• Set Séminaires Recherche & Création
  • In Threatening Possibilities: A Californian Composer's Dive Into Real-Time Technology and Computer-Aided Composition
  • May 26, 2014
  • Ircam, Paris
Participants
  • Matthew Schumaker (conférencier)

"I present my work with live electronics and computer-aided composition in three recent pieces: In threatening possibilities (2012), for two singers, large ensemble and electronics; Nocte Lux (2013), for two cellos, bass and electronics; and a work-in-progress for soprano and orchestra. The first two were undertaken at UC Berkeley's Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) and the third is being created during an ongoing Berkeley Ladd fellowship in Paris. This work engages live-electronics with real-time voice and instrument processing using Ircam objects for granular synthesis and a variety of other signal processing. I also employ live electronics to create a hybrid instrument: a custom-designed, computer-interactive sampler keyboard that performs with continuously changing, physical modelling sound sets created in Modalys. Computer-aided composition tools in OpenMusic are employed to investigate personal ideas of virtual thematism and interpolation between musical lines.

Bio
Matthew Schumaker majored in Music and Philosophy as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College and received an MA in Music Composition from Princeton University. Following this, he studied composition with Louis Andriessen through Holland’s Royal Conservatory. In 2004, he began an administrative position producing concerts for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. There he rediscovered an excitement for works engaging with real-time computer music technology and computer-aided composition. Sometime later, he decided to return to school to pursue these interests and complete his doctorate. In Fall 2012, he advanced to candidacy in the PhD program in Music Composition at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studies with Professors Edmund Campion, Cindy Cox, Franck Bedrossian and David Wessel. (..)

Matthew continues to be an active proponent of new music in the Bay Area and has held positions with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Rova Saxophone Quartet and the Eco Ensemble. Over the course of a decade, he has helped to produce performances of more than 75 pieces by living composers, including many world premieres and works involving real-time computer music technology.