Archive

TIMARA Professor Presenting Concert in NYC

May 9, 2012

TIMARA Professor Peter Swendsen will showcase a number of recent works, including two new pieces and the US premiere of "Allusions to Seasons and Weather". The concert will take place at 7:00PM on May 31st at the Scandinavia House in NYC. Performers include Sarah Biber ('cello), Terri Hron (recorders), Dana Jessen (bassoon), Amy Miller (dance), Ryan Nestor (percussion), and Michael Straus (saxophones). "Allusions to Seasons and Weather" was first performed last May in Oslo, Norway

Improvisational Music Carnival hosted by OINC

April 24, 2012

From March 13th to 17th, Oberlin Conservatory hosted a carnival of improvisational guest artists from near and far: Mike Bullock, Seth Cluett, the Ear Duo (Michael Strauss and Dana Jessen), Tim Feeney, Vic Rawlings, Aaron Dilloway, and WAM! (Women in Art Music). Featured guests were involved in numerous events (full schedule), including masterclasses with members of the Oberlin Improvisation and New Music Collective (OINC), public lectures, and concerts.

Composer Hildegard Westerkamp in Residence

March 19, 2012

Renowned composer, educator, and sound ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp will be in residence this week for classes, soundwalks, and concerts. Westerkamp is known for compositions that reveal and investigate various aspects of the acoustic environment, and for her contributions to the field of acoustic ecology. On Tuesday March 20th, Westerkamp will host a soundwalk leaving at 1:00PM from the Andrew J. Lewis Center, room 102. On Wednesday at 9:00PM, she will present a short concert in Warner Main Space, including "Moments of Laughter" with singer Sara Perez . On Thursday at 8:00PM, a full concert of her work will be presented in Warner Concert Hall in the Conservatory. In addition to octophonic pieces, the concert will feature Eugene Kim, piano; Valerie Sly, horn; and David Wasilko, cello. All events are free and open to the public.

TIMARA Faculty and Students at SEAMUS 2012

March 8, 2012

All three TIMARA faculty (Per Bloland, Tom Lopez, and Peter Swendsen) and three TIMARA students (David Bird, Eli Stine, and Francis Wilson) participated in this year's annual Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) conference held in Appleton, Wisconsin at Lawrence University from February 9th to 11th. This year's festival featured four concerts a day, papers, and panel discussions encompassing topics related to electro-acoustic music, analysis, technology, performance, and pedagogy. Visiting assistant professor Per Bloland was recently added as Member At Large for the SEAMUS board of directors. Three out of the five Allen Strange Memorial Awards (given each year to one undergraduate composer) have gone to TIMARA students.

WOBC

March 1, 2012

WOBC is Oberlin community's own freeform radio station, broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with over 200 members (staff and DJs). All staff and the majority of the DJs are college students. In addition to delivering a huge variety of alternative radio, WOBC also broadcasts special events like Jackfest. WOBC hosts an annual block party, getting the greater Oberlin community involved through outdoor DJ sets, live bands and performers, and food. Check out wobc.org to listen to the live internet stream, browse the archives, and follow WOBC's twitter account (updated by the on-air DJ) @WOBC. Will Floyd is the current student manager and a 5th-year student with a Comparative American Studies major in the college and a TIMARA major in the Conservatory. Contact Will Floyd for more information and to get involved.

Modern Music Guild

February 16, 2012

Oberlin's Modern Music Guild (MMG) is a student-run organization that receives funding from the Student Finance Committee to bring musicians to perform on campus. Ensembles and artists tend toward experimental music focusing on improvisation, noise, and electro-acoustic composition. Recent guests include Toshimaru Nakamura & English, Tatsuya Nakatani with Nakatani Gong Orchestra and Oberlin student performers, Joseph Hammer, and Aaron Dilloway. For more information, check out MMG's website and facebook page. Chris Pierce, current director, is a fifth-year double-degree student with a Physics major in the College and a TIMARA major in the Conservatory.

Joel Corelitz '02 Creating Music and Sound for Moving Image

November 28, 2011

Joel Corelitz '02 is a Chicago-based composer/sound designer. His personal brand, Waveplant, provides original music for television, film & media, as well as bleeding-edge musical sound design for motion graphics. He has scored commercials broadcast during the Super Bowl and has work featured in Stash, Motionographer, OneDotZero, and Smilefaucet. He has also been written about in both Keyboard and Future Music magazines for his production work. A recent project, Loom, features his sound design and won Best in Show at Siggraph 2010.

Cory Arcangel '00 Explores Computer Programming and Appropriation in Exhibitions

November 14, 2011

Oberlin alumnus Cory Arcangel is a computer programmer, composer, and artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Recent exhibitions include "Pro Tools" at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2011), "Beat the Champ" at the Barbican, London (2011), and "Here Comes Everybody" at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2010-11). Arcangel gives the TIMARA department credit for his robust knowledge of FM synthesis, states his favorite TIMARA gear was the Media 100 editing suite, and fondly remembers hearing the Deep Listening Band perform at the Cat in the Cream. Find out more about Arcangel at his website.

21st Century Renaissance Man Jaron Lanier to Visit Campus

November 6, 2011

Jaron Lanier is a computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author, popularizing the term "virtual reality" and actively engaging in the worlds of visual art, music, punditry, and scientific research and development. He will be visiting Oberlin on November 9th to host the convocation "An Evening with Jaron Lanier" at 7:30PM in Finney Chapel. He will also visit the TIMARA Department's studio class from 3:30PM to 4:30PM in TIMARA Studio 2. More information about Lanier's work can be found on his website.

Oberlin Watson Fellows Travel the World to Document Global Trade and to Research Electronic Art

October 11, 2011

While Lisa Kori Chung '09 finishes up her yearlong voyage around the world, Allison Swaim '10 is just beginning hers. Both are Oberlin Watson fellows granted a year to passionately research individual projects, all the while amassing information and documentation, and creating as they travel.


Chung's project involves researching the world of electronic art in order to better understand technologies and the people who are actively shaping her experience and perception of them. Countries that Chung has traveled to include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and Spain. Photos from her voyage can be seen here. Learn more about what she saw, heard, and created at her blog.

Swaim's project involves traveling trade routes by cargo ship (which move 90% of the world's freight) to document the lives of modern-day sailors in order to put a human face to the global trade industry. During August she traveled across the Atlantic in a bulker with 25,000 tons of wheat and 21 Polish sailors and is currently in Sweden. She is planning on heading east next, possibly to China. Her Transom blog, will be updated shortly with documentation of her voyage thus far.

Composer and performer Dan Trueman to Visit, have works performed

September 29, 2011

Next month, Dan Trueman, composer, fiddler, and laptop player, will have his peice, "Counterfeit Curio" performed by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble on it's October 7th, 8:00PM concert in Warner Concert Hall. Ensembles he is involved with include QQQ, the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk, which he co-founded and directs), Trollstilt, Sideband and interface. He has worked with numerous other ensembles, including the Crash Ensemble, So Percussion, the Brentano and Daedelus string quartets, and the American Composers Orchestra. As a fiddler, he has performed at folk festivals across the US as well as in Norway and Ireland. To learn more about Dan visit his website.

Bret Battey '89 Composer and Visual Artist, to Visit

September 27, 2011

Bret Battey creates electronic, acoustic, and multimedia concert works and installations. He pursues research in algorithmic music, digital signal processing, image and sound relationship, and expressive sound synthesis. His sound and image composition have achieved widespread international attention and recognition, with over 70 screenings since 2004 and many prizes and honors, Along with Oberlin he studied composition and electronic music at the University of Washington, and is currently a Senior Lecturer with the Music, Technology, and Innovation Research Centre at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. A concert of Bret's works will be at 8:00PM on September 28th in Warner Concert Hall, and a public master class will be at 3:00PM on September 29th in TIMARA Studio 2. You can find out more about Bret at his website.

Clay Chaplin '95 to Visit

September 18, 2011

Clay Chaplin, currently the Director of the Computer Music and Experimental Media studios at the Herb Alpert School of Music at California Institute of the Arts, is a composer, improviser, curator, and audio engineer from Los Angeles who explores the realms of audio-visual improvisation, sound synthesis, field recording, electronics, and computer processing for creative sonic expression. He will be visiting the TIMARA department this coming Wednesday, September 21st to conduct a studio class with students and to talk about his own work and experience, including his pieces Aquacoustica, One Minute Los Angeles, and SideEffects. More information about Clay and his past and present work can be obtained at his website.

Assistant Professor Peter Swendsen '99 has Full Performance Schedule

August 20, 2011

For Peter Swendsen, Assistant Professor of Computer Music and Digital Arts in the TIMARA Department, 2011 has already been a busy and auspicious year. His compositions have been presented in the UK, Amsterdam, San Diego, Kansas City, Boston, Norway, New York City, Belgium, Italy, and Ohio. More information about the specifics of Swendsen's packed past year can be found at this link. Swendsen's most recent endeavor is last weekend's premiere of a new collaboration with New York-based choreographer Amy Miller and GroundWorks DanceTheater of Cleveland, "Running to Earth". David Bird, '12 also collaborated with GroundWorks' Artistic Director David Shimotakahara on a piece presented on the same concerts. More information about the dates and times of the concerts and GroundWorks can be found at this link.

Thomas Arsenault '08 Recently Profiled in NYT Blog

April 20, 2011

Thomas Arsenault '08 was recently profiled in a New York Times blog about Culture written by Johnny Misheff. Arsenault, a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory's TIMARA program, has produced albums for a variety of artists in New York. Misheff describes Arsenault's own music and video work as "lush and emotive, filled with subtle nuances that somehow jerk the audience into deep self-reflexive awareness."

TIMARA Student Eli Stine '13 Wins Composition Prize

March 8, 2011

Eli Stine '13 was awarded a national prize for "Best Composition by an Undergraduate Student" at the 2011 national conference of the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the US (SEAMUS). This is the fourth time the prize has been awarded, and three of the past recipients have been Oberlin students. Stine's winning piece, "Moments," is described in its program notes as "a grouping of diverse textures, held together by their similarities and differences, each contributing to the overall trajectory of their collective form. Pitch develops from noise and the sound of the human voice evolves as these auditory moments circulate against one another." Stine's interests include electronic instrument creation, electronic and acoustic composition for concert and dance, and film sound design. He currently studies with Associate Professor of Computer Music and Digital Arts Tom Lopez in the TIMARA department, and will be studying with Professor of Composition Lewis Nielson as a Composition minor. More information and works by Stine can be found on his website: www.oberlin.edu/student/estine.