Electronic Frequencies

The International Atemporanea Festival was held from 19 till the 24 of september 2022 at the Astor Piazzola Conservatory Buenos Aires.

1/ Felipe Otondo.
Sauti. (2022)
Biography:
Felipe Otondo studied composition with Ambrose Field and Roger Marsh at York University in England, focusing his work mainly on electroacoustic music, sound installations and experimental theater. His music has been performed at festivals in Asia, Europe, North America and South America. In 2019 he received the Avonni National Innovation Award for his research work linked to the soundscape of wetlands in Valdivia and in 2021 he was a finalist for the Lumen award with the installation “A Queda do Céu” created in collaboration with André Mestre. He is an associate professor at the Institute of Acoustics and director of the Art and Technology Laboratory at the Universidad Austral de Chile.

Program Note:
Sauti means “voice” and “sound” in the Swahili language and somehow encapsulates the spirit of this work created from soundscape recordings made in Kenya in 2012. The composition combines spoken word recordings from Kenyan community radio stations, recordings of sound environments of the city of Mombasa and synthesized sounds generated from rhythmic patterns extracted from traditional music from West Africa. This work was composed in the Laboratory of Art and Technology of the Austral University of Chile and was selected among the finalist works of the Musica Nova 2022 composition prize in the Czech Republic.

2/ Natalia Garabaglia.
Acecho. (2022)
Biography:
Born in 1992, she is currently studying the last years of her Composition degree at the “Alberto Ginastera” Conservatory of Music in Morón. She is a composer, teacher and guitarist. She took composition classes with electroacoustic media with Jorge Sad and analysis of contemporary music with Sandra González. She has an interest in both instrumental and electronic music. She participated in composition workshops and seminars, and FIME master classes given by Mario Mary. She has written works for various instrumental ensembles and soloists, including songs, sonatas, theme variations, preludes, mixed works, and electroacoustics. She recently premiered an electroacoustic work at the Festival Nuevas Músicas por la Memoria.

Program Note:
This work was created using electroacoustic media, placing special emphasis on the thematic elaboration of materials and spatiality. It narrates the political situation of a country where the stalking of right-wing ideologies, represented by a beast, threaten to return.

3/ José Halac.
BLOWN 3. (2021)
Biography:
José Halac’s compositions range from polymorphic chamber works, syncretic constructions based on South American chants, electroacoustic acousmatic and mixed or improvised works from the 90s, to his most recent mechanical, organic, granular constructions for chamber ensembles, electronics, dance , theater and video art.
His current works add to their inspiration an interest in geometry, biology, nature and mechanical systems that bring a sense of coherence and organic fluidity to his music. He was awarded several prizes and scholarships: 1st prize at the Bourges Electroacoustic Music Festival (France) 2000 for his work “La quebrada del grito”.
He is a tenured professor and researcher at the Faculty of Arts of the National University of Córdoba in the degree in Musical Composition and the Tres de Febrero University (UNTREF) in the Master of Aboriginal Music and New Technologies.
His music is published by Babelscores in France.

Program Note:
BLOWN 3 part of the human voice and the bass clarinet from inside (tube and keys, resonances and reed blows) taken by contact microphones and converted into audio samples that were normalized in their minute details by amplifying them several times as an ultra sound zoom. Then the work was assembled in micromontage sections in a collage mode but respecting formal zones of growth, spectrum and rhythm.

4/ Cândida Borges.
Mutation. (2018)
Biography:
Cândida Borges, Plymouth University/UK and Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro UNIRIO/Brazil; Dr. Borges is a transmedia artist and musician, Associate Professor at the UNIRIO University (BR), Fellow Researcher at the Antioquia University (CO). She holds a Ph.D. from the Interdisciplinary Center for Computer Music Research/ Plymouth University (UK). Her artistic and investigative interests are on transmedia composition and human migration, supported by emerging technologies for audio and image. Her works have been in exhibitions, concerts and conferences worldwide, including New York/US, Brazil, Colombia, China, UK, Ireland.

Program Note:

“Mutations” are artistic organisms of unlimited duration that generates a new work every new bounce/performance. Composition is done by real-time interactive computer systems with (or not) live interaction of the composer with field recordings from the DNArchive Project, in audio and image.
A selection of world walkscapes in transcultural cities gets blended/mutated by a special digital compositional process that transmutates the sound and image into a transgenic work. Acting as a DNA enzyme, the compositional process acts combining randomness with sound/video processing to digest 360 and ambisonic recordings of transcultural places. This is an analogy to the genetic process of mutation, that produces diversity in biological organisms. This work produces diversity in artistic landscapes, in real- time for each performance and specific for a site-installation system.
Each mutation carries a place/date/time in its name. In this version Mutation 08/11/2019 16:21:38 is a sonic photography in which Medellín (Colômbia), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Plymouth (UK) and New York (US) were mutated and combined into a new landscape of 5 min and 4 continents.
This work is part of the DNArchive Project, that brings the power of memory, ancestry, language and migration to a practice-led PhD artistic research about transcultural people and cities around the world, as a process of recognition of historical migration and diasporic events. This work is in progress, alive, in mutation.
This work has been presented in different festivals worldwide, like the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival 2020, Moving Arts Museum in New York, 13th Book and Culture Festival in Colombia.

5/ Ricardo de Armas.
Life. (2022)
Biography:
Acoustic creator, cellist, sound artist and cultural manager. He graduated from the J.J.Castro Provincial Conservatory. He is currently studying a postgraduate degree in sound art at the National University of Tres de Febrero. His work is based on procedures such as intervention, appropriation, appointment and re-signification. He was a member of the Bahía Blanca Provincial Symphony Orchestra (1988/2020). He has awarded and programmed works at international festivals and recordings for the CMMAS and UNTREF Sonoro labels. He is the founder of Bahía [in] Sonora and ARS [in] sonora. He obtained the Sole Prize in the Electroacoustic Music Category granted by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, The Electroacoustic Music Tribune of the Argentine Music Council, SONOM Prize, Mexico, Leonor Hirsch Prize, Bunge y Born Foundation, Honorable Mention in the Ton Bruynel Contest , Holland, Concours International de Bourges, France, Electroacoustic Miniatures, Spain, and other distinctions. He has works published in academic media.

Program Note:

We talk about life as if we know what it means, but as soon as we try to define its meaning, the concept of life disappears.”
horace bernard
This piece contains quotes from “Las cartas de Guadalupe” by Félix Luna and Ariel Ramírez.
Some of the sounds used in this work were recorded in Sierra de la Ventana during January 2022. This material then went to various types of synthesis and procedures.
Dedicated to my dear loved ones that are no longer present in this physical plane.

6/ Robert McClure.
syn. (2021)
i. corpora.
ii. intima.
iii. loquere.
iv. viscera.
Biography:
Robert McClure’s music attempts to discover beauty in unconventional places using non-traditional means. His work has been featured at festivals including NYCEMF, Beijing Modern Music Festival, ISCM, TIES, SEAMUS, and ICMC.
His works may be found through ADJ•ective New Music, Bachovich Music Publications, Resolute Music Publications, and Tapspace Publications as well as on ABLAZE, Albany, and New Focus Record labels.
Robert received his doctorate from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. Robert has previously held positions at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and Soochow University in Suzhou, China. He serves as Assistant Professor of Composition/Theory at Ohio University.

Program Note:
i. corpora ii. intima iii. loquere iv. viscera
syn (2021) is four short movements centered on an imagined future world where synthetic beings have become the prevalent species. Digital has become the new religion. Any yearning for the distant past organic way of life is shut down and stomped out. The work follows one such synthetic being, SB-1021, and their “sins” against this new culture.
i. corpora – The body, and thus physical labor, is the only valued aspect of SB-1021 and beings like them. They are replaceable cogs in the machine of production. Yearning to be organic, SB-1021 slips into vivid daydreams and halts progress, a sin, before being violently thrust back into the cycle of production.
ii. intima – Synthetics’ thoughts are periodically downloaded and observed for deviation. Imagination, mindfulness, and creative thought are sins. They are forced into digital mediation to clear their minds. SB-1021 covertly engages in wild fantasies before being surveilled.
iii. loquere – SB-1021 attempts to develop expression in their vocalizations (which had previously only been sequences of clicks in a binary language). This useless expression of the self in the synthetic world is superfluous and inefficient, and therefore a sin for which SB-1021 will be punished and terminated.
iv. viscera – Every synthetic being is created with core control mechanisms to distribute discipline for any transgressions. viscera details SB-1021’s punishment and termination as they are torn apart from the inside out.

7/ Gustavo Chab.
Sapphires. (2020)
Biography:
Argentina-Spain (b. Buenos Aires, 1964) Composer of mostly electroacoustic works that have been performed in the Americas and Europe.
He studied harmony, counterpoint and piano with Daniel Montes; composition and musical analysis with Francisco Kröpfl. He composed his first electroacoustic piece in 1993, specializing in composition techniques in electroacoustic. His compositions, including works for instrumental, electronic music, and performances. Frequently explores the spatialization of sound in composition, mixing fixed media acousmatic and sound generation in real time.
His compositions have been performed at numerous festivals and has received-among many awards – Prize Exhibitronic 2018/ International Festival of Sound Arts (Strasbourg-France); First Prize of the FNA /Juan Carlos Paz (Buenos Aires, Argentina); a special Mention of the Municipality of Buenos Aires (1995), (2014/2015) and a honourable Prize-Residence of the International Competition
of Electroacoustic Music GMEB (Bourges-France, 1993) /Artist in Residence CCMIX, Center for the Composition of Music Iannis Xenakis (France).

Program Note:
This piece was conceived in three different process:
Sapphires appear at the beginning as precise and punctual materials “a place where absorption of light is possible”. The first version of the piece where the structure can be heard. “As an Interaction between matter with different wavelengths of light as a sound”. Dichroism is more descriptive and oneiric. The voice like a derive of the spectrum of Sapphires (a precious gemstone).
Exploring new vocal possibilities as a part of a musical expression in this piece. Nontextual sonic combined with electronic sounds of the first piece: a variation of the word/phoneme of Sapphires is mixed and process creating new sounds like an “incident polarization state of light… A material will absorb light, like a Corundum depending on the presence of transition impurities in its crystalline structure”.
Diattenuation is a variation that include materials of the previous pieces. The length of the piece always is the same (8:24). In Diattenuation there are permutations of the essential like an Items derive from different electroacoustic technics.
Voices: Lia Ferenese

8/ Guillermo Eisner.
Esculturas temporales. (2022)
Biography:
Guillermo Eisner Sagüés (Uruguay, 1980)
Assistant Professor (D) of the Department of Sound of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Chile. PhD in Music, field of Musical Composition, from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He studied music and composition in Chile, Spain, Portugal and Mexico. He has developed acoustic and electroacoustic concert music, participating in festivals in South America, North America and Europe. He has published the CDs Música para guitarra (Chile Clásico, 2021); neighborhood music (Cero Records, Mexico, 2019); and inhabit time (2012). In 2015 he published the book and CD guitarrerías. 10 monothemes for guitar (Microtono Ediciones Musicales). And he has composed and premiered the chamber operas Titus (2017) at the Teatro Helénico, Mexico City; and La isla de los peces (2015) at the GAM Cultural Center, Santiago. Along with this, he has developed his creative work in the field of performing and audiovisual arts, composing the music and sound design of various plays, dance, video dance and video art.

Program Note:
The work is arranged as a continuum of sound fragments that seek to build different ways of sculpting time; various gestures; various paths of accumulation and relaxation of energies. Temporary Sculptures, composed exclusively from double bass samples, takes sound as a moldable material, and proposes to sculpt on it as if we could grasp it, take it, feel it with our hands. In short, it is a vain attempt to make tangible an ephemeral material such as sound, of which we can only verify the temporal and spatial experience that its fleeting presence leaves us.

Organization of the program:
 Artistic Director: Sandra Elizabeth González.
Technical Director: Lucas Nicolás Mechehem.
sites.google.com/view/atemporneafestival2022