has a spectacular view over a large part of the Jura region, but what struck me most is how you can see the various layers of rock inside the amphitheatre left exposed by the slow erosion of a glacier.

In this work, I wanted to recreate the specific atmosphere of that place, imagine the wind spinning inside this gigantic hollow and the water that flows between layers of rock. The strata overlap and then separate. Time flows slowly and inevitably reveals new landforms.

^{— Sophie Delafontaine [English translation: François Couture, iii-19]}

Ressort spiral, 10’35’’

To Cyril

Everything is small in the world of watchmaking. So small sometimes that things barely make any noise; so small your eyes hurt.
The spiral spring [“ressort spiral”] is the centrepiece of the watch. It is attached to the pendulum to which it relays the energy that makes the watch turn. In this tiny part is stored all the energy the watch needs to operate. The spiral spring is energized when the watch is wound up, then it relaxes gradually, making the hands rotate for days.

I am fascinated by this contradiction. How can such a tiny thing have such strength?
While creating this music I immersed myself in my grandfather’s universe. With the help of my second cousin, an apprentice in fine watchmaking, I was able to discover a part of a world that I had only glimpsed.

^{— Sophie Delafontaine [English translation: François Couture, iii-19]}

Ondiésop, 07’03’’

We begin

Let’s start

Let’s sing

The Muses

of our mountains

This is where we must start

in order to sing.

Let’s start

with the Mountain Muses

They who keep

the Great Enchanted Mountain.

Excerpted from Hesiod’s Theogony (as translated in French by Matteo Capponi) under the title La naissance des dieux [our translation]

^{— Sophie Delafontaine [English translation: François Couture, iii-19]}

Ondiésop was realized in 2015 at the composer’s studio in Brussels (Belgium) and premiered on October 25, 2015, during the L’Espace du son festival at Théâtre Marni in Brussels (Belgium). It was commissioned by Musiques & Recherches. Thanks to Lucie Rausis (recorded voice) and Matteo Capponi.

Gris souris, 10’03’’

Ardoise noire de brune
Ardoise gris souris
Ardoise bleue de lune
Satin du matin
Velours de la nuit
Ardoise éblouie

extrait de « Ardoises » de Jacques Prévert

Trouée, 11’24’’

Waiting
Waiting
Looking at the sky
Waiting
The clouds
Waiting
Still waiting
A breakthrough
I began composing this piece in February 2020, during a residency in the Musiques & Recherches multiphonic studio. Unfortunately, the Covid's initial confinement stopped me in my tracks. I was only able to continue working in August. The second wave of the epidemic interrupted me again, and I finally finished my music in March 2021. It's the first time I've worked in such a fragmented way. This has certain advantages: it's easier to step back from what you're doing as time goes by. But it's still hard to get back into creating something that's been put aside for over 6 months. I should mention the rather particular context of this creation, as it has inevitably influenced my work and ties in with the subject I wanted to tackle in my piece: waiting. What to do with waiting? Dread it or enjoy it? Personally, I find it hard to bear in any context. Creating this piece, in the context of the Covid pandemic, has helped me to accept it more serenely. I hope you enjoy the dose of expectation in my music and savor it with relish.
Composed with the help of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. [2021]

_{Boris Shershenkov}

Engineer and sound artist, curator of Electroacoustic Music Lab LEMESG at GES-21. Among his interests — electroacoustic improvisation, spatial sound installation, design and development of musical instruments.

Lobus Temporalis. Pt. 1: Neural Oscillation, 20’, 2024

Lobus temporalis is the Latin term for temporal lobe, one of the major lobes of the cerebral cortex gathering together neural structures involved in primary auditory perception, processing of semantics, emotional association and formation of memories. The sounds that stimulate all these brain functions together we refer to as music. Or, maybe, the music itself is something that originates from the interconnections between the neural networks in the temporal lobe.

The Lobus temporalis project uses electroacoustic devices, audio analysis and synthesis software, machine learning systems and artificial neural networks as the models for these brain functions, trying to recreate the sense of musicality in everyday phenomena.

“Neural oscillation” is the live electronic piece for Acousmonium, software and custom-made electroacoustic instruments.

_{Elizabeth Anderson}

Elizabeth Anderson’s artistic production comprises acousmatic, mixed, and radiophonic works as well as works for multimedia and sound installations. Her music has won international awards and has been performed in international venues for over thirty years.

L’Heure bleue: renaître du silence, 16’38”, 2016

To my mother.
L’Heure bleue: renaître du silence addresses the re-awakening of the human being and its environments which are illustrated through acousmatic sound.

The barely audible beginning represents the human perception of the re-awakening of the senses and the recognition of surrounding life and civilization as it also comes to life at l’heure bleue. The re-awakening of the physical body takes place through the simplicity and happiness of solitary play, and this joyous energy later expands to a societal level. Following, is the perception of the larval stages of nature which unfold to herald the re-awakening of nature. The work concludes with the psychological and, finally, spiritual re-awakening of the human being.

Years of experience in modern dance informed the compositional process. Initial sound material for the work was recorded in the countryside and seaside in Wissant (France), in the Cathedral of St Michael and St Gudula and the Foire du Midi in Brussels (Belgium), as well as in the city of Istanbul (Turkey).

L’Heure bleue: renaître du silence was realized in 2015-16 at the multiphonic studio of the Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM) in Paris (France) and at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium) and premiered on October 8, 2016 as part of the Multiphonies series presented by the Ina-GRM at the Auditorium Saint-Germain of the MPAA (Paris, France). The piece was commissioned by Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM). L’Heure bleue: renaître du silence was composed with support from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (Direction générale de la culture, Service de la musique). Thanks to Xavier Deprez, Daniel Teruggi, and Annette Vande Gorne for their assistance.

_{Laryssa Kim}

Foresta magique, 07’58’’

“Sogno o son desto ? " René Descartes

“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva d’unscura, che diritta via era smarrita. Ah, as for what era it was, it lasted a long time and it was strong and strong, and I thought it would be better ! ”Dante Alighieri

Suddenly in an enchanted forest, what seems like it might not be. What are the creatures that inhabit it ? Inanimate objects seem to come to life ! Where am I, where am I going? Before we know it, we are surrounded by the rhythm of the new reality. Several doors open, several doors close. Where will this journey take us? Everyone has their own imagination. [2022]

_{Daniel Perez Hajdu}

Abstraire, 10’53’’, 2014

Starting from a complex sound material, to draw out the lines of force, the functions present in it and on which it will be a question of building. From this particular concrete, abstract the general, the signifier. These behaviours and characters are likely to serve as a basis for a writing and a discourse. In the particular case of this piece, the basic function is rotation. It is the first level of abstraction, the one that unifies and justifies all presence, the starting point. Then the rotation itself is in turn the object of abstractions of various types. This is the second level. Thus, it is sometimes an abstraction that we will describe as primitive, magical, or poetic that induces a metaphorical musicality, carried by a certain idea of ritual. Sometimes it is certain perceptive and constitutive criteria of a rotational movement which, having been isolated, are transposed and applied to a musical writing and the medium, and this, once again, according to different degrees and types of abstraction (image, rhythm, montage). The third level of abstraction is finally the´one that organises the evolution of the degree or type of abstraction throughout the piece, thus giving it its abstract form. This evolution takes place in successive episodes, thus starting from the vital magical abstraction that anchors a certain relationship of the human to the world, to arrive progressively and finally at the formal abstraction of the material itself, still anchoring this same relationship of the human to the world, but in a completely different way.

Abstraire was composed with the support of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (Direction générale de la culture, Service de la musique).

_{Gaëtan Arhuero}

Funambule, 09’18’’

Progress, word by word over time. Bubbles play with fire on a continuous line sometimes interspersed with dizziness as furtive as the fall of a spark or the obstacle of a follicle.

_{Raphaël Vens}

Dans les spires du serpen (In the spirals of the snake), 09’30’’, 2022

In different spiritual cultures, the snake represents contradictory meanings associated with the chaos, the cosmos, life and death. This piece intertwines voice and electronic music is tought as a ritual. It is an homage to Stephan Dunkleman, a composer and a friend that left too soon. The vocal material is extracted from work sessions between Stephan and Maja Jantar, a vocal improviser, with whom he collaborated. Through this composition, I wish to be a relay and creae a passage between the past into which Stephan entered too early and the vivacity of the present moment.