The programming for the two Sonic Lab Immersive concerts reflects recent upgrades to the Lab’s spatial system. Nine pieces are programmed across two concerts, including multichannel fixed media, live electronics and mixed instrumental and electronic works featuring Kyle Hutchins and Kendra Wheeler on saxophones.
All works are adapted to the Sonic Lab’s spatial system to enable three contrasting and complementary approaches to immersive sound: surround 48 loudspeakers surrounding the audience at four vertical levels, a Wavefield Synthesis frontal array and the IKO loudspeaker. The design of the three systems aims to explore the unique spatial affordances of each, including diffuse immersive image with surround ambisonics, the highly precise frontal localization and distance with Wavefield Synthesis and the object-like ‘inside out’ characteristic sound of the IKO.
This concert will feature six pieces:
Wiktor Masela – Acoustic Fables of Nafplio
totaleee (Paolo Montella, Giuseppe Pisano & Andrea Laudante) – Non è un atlante di traiettorie algo-siderali
Douglas McCausland – ENTANGLEMENT
Daria Baiocchi – Theta
The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker, ft. Kyle Hutchins and Kendra Wheeler – HOLOGRAM
Diego Ratto – KOM
Programme Notes
Wiktor Masela – Acoustic Fables of Nafplio
In “Akronafplia,” the crashing waves of the sea create a symphony of ever-evolving sounds that ebb and flow, mutating and transforming with each passing moment. But this work is more than just a recording of the natural environment; it is a deeply evocative portrayal of the environment’s darker side. I have incorporated abstract elements into the soundscape, adding layers of complexity that reveal the many facets of Nafplio’s stunning landscape.
Despite the distortions and variations in the soundscape, “Akronafplia” maintains a sense of calmness that pervades the work from beginning to end. This steady, unchanging presence offers a comforting counterpoint to the ever-changing sounds of nature, reminding us of the peace and tranquility that can be found even in the midst of chaos. The the natural landscape is the means to resist
totaleee (Paolo Montella, Giuseppe Pisano & Andrea Laudante)- Non è un atlante di traiettorie algo-siderali
This work is a declaration of intent. The intent of not realizing an atlas of calculated trajectories, but of abandoning ourselves to a journey adrift: an interstellar voyage propelled by astral winds of mathematical perfection. From our position, gravitational inertia governs the flow of celestial bodies. Objects that seem still, perform rotations and revolutions at unfathomable speed, their vast arcs rendered as languid drifts, while the smallest elements blaze through the acoustic field at startling velocity, leaving luminous traces in their wake.
The sonic environment is a dance of sidereal pathways, where musical fragments accompany our passage with pulsating rhythms. The course of these elements produce webs of isometric deception as time collapses and expands over the surface of our dome of sound, while we observe from the center of the orb.
Originally composed in High Order Ambisonics, this work was forged collectively—through shared practices, exchanged sounds, and the unpredictable alchemy of collaboration, allowing the music to evolve in ways no single mind could anticipate.
Douglas McCausland – ENTANGLEMENT
ENTANGLEMENT is a large-scale intermedia project for live electronics performer, video, higher- order ambisonics audio, and programmed lights.
The culmination of over a decade of research and creative practice in electronic music, this work is a collection of ten visceral and dynamic personal reflections. Aesthetically, ENTANGLEMENT demands us to experience the contrast of extremes: tension and release, density and stasis, and – sometimes – discomfort and catharsis.
Daria Baiocchi – Theta
This audio work is based on the context of life and its connection with negentropy. Life forms, from the simplest single-celled organisms to complex ecosystems, appear to defy the tendency by maintaining and increasing order within themselves organizing, structuring and maintaining system’s processes in a state of low disorder-entropy. Theta grows as a sound that takes care of itself, takes energy and transform it, changes shape, moves towards entropy but returns on its centrality as a founding element of its acoustic life.
The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker – HOLOGRAM
Featuring Kyle Hutchins and Kendra Wheeler on saxophones
As a practice Elizabeth does not like to assign specific meaning to works that would lead the listeners ear, but rather express overarching themes that were central to the artistic process. In HOLOGRAM, Elizabeth was influenced by metaphysical studies and CIA documents outlining the HemiSync Gateway Process… an original quote she shares with performers in the score to consider as they interpret the works is – “consider that when you touch anything, your atoms merge with that object… we are holograms.”
Diego Ratto – KOM
This is an electroacoustic piece about Stockholm with concrete sounds of Stockholm. In this composition, there are different sections in contrast that, for me, describe some aspects of this capital, such as: the agitated commuter life, metro and public transports, the rhythm of a big city, the restful nature and sea. Different parts and moods that all together create what has been this place for me, especially in the early period. So, this can be also a personal way to work on my thoughts and impressions as a foreigner who moved, from a small town of Italy, to a new place, a new city and a new urban reality. What I’ve seen, what I’ve heard and especially what I’ve felt.
Media
