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Electroacoustic concert will open listeners’ ears and minds
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“Take something simple, a spoken syllable, and alter it so that you bring attention to details that often go unnoticed. Once you experience that, you begin to understand how special a sound can be.”
The award-winning and internationally recognized composer Tomás Henriques, assistant professor of music at Buffalo State College, will be among the performers taking part in the 13th annual Spring Black Box Concert presented by UB’s Lejaren Hiller Computer Music Studios in the Department of Music.
The showcase of electroacoustic music will take place at 7:30 p.m. March 20 in the Black Box Theater in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.
It is free of charge and open to the public.
The program will feature works by UB students, faculty and alumni, including the acclaimed composer David Durant.
“This is an opportunity for people to hear musical elements stretched, layered and combined in fascinating ways,” says Ethan Hayden, concert coordinator and a graduate student of music at UB.
Henriques, a UB alumnus, will perform works using a “Double Slide Controller,” a self-designed instrument inspired by the trombone. “Think of a slide trombone, but with two slides able to work simultaneously,” says Hayden. He says the slides work in combination with the fingers on each of the player’s hands, allowing for new streams of exploration and putting the ensemble complexities of a small group into the focused expression of a single performer.
Electroacoustic music combines electronic and computer technology as part of the compositional process in order to manipulate sound beyond its fundamental electronic and acoustic limits. It is part of an evolution of possibility moving from simple amplification to abstract articulation.
“So many of the concepts showcased here will let the audience hear music from a new and different aesthetic point of view,” Hayden explains.
Some of the night’s scheduled pieces are fixed media compositions that employ basic sounds previously recorded by the artist, then genetically deconstructed, spliced and reassembled.
“Andrew Babcock, a UB graduate, whose work will be featured in the program, did this with the sound of cello” says Hayden, adding that Babcock says it evokes images of Lego and Fraggle Rock.
It is during these fixed media pieces that the lights in the Black Box Theater will be dimmed to encourage a form of sensory concentration.
“We want to remove any visual stimulation during this part of the evening,” says Hayden, “because by doing so, the music becomes entirely about what is heard—nothing else—which helps listeners get inside the piece.”
According to Hayden, the elecroacoustic music is an avenue for listeners to appreciate the evocative qualities of a single sound and the infinite possibilities represented by that sound.
“Take something simple, a spoken syllable, and alter it so that you bring attention to details that often go unnoticed,” he says.
“Once you experience that, you begin to understand how special a sound can be.”
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