Electronic Frequencies

Since 1964, EMS Elektronmusikstudion is the centre for Swedish electroacoustic music and sound-art. EMS is run as an independent part of Musikverket (Swedish Performing Arts Agency).

EMS works closely with SEAMS (Society for Electroacoustic Music in Sweden.)
SEAMS is an organisation that has around 100 members. The goal of SEAMS is to promote electroacoustic music in Sweden. This includes compositional studio works, live electronics, sound installations (often in cooperation with other areas as well, such as dance, visual arts and performance).

The society was formed 1980 under the name ICEM. ICEM was then a part of the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music (ICEM) based in France. Anyone who is interested in the genre is welcome to apply for membership.

The society regularly arrange concerts and workshops. SEAMS also has the record label “Elektron Records” for releases of primarily Swedish electroacoustic music. Please visit www.elektronrecords.com

1/ Tre facce – Martin Svensson (1):
a/ Motor 5’00”
b/ Layers 4’55”
c/ Shutter 3’56”

Tre face (three faces) are three tape etudes composed around the idea of using a limited amount of materials and working with few parameters such as rhythm and pitch in each movement. The movements are called Motor, Layers and Shutter as a way to explain what Martin was working on to achieve.

2/ Piece for Lute and Live Electronics (2010) 8’02” – Erik Peters (2)

A composition for renaissance lute and laptop using SuperCollider software, performed by duo Peter Söderberg (lute) / Erik Peters (electronics). Recorded and released on the CD “Liuto con forza”, Phono Suecia (PSCD 186).

The French baroque suite occasionally contains preludes that lack barlines and that therefore, with their long note values, become a meditative lead-in to the dance movements that ensue. Something of this we also find in Erik Peters’ Piece for Lute and Live Electronics, although here unmeasured passages are interspersed with purely terpsichorean episodes. The slow sections present broken-up reworkings of the material that is then used in the rhythmically driving parts that proceed from 6/8 to related irregular metres, to culminate in a superposition of earlier material in the final passage. One could call it a contemporary incarnation of the baroque era’s style brisé: here, the slight displacement of the notes used to clarify the polyphony is enhanced by live electronics that sustain the notes the lutenist wishes to bring out. This makes for a duet in two senses: between two historical epochs and between Söderberg with his lute and Peters with his live electronics.

3/ Invention for EA and video no.11 (2017) – Thommy Wahlström (3)

Excerpts and fork from a late evening, almost asleep by the creek, far away in the early winter forest.

4/ Tandem musca cacavit1 6’50” – Sten-Olof Hellström (4)

The virtual spatiality in the FFT domain meets the physical spatiality of a concert space.
Tandem Musca Cacavit investigates the relationship between the very large and the very small alongside the very slow and the very fast. The piece seeks to explore the relationship between parallel co- existing events that are separated by size, time or dimension. What is the link between sound synthesis, the smallest sound particle and the whole composition itself.

5/ Roll 3’20” – Hans Parment (5)

Roll, commissioned for the opening of the new house for Swedish Broadcasting Company (SVT) and the wall paintings. Collaboration withvisual artist Martin Bornholmwho made the mural painting with 12 different rollers with different sounds. Hans sampled all twelve rollers during the working in progress in his studio and created this piece; the working gestures are very import for the piece.

6/ Kincher Motograph Picture. 2 Audio channels 6’50” – Lars Arnold Höjerdahl (6)

Image and video art are part of the artistic act.

7/ Blyertsrum (Lead room) 6’00” (2019) – Ann Rosén (7)
stereo version, original 4 (16)

The work, the constituent parts and its material, graphite pencil sound, is produced and composed with the composer’s own composition tools and instrument ”Blyertsbarriär /Graphite Barrier”.
Physically, the Graphite Barrier consists of graphite crayons, paper, Arduino card, computer with Max / MSP. Different connection points on the paper are connected with the Arduino card and with the help of the crayons one can draw different coupling paths and thus control the sound (eg length and thickness of the tracks determines how the sound is controlled). Some of the crayons are also connected to the Arduino card, which enables a more direct control of the sound. Apart from the fact that the connection paths you draw can function as a graphic score, some of the generated sound is analyzed in real time and results in a somewhat more traditional score with notes presented on a screen and can be interpreted by fellow musicians. Graphite Barrier can be seen as a tool for composition, conducting, sound generating while being a music instrument.
Functionally, you can divide the Graphite Barrier into 6 parts: analysis, sensors, graphics in, graphics out, sound in and sound out.

8/ Transmission 47 5’05″ (2019) – Girilal Baars (8)

Based around archival material from the composer’s childhood 47 years ago the piece also uses two old tone generators modulating each other, as in the grand tradition of radio.

About the composers:

(1) Martin Svensson (1978) studied composition with Luca Francesconi, Kent Olofsson and Rolf Martinsson among others at Malmö Academy of Music and is working in a wide range of genres as a composer. Martin has written orchestral music, chamber music, chamber opera, solo-pieces, film music and electronic music. Most recently he finished a piece in collaboration with guitarist Stefan Östersjö for alto guitar & electronics.

(2) Erik Peters (b. 1970) is a composer and performer living in Stockholm, active in the field of experimental music and sound art. His output is often found in an interdisciplinary context and includes for example text/sound-pieces, electronic music, chamber music, video and sound installations, radiophonic works and sound theatre pieces. Erik Peters has worked with artists such as Mats Gustafsson, John Butcher, Mark Fell, Lucy Railton, POING, Theatre of Voices and many others. He also runs a long term collaboration with Swedish lute player Peter Söderberg, performing original works, improvisations, as well as interpretations of american experimental composers such as John Cage, James Tenney and Alvin Lucier. Recent activities include “Should all signs sound?”, a project evolving around text and music, in close collaboration with Swedish director Karl Dunér and the Lipparella ensemble, performing on instruments of the baroque and renaissance period. Erik Peters music has been released on labels such as Fylkingen Records, Phono Suecia, Caprice Records and Alice Musik Produktion, and he occasionally writes for Swedish journals such as Nutida Musik and Kritiker.

Peter Söderberg (b. 1957) has a background as a guitarist and improviser. As a lute player he is since many years a profile within both early and contemporary music. Many composers have composed solo works for Peter Söderberg, some of them recorded on Phono Suecia CD “Liuto con forza” (2010). Besides his concert performances Peter Söderberg also participates in different theatre, dance and literature contexts. He has participated in many recordings and is also active as a writer in the Swedish contemporary music magazine Nutida Musik.

(3) Thommy Wahlström (1968) Uppsala, Sweden. Thommy is active in contemporary music, EAM and improvised music. Background in Swedish folk music. Studies in composition with teachers including Bill Brunson, Karin Rehnkvist, Henrik Strindberg, Per Mårtensson, Lars Ekström at the Royal college of music in Stockholm and Gotland school of
music composition. His music have been performed in Europe and USA.
www.thommywahlstrom.se

(4) Sten-Olof Hellström sound artist composer and performer. In 2013 Sten-Olof celebrated thirty years as a professional composer by obtaining a PhD in composition at University of Huddersfield, UK His music is featured at concerts, festivals and radio-broadcasts all around the world. In recent years he has worked with a variety of compositional and musical projects such as ”Sound Excursions in the Stockholm Archipelago”.

(5) Hans Parment, Composer (Sweden). Hans has written music for a diverse range of performers and environments, his compositions cover the complete spectrum, from solo-instrument to orchestra. Today he mostly works with electro acoustic music, often combining electro acoustic treatments with instrument. As a flutist Hans plays improvised
contemporary music. Hans often works on interdisciplinary projects bringing together visual artists, performers and video film makers.Currently Hans Parment teaches composition, with responsibility for the Master
Class for contemporary music, at the adult education centres, Department of Music. He is also a teacher with the Art & Sound Department at the Culture School in Växjö, and is a producer at Media Artes a centre for modern art music
in Växjö. (www.mediaartes.net)
Hans studied composition with Björn Wilho Hallberg, Maurice Karkoff and Jan W Morthenson.He studied flute, orchestration and conducting at the University College of Music Education in Stockholm.
Hans is secretary of Media Artes, an experimental forum for innovative artistic manifestations, he is also a member of the National Society of Contemporary Art-Music Arrangers, the international Society for Contemporary Music (www.iscm.a.se) and the Society for Electro Acoustic Music in Sweden (www.seams.nu).
Awarded the Växjö Municipality Culture Prize 2017

(6) Lars Arnold Höjerdahl (b. 1947) domiciled in Furuvik near Gävle. Has been educated at IDKA (Institute for Digital Arts), Gävle. Played and performed at many festivals and concerts in Sweden and around the world.

(7) Ann Rosén was originally trained as a sculptor and has been active as a sound artist and composer since the 90s.
As well as creating sound installations she composes both instrumental and electroacoustic music often utilising her self-made electronic instruments.Ann Rosén is the founder and artistic leader of The Barrier Orchestra/Barriärorkestern that had it’s permiere at Fylkingen 2015. Her trans-disciplinary umbrella project The Great Barrier Orchestra aims to challenge our inner and outer barriers, the ones we carry inside ourselves and the ones we encounter in the world around us.

(8) Girilal Baars is a composer based in Uppsala, Sweden, who works with voice, vocal traditions and electronics.