On April 19th, the first edition of INTERSECT. series will kick off at Studio Loos

With a focus on improvisation and interactivity, the edition will include showcasing Kinesis an interactive VR experience by Arash Akbari, a live performance by Görkem Arıkan playing the Wirwarp, an instrument commissioned by Sonic Acts for the Touched by Sound project, designed and built in collaboration with Joris Takken, Lucas Vonk, Rahsaan Bleijs, and Roman Willems. Kristin Norderval ( voice & live electronics) and  Kaat Vanhaverbeke (accordion & live electronics) will perform “Between air, folds & voltage” integrating gestural movements with a focus on acoustic interactions with the space and the qualities of spatial extension. Gobi_10k’s improvisation will explore Machine Learning techniques in live computer music performance. 

Kinesis by Arash Akbari

Kinesis is a digital sonic environment that explores the relationship between sound, space, performer, and computation. A group of AI agents were trained using reinforcement learning to create generative spatial sound objects that react to human presence using their unpredictable behaviors. The result is an ever-changing digital audio-visual structure that transforms the space in an unrepeatable manner. The listeners/performers become active by walking and positioning themselves among the objects and indirectly navigating the composition. The agents constantly react to the performer's actions. These reactions affect the sonic features such as frequency pitch, duration, and amplitude. While the system interacts with the virtual plane of continuous differentiation of its components, every subjective experience becomes a part of the system by encountering it through sense-making.

Arash Akbari is a transdisciplinary artist. He investigates the interplay between dynamic art systems, human perception, nonlinear narrative, and the convergence of physical and digital realms. His exploration spans the domains of generative systems, interaction design, immersive technologies, and real-time processing. Approaching the dominant technological paradigm with a critical perspective, he seeks alternative narratives where computational processes and interactive cybernetic systems give rise to concepts, ideas, and questions, eliciting affective personal and social impacts and responses. Akbari directs his experimental practices into audio-visual performances and installations, interactive software, sonic environments, and multisensory experiences.

“Between air, folds & voltage” – Kristin Norderval & Kaat Vanhaverbeke 

a first performance with the support of Studio LOOS

• Kristin Norderval, voice & live electronics 

• Kaat Vanhaverbeke, accordion & live electronics

“Between air, folds & voltage” explores sound and movement in the framework of free improvisation involving voice, accordion, and real-time audio processing with gestural controllers. Both performers are using Genki WAVE MIDI rings as controllers to highlight and integrate gestural movements into their musical practice. Acoustic interactions with the space and the qualities of spatial extension are a central focus. As two performers 40+ years apart in age and from different countries (US/BE), Norderval and Vanhaverbeke investigate the aesthetic possibilities that can emerge from collaborations between composer-performers from different generations, nationalities, and musical training, using different modes of real-time signal processing.     

Kristin´s work explores the human expressivity of the acoustic voice and the complexities of the mediated voice. Kristin writes: During my recent PhD research fellowship at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts I designed a performer-controlled vocal processing system for singers that could accommodate mobility and allow interaction based on auditory and haptic cues rather than visual. In other words, a system allowing the singer to control their sonic output without standing behind a laptop. I wanted to create a performer-controlled interface that would enable nuanced and variable vocal processing and freedom of movement. I also wanted to identify a sound design that would afford a balance between the self-amplified, embodied operatic voice and its sampled, processed and disembodied voice(s) or “sonic avatars”.  I call the system I developed the Expanded Vocal Improvising Instrument (the EVII) as a tribute to and acknowledgement of the influence of Pauline Oliveros and her Expanded Instrument System (EIS). 

Kristin Norderval is a Culture Moves Europe grantee and an Artist in Residence at Studio Loos. 
This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. 
The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

Kaat´s work explores futuristic music for accordion, electronics, and theatrical-choreographic movements – which she calls the “3D accordion XL”. Kaat writes: The accordion is an incredibly versatile, dynamic and generous instrument. In 3D accordion XL I’m enlarging that generous character in an attempt to explore extra-dimensionality as the main conceptual idea of the performance. Extra-dimensionality refers to moving the accordion bellows intentionally forward and backwards at different angles, prompting an extra musical dimension of spatiality and motion in music. In the performance, the movements of the bellows take centre stage and are linked by electronics to musical parameters such as pitch and rhythm, challenging the instrument’s acoustic limits – the extra-dimensionality is expanded and becomes uncommonly explicit. The accordion bellows come to life, becoming a strange and fascinating moving entity in a unique sound world. 

Wirwarp by Görkem Arıkan

Görkem Arıkan will play the Wirwarp, commissioned by Sonic Acts for the Touched by Sound project, designed and built in collaboration with Joris Takken, Lucas Vonk, Rahsaan Bleijs, and Roman Willems. 

Drawing inspiration from Michel Waisvisz’s distinctive approach to sonic interactions and musical expression, Wirwarp incorporates conductive rubber cord stretch sensors. These sensors create a dynamic mesh on a wooden frame, providing a touch canvas for sonic exploration through the manipulation of tension dynamics. Playing the instrument involves warping and tangling the mesh – pulling the cords, pushing the nodes, and adjusting the frame’s angle with movable hinges.

An interdisciplinary sound artist and performer, Görkem Arıkan is a music technologist at SoundLAB in Amsterdam and the co-founder of the non-profit experimental music formation A.I.D. He graduated from the Instruments and Interfaces program of Sonology at STEIM and KONCON, where he developed ARMonic, a gestural electroacoustic music system consisting of wearable D.I.Y sensors and electronics. Afterward, as a research associate at Sonology, he created the sound installation Singing Sparks, which is made of ignition parts of a car engine, presented alongside a documentary film about the listening practice of car mechanics. He actively engages in various projects, blending arts, technology, and culture, exploring expressive sonic interactions, and creating experimental electronic instruments and sound installations.

Gobi_10k

Gobi_10k (Alec Gordon) is a Scottish musician and instrument inventor working in the Hague. His work deals with oversaturation as a method to explore atemporality. This performance will expound on the limits of machine learning synthesis, using material gathered through web scraping and web 2.0-inspired piracy.

Gobi_10k (Alec Gordon) currently lives and works in Den Haag, Netherlands. Gobi_10k’s work is concerned primarily with noise in a variety of “saturated” states, driving noise through numerous cycles of feedback, often using frequencies that occupy the entire range of human hearing.

Join at Studio LOOS for an exciting concert - "The Three Lears" - a music theatre performance for 3 pianists on one piano

"The Three Lears" consists of new music written for this specific project by young women composers from Greece and Romania (based in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Greece, and Romania). 

Pythia Trio was formed by the pianists Myrto Akrivou, Iro Menegou & Thalia Papadopoulou looking to celebrate contemporary piano music and explore new ways of interacting with audiences. Aimiming at discovering a new language that derives from their need for new means of expression, they collaborate with composers from Greece and abroad, carving their artistic path driven by an experimental and innovative urge. In March 2022 the trio was included in Énumérations Music Theatre ensemble, presenting the homonymous work of George Aperghis in Athens.

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This concert is a continuation of Danya Pilchen’s collaboration with Studio LOOS and the musicians of Kali Ensemble: Nirantar Yakthumba (piano), Giuseppe Sapienza (clarinet), Alejandra Bejarano (double bass), and Gregor Connelly (electronics). The concert’s programme was developed during the artistic research project Making Time Together. Collective Experiences of Time in Continuous Ensemble Practice that they conducted during our residency at LOOS in February–May of this year.

Building upon the outcomes of this residency, the artist collaboration is exploring the temporalities that emerge in the resonances between different spaces and the ways one listens to them. The piece presented owes its title to spatial, temporal, and inter-relational boundaries when performed. Developing an intuition for interacting with the resonances between various spaces – strings, instrument bodies, resonant objects, the room in which the piece is played in – in connection with how it affects our experience of time is at the core of Danya’s artistic practice.

Danya Pilchen’s music is closely intertwined with his research into collective experiences of time in musical practices. Understanding time as an emerging property of consciousness affected by social interactions necessitates increased attention to the relationships between musicians and audiences in his pieces. To facilitate these interactions, he employs various compositional strategies and listening techniques engaging the materiality of sound.

Kali is a new music ensemble based in the Hague. We primarily work with young composers with whom we can collaborate and experiment over long periods. We aim to develop an artistic practice unique to our relationship with our collaborators. Over the past years, we have formed close and active relationships with several young composers based in The Hague, and we have become experts at performing their music, realising many large-scale projects with great attention to detail.

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join us at Studio LOOS for an evening of exploring new and unconventional approaches to guitar and piano!

Drew and Eli are on tour together this fall in Europe promoting their respective solo releases on Infrequent Seams. Both of their work is focused on durational and timbral explorations of the guitar and piano (respectively) through the use of various preparations, amplification systems, and other unconventional approaches to their instruments.

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ticket price: minimum 5 euro - maximum 15 euro (choose in own accordance)

Join Kristin Norderval (NOR) & Miguel Frasconi (USA) at Studio LOOS for a concert, presentation & Q&A - VoxLAB OSLO presents!

Program:

• Kristin Norderval (NOR, Oslo) solo interactive singing

• Kristin Norderval's presentation on opera “Crane Reflects on a Favor” & her use of GENKI Rings. Moderator Leslee Smucker

• Miguel Frasconi (USA, NYC) solo “Glass Orchestra”

• Miguel Frasconi’s Q&A about his life and career during 1970s - 180s in Toronto and New York City, working with such names as James Tenney, Richard Teitelbaum, John Cage. Moderator Peter van Bergen

• Duo Kristin Norderval & Miguel Frasconi

“Crane Reflects on a Favor” is Part Two of the operatic diptych “The Sailmaker’s Wife”, which premiered during the VoxLAB VårFEST 2023. It is a post-operatic allegory, a dream-like sonic performance installation, sung in three parts by three women, each representing one of the stages of the crane’s response to her offering. The performer-controlled interactive vocal processing interface used in this work was developed through a Ph.D. Research Fellowship at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts/Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo, Academy of Opera. This performance marks the final presentation of that artistic research. More on the opera.

Kristin Norderval

As both a composer and singer, Kristin Norderval is inspired by hybridity, interactivity and the idea that everything we do is site-specific. In her operas, chamber works, sound installations, and music for dance and theater she blends acoustic and electronic sound, de-tuned instruments, voices, machines, and the acoustic resonance of space. In her solo works she processes her voice in realtime often combining it with prerecorded sounds to create complex sonic layers and unusual soundscapes. Custom controllers allow her to manipulate the processed sound with physical gestures. Her work with Pauline Oliveros over three decades was a primary influence in combining structural rigor with improvisation. Having trained in both composition and classical voice, Kristin first earned her living as a soprano soloist with a focus on contemporary music, particularly American composers from the New York School. She performed and recorded works by and often alongside composers such as Philip Glass, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Steve Reich, Annea Lockwood, David Lang, Tania Leon, Anne Le Baron, Frances White, Christian Wolff, Carla Lucero, George Crumb and many others. Returning to composition after her 40th birthday, Norderval´s compositions have received international acclaim. Her solo CD Aural Histories was listed by The New Yorker music critic Alex Ross as one of “Ten Notable Classical Music Recordings of 2012”. Her opera The Trials of Patricia Isasa (2016) won Quebec´s OPUS prize in two categories: best contemporary music and best production. Kristin Norderval is currently a PhD Research Fellow at the Academy of Opera in Oslo.

Miguel Frasconi

Miguel Frasconi will present solo works using his unique collection of glass and “de-evolved” musical instruments. His glass instruments, which have been called “a beautiful menagerie of pealing contraptions” (Time Out NY), will be augmented by unusual acoustic and electronic sound making devices.

Miguel Frasconi is a composer and improvisor whose instrumentarium includes glass objects, analog electronics, and instruments of his own design. Frasconi is a sound artist who uses glass objects, electronics, keyboards, and devolved instruments to create music that sounds from a uniquely imagined tradition. His glass instruments are struck, blown, stroked, smashed and otherwise coaxed into vibration, while his unique approach to modular synthesis takes a similar approach in the sonic domain. He has composed numerous operas, chamber works, dance scores and performs in New York based ensembles, including the acoustic ensemble NewBorn Trio and the electric band Lampshade. Miguel has worked closely with composers John Cage, electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros, James Tenney, Joan La Barbara, and Jon Hassell. His collaborations include new works with choreographer Alonzo King, and the new music ensemble Gamelan Son of Lion. His background includes studies ranging from the music of South India and Indonesia to the Dada and Fluxus movements. Past collaborations include new works with Balinese composer I Dewa Berata, operatic tenor John Duykers, and Tibetan songwriter Techung, with whom he has performed in concerts throughout India. Miguel has created over three dozen dance scores and has performed with modern dance pioneer Anna Halprin at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Miguel’s early work includes ten years as a founding member of THE GLASS ORCHESTRA, the internationally acclaimed new music ensemble featuring all glass instruments. His music has been released on New Albion, Porter, Clang, and independently through his own Bandcamp page frasconimusic

(sources frasconimusic and https://roulette.org/event/miguel-frasconi-2/)

Mr. White by Livia Malossi Bottignole is a game piece, a genre of experimental music that can be considered as controlled improvisation. Mr. White is inspired by the game ‘Undercover’, a social deduction game that models a conflict between two groups: a minority (the Undercover), and a majority (the Civilians). At the start of the game, each musician is secretly assigned a role affiliated with one of these teams and a secret musical material, which is the only clue for them to discover their identities and oust their enemies. The game has two alternating phases: first, a day role, during which they must carefully give away information about their fragment to try to find out who is on their team and who isn’t, and second, a night role, in which players debate the identities of players and vote to eliminate a suspect. Through multiple rounds of elimination, they will discover their own identities and oust their enemies. Rounds are shown also to the audience via projections and images, who are the only ones aware of all the identities of the players.

This piece can be played by any number of musicians and instrument types, and the length of the piece is not pre-determined and can be set by the ensemble. While working on the piece, the creative team realised that there was a demand from musicians to explore and build new skills in game pieces and controlled improvisation works. Therefore the project team has developed a workshop series to explore effective improvisation and  'playfulness' as a directive for performers, and hopes to explore social dynamics and communication through music and non-verbal means. 

Start time: 9:30AM, potentially adjusted depending on the number of participants. 

While working on the piece Mr White, the creative team realised that there was a demand from musicians to explore and build new skills in game pieces and controlled improvisation works.

Therefore the team has developed a workshop to explore effective improvisation for in game pieces. The workshop is open to members of the public with any kind of musical background, and will utilize Mr White as a training tool to deal with improvisation technique. The workshop will result in a public presentation of the work by the workshop participants during the concert on June 17th.

The workshop explores ‘playfulness’ as a directive for performers, and aims to explore social dynamics and communication through music and non-verbal means. By involving the audience we aim to offer another perspective on using technology and game-play in performance, for both audience and performers.

The workshop will be held by Livia Malossi, composer and project manager; Giorgio Zangarini, tech and creative code lead and Michele Rampino, ensemble coach.

Everyone is welcome, no specific musical skills are required.

The workshop is free, and a maximum of 12 participants are allowed. Topics are gonna be tailored based on actual participants, as well as the exact duration that will be later communicated to the actual participants. 

To join the workshop, send an email to livia.malossi@gmail.com with a brief presentation of your musical experience.

The Project “Mr. White – Workshop” is realized with the support of The Hague Municipality, Studio Loos Foundation and Movin’Up Spettacolo-Performing Arts 2022/2023.

Il progetto “Mr. White – Workshop” è realizzato con il sostegno del programma Movin’Up Spettacolo-Performing Arts 2022/2023.

MOVIN’UP SPETTACOLO – PERFORMING ARTS 2022/2023

A cura di MIC Ministero della Cultura – Direzione Generale Spettacolo e GAI – Associazione per il Circuito dei Giovani Artisti Italiani insieme con Regione Puglia – TPP Teatro Pubblico Pugliese e con GA/ER – Associazione Giovani Artisti dell’Emilia Romagna

MOVIN’UP SPETTACOLO – PERFORMING ARTS 2022/2023

promoted by MIC Ministry of Culture – General Directorate for Performing Arts and GAI Association for the Circuit of the Young Italian Artists together with TPP Puglia Public Theater – Apulia Region and with GA/ER Association Young Artists of Emilia Romagna

• Leo Lehtinen - piano

• Tilen Lebar - composition & saxophone

• Mauricio Valdes San Emeterio - live electronics & art of sound

Programme:

• Hassan (for prepared alto saxophone, tape & live electronics)

• Limen II (for piano, tape & live electronics)

Hassan (for prepared saxophone and sound recording), commissioned by the Cultural Center Nova Gorica and the 10th International Saxophone Competition SAXGO22, was composed in 2022 as an obligatory piece for the first round of the competition. The piece is written for prepared saxophone and sound recording. Originally, I draw from the linguistic material of my own improvisations, extended techniques such as "whistle tones", microtonal polyrhythmics and the expansion of my own knowledge of electroacoustic sound processing through spectral filters. Hassan is a composition that has more to do with prose than poetry. It does not allow for an extremely abstract musical imagination, as it is written in a very narrative fashion, meaning that the musical material appears in the places where we expect it to appear, and uses this form to argue for its own existence. For example, the technique of "whistle tones" can first be traced to the soundtrack, which later appears in the acoustic form. Preparing a saxophone with a glass jar is quite "unusual" and allows the expansion of natural spectral multiphonics, extreme dynamics, introverted acoustics and so-called "whistle tones". Why did I name the song Hassan? It was my own motivation and the presence of the name itself in my social environment, as I live in a particular part of The Hague that is predominantly associated with the Moroccan community. This allows me a connection that leads me to explore their cultural heritage, the religion of Islam, the constitutional monarchy, and the extraordinary connection within the community in everyday conversations. The piece is dedicated to my long-time mentor and friend Matjaž Drevenšek.

The composition Līmen II for piano, tape and live electronics contextually develops my further fascination and continuation of a series of works Līmen. There are seven pieces by now. The collection includes a sound installation, concerto for flute and clarinet with tape and live electronics, the third in a series of compositions is a piece for trumpets and percussion, the fourth one is a symphonic orchestra piece, the fifth one is a concerto for harp, electric guitar, tape and ambisonics and the most recent one is Līmen VI for soprano and large ensemble commissioned by Orkest de Ereprijs.

By Tilen Lebar:

Līmen is my way of expressing the conceptual anthropological definition of initiation rites, which has been described by Arnold van Gennep as the transience of space through a three-part structure.

Līmen II is also divided into three parts. The first relates to the 'pre-liminality' which in a metaphorical way leaves the original state and in this case, realizes a minimalistic tremolo on piano performed by rubbing the top of the piano string 'f sharp 1' and gradually enables an introduction to the acoustic space. With isolated harmonics on the string itself through the immersive six-channel sound system the introduction begins. The sonic environment does not allow any development and is from the harmonic point of view and macro form extremely static. Internal balance, which in this case refers to movements of individual harmonic partials enables the liveliness of the sonic material. 

In the second part of 'liminality,' I gradually include other extended techniques on the piano that include condensation of sound material through the bowing of piano string which causes the drone sounds, that gradually merge with the previously mentioned 'pre-liminality' and opens up the width of the harmonic spectrum.

Incorporating sound by rubbing the rubber against the strings gradually includes sound relations using e-bows and opens up micro-processes (including interference with microtonal differences and pulsating sonorities). That way it gradually transitions to 'post-liminality' that leads to bright percussive colours and thus the search for palettes that merge with the technique of the prepared register in the piano combines the 'jumping' magnets and occasional hits with glass objects by the frame of the piano.

The macrostructure is thus linked to a strict sequential development of events that make the changes possible. The identity of the previously mentioned static leads to 'destructiveness' and the tendency towards the sound within the micro-processes and a macrostructure embraces the development of condensation and gradually builds its fullness through its own 'spatial' arrangement of the sound. 'Post-liminality' again leads to associations of static sound, which is in its final state altered and distorted.

• Leah Plave - cello

• Leo Lehtinen - piano

• Tilen Lebar -saxophone

• Mauricio Valdes San Emeterio - live electronics

• Tilen Lebar - composition

• Mauricio Valdes San Emeterio - disposition of sound (ambisonics)

By Tilen Lebar:

From the beginning of the year 2021 and throughout February, I encountered the phenomenon of liminal space. As a starting point, I investigated the phenomenon itself and consequentially translated it into Slovene. Therefore, the translation indicated as ‘Prehodni Prostor’ became the topic of my following research.

Liminal spaces are thresholds or abandoned residential buildings, areas, corridors, hallways, underground pathways, shopping malls, office buildings, etc. Their initial purpose is to serve as a space crowded with people. The act of abandonment loses their initial desire. The individuals who visited such abandoned areas for the first time reported emotional and memory responses to the spaces themselves. These responses are related to two terms. The first one is Anemoia which indicates nostalgia or excitement about a time you have never known. The second Kenopsia describes a particular Psychophysiological response of an individual who interacted with the liminal space and experienced its atmosphere. We could say that liminal spaces enable us to experience these phenomena. Liminal as a cross-disciplinary term is used widely within anthropology and folklore (e.g., initiation rituals), religion and spirituality (e.g., Ascension Day, reincarnation, etc.) and psychology (e.g., self-realisation and a state of mind within constructing and developing a personality). For instance, if we take a closer look at the theory of Arnold van Gennep, he invented the term ‘Liminality’ at the beginning of the 20th century.

The direct relation to the Latin word Līmen is comprehensive and indicates the threshold and passageway at the same time. Fascinated by the term, its sense of fluidity and the anthropological theory behind it, I was inspired to write an original work. The work itself has three parts. This time you can hear the first movement named 'Preliminality’ that includes metaphorical deviation of the present state and forms a minimalistic and repetitive sonic environment throughout the eight-channel sound installation. The 'Preliminality' does not evolve. It is somehow static (i.e., from the harmony, sound and macro form point of view). The ambisonic movements throughout the sound installation allow it to come to life and to arouse.

We invite you to surround yourself with the sounds of the world below our surface, right in front of your eyes.

• Maria Nikolic - oboe,

• Tilen Lebar - composition, saxophone, tape,

• Mauricio Valdes San Emeterion - live electronics, disposition of sound (ambisonics)

Join Daniil Pilchen in exploration his artistic research in Stuio LOOS on May 12th

According to Daniil:

This is the second concert presentation of my artistic research project at LOOS, ‘Making Time Together. Collective Experiences of Time in Continuous Ensemble Practice’, in which I explore collective experiences of time in music through my continuous collaboration with Kali Ensemble.

Building upon the outcomes of our first workshop in February and March, we will continue exploring the temporalities that emerge in the resonances between various spaces and the ways we listen to them. This time, we will pay special attention to introspective modes of listening based on memory and imagination, and investigate how these virtual spaces expand with the physical and how they affect the way we listen to one another.

This concert and the research project are made possible with a subsidy from Makersregeling Gemeente Den Haag.

Danya Pilchen’s music is closely intertwined with his research into collective experiences of time in musical practices. Understanding time as an emerging property of consciousness affected by social interactions necessitates increased attention to the relationships between musicians and audiences in his pieces. To facilitate these interactions, he employs various compositional strategies and listening techniques engaging the materiality of sound. This practice revolves around Songs, an ongoing series of chamber pieces on which he has been working since September 2019.

Kali is an ensemble based in the Hague. Our ensemble consists of Giuseppe Sapienza (clarinet), İdil Yunkuş (violin), Beste Yıldız (cello), and Nirantar Yakthumba (piano). We explore music that challenges us to have a direct encounter with its manifold — i.e., the dynamic spatiotemporal structures that generate sonic, and hence, musical forms — through different modes of listening. Thus, over the past years, we have developed close and ongoing relations with composers who share our aesthetic vision. Their collaboration with our ensemble continues to be crucial to the formation and development of our sound.

Gregor Connelly is a sound artist and composer, currently enrolled as a Bachelor's student in the Art of Sound program at Royal Conservatoire the Hague. He is exploring contemporary and experimental art forms, recognising their imperative role in forming new modes of cultural perception and shaping the way in which we interact with our environment. With this in mind, he aims to uncover the particularities of our time and connect them with more perpetual structures and ideas.

This public concert is a culmination of a three-day residency at Studio LOOS and is followed by an open discussion.

In our daily lives, our sonic environments consist of a constant combination of acoustic sounds and electronic sounds. This research aims to facilitate inclusive listening and sounding in performance that similarly combines and centers both acoustic and electronic sound in a common space. 

In 2021-2022 my research at Studio Loos involved designing and implementing a gesturally controlled interactive interface for real-time vocal processing of my unamplified operatic voice, using wireless midi rings to control a MAX patch that manipulated my sampled disembodied voice(s). In my research in 2023, I move from a solo practice to an ensemble practice. I will explore working with this interface in collaboration with two virtuoso instrumental performer-composers who also use live processing to augment their acoustic signals and who also do not require amplification of their acoustic instruments: violinist Leslee Smucker and reed player Peter van Bergen.

The challenges of moving from a solo practice to an ensemble practice require time and space to perform together and time to investigate a deep concentration on the interactions of our embodied acoustic sounds with our disembodied processed signals in a common acoustic environment.  We will explore the musical challenges of working within a trio consisting of 3 monophonic acoustic instruments, each of which will be processed with a different audio-processing interface. We will investigate what kind of multi-channel loudspeaker setup will most effectively combine our unamplified embodied sounds (the resonant bodies of our voices and instruments) with our disembodied sounds (the live processing of our sonic avatars).

Deep gratitude to Studio Loos for providing space, technical equipment and expert collaborators, and to Music Norway for a 2023 travel grant.

bios

As both a composer and singer, Kristin Norderval is inspired by hybridity, interactivity and the idea that everything we do is site-specific. She blends acoustic and electronic sound, is fascinated with de-tuned instruments, machines, and ambient sound. In her solo works for voice and electronics she processes her voice in real time often combining it with prerecorded sounds to create complex sonic layers and unusual soundscapes.

Leslee Smucker is a musician utilizing violin, voice, synthesizers, electronics, film, and poetry. Her work focuses on ideas surrounding sound perception, phenomenological spatial relationships, anachronisms, language, and the human/machine relationship. For composition, she was awarded a commission from Gaudeamus for Michela Amici in 2022 for harp and transducers. She has presented her research at the 20th Biennial International Conference on Ninetheeth-Century Music in Huddersfield, UK, and given artistic research lecture-performances at Brancaleoni International Festival and University of Virginia. She is lecturer in music at University of Colorado Boulder.

Peter van Bergen is artistic and business director of LOOS. He is a composer, improviser, interpreter and PhD researcher at the Free University of Brussels in the field of interdisciplinary experimental new music. He founded LOOS in 1982 and Studio LOOS in 2005. His research concerns "Improvisation, Interactivity, Instability: Artistic Transformations" (IOMAIM Research) in which improvisation between people is transformed into collaboration between man and machine.

Notes on the presentation on 26 March 2023, 15:00 in Studio LOOS

By Cornelis de Bondt

In this presentation I will try to explore the concept of the ‘ornament’. I will do this by asking questions and showing examples, but not by attempting to formulate definitions. 

There are primarily two topics I will address: the differences between ‘plot’ and ‘story’, and between high-tech and low-tech. The latter with an example of a short video, shot with two different camera’s: my mobile phone and a professional camera which is used for television or professional movies. Also the audio which is used for the video is based on two different sample-types, yet based on the same midi-file. Do we gain something when watching the high-tech version, or is it just a matter of ornamentation?

— Mede mogelijk gemaakt door de Gemeente Den Haag, Studio LOOS en Schram Film Studio’s Amsterdam

Cornelis de Bondt

Composer [from 1975], teacher of music theory at KC [from 1987], research, aesthetics and composition [from 2004]. Composition, research, education and political activism ultimately come together under the heading "The Technique of Beauty". The central question is "Is it possible to formulate criteria for an artistic quality judgment beyond the personal taste judgment?" This question is addressed in all facets of my practice, composition, research, text, education, political action. [Politics ”seen in a broader context: concerning the policy.]

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Kali is a new-music ensemble based in the Hague. Our ensemble consists of Giuseppe Sapienza (clarinet), İdil Yunkuş (violin), Beste Yıldız (cello), and Nirantar Yakthumba (piano).

The name Kali refers to the name of the Hindu goddess of time, and in homage to Kali, we seek to explore new music that engages with time and form in manifold ways. Therefore, it is important to us that we actively and directly work with composers, and that we are able to not just perform their works but also understand the creative thought behind them.

• Myrtó Nizami: The branches look the same ~7' (Violin, Cello, Piano)

• Daniil Pilchen: 5 Songs.Kali ~35’

• Nirantar Yakthumba: श्री महावि द्यातन्त्र - मातङ्गीदर्शन (Shri Mahāvidhyātantra - Mātangidarśana) ~15' (Violin, Cello + Sines Waves)

Myrto Nizami (1994) is a composer and pianist from Greece. She is often inspired by poetry and painting, philosophy, and the politics. In her music she seeks the fluid and airy plasticity of sound and the artistic dialogue between technology and physical sound material. She has composed music for acoustic instruments, voice, and electronics.

Nirantar Yakthumba: I am a composer/pianist from Nepal currently based in the Hague. Having grown up in a Hindu/Buddhist environment, many of my creative ideas derive from my experience and fascination with the numerous and rich philosophical and aesthetic traditions that developed alongside these religions.

My work explores the geometry of sound, the translations from a highly structured imaginary to the real, curvature, singularity and multiplicity, the differential. As a result, the performance of my works often requires musicians to measure out precise proportions, intervals, and gradations that are alien to our usual experience of music. It is therefore of great importance to me to be able to situate the musician in perspectives that allow them to perceive, to hear, to orient themselves around what must sound, so that they may find their own vibrant presence in it.

Daniil Pilchen is a composer based in The Hague. Daniil’s musical practice is closely intertwined with his research into the emergent properties of time in continuous musical practices. An understanding of time as a product of social interaction offers a particular way of organizing interpersonal relationships between musicians and audiences in his pieces, embracing the inherent precariousness of each human and the inescapable uncertainty of the relationship between them. This research revolves around Songs, a series of pieces for various ensembles, on which he has been working since September 2019.

Summary of a research on the integration of sound and style in contemporary art music and jazz, presented in an improvisational context.

Research thesis: Transmutations are an addition to : composing and arranging music for guitar solo, improvising in jazz settings resulting in a cohesive style that bridges the boundaries of genres in themselves and in so-called commercial music.

The video shows performances of Tineke Postma (saxofone),Yvonne Smeets (vocals), Gijs Idema (el. guitar), Cas Jiskoot (double bass).

After the live concert, enjoy Blue Light by Yvonne Smeets en Olaf Tarenskeen.

During this concert, Tarenskeen will highlight some of the Transmutations found in the research and the application of these in the music for the Blue Light Project.

Duration of the event: 1.15min (45min+30min)

Free entrance for CD sponsors

Bram Stadhouders’ “Orbit” - Surround Guitar

Sonic Waves is a concept by INDEx where live acts are accompanied by dj's in an intimate setting.

With Sonic Waves INDEx promotes the more interesting niches from different music styles, with the main focus on the sonic experience. Come join us on this journey and immerse yourself into new sonic and visual territories.

Being able to sit in the music and disappear. Lose yourself in melodies: follow the line of the bass down the rabbit hole. Orbit takes this experience to an otherworldly level, where you are surrounded by the music, you are literally right in the middle of it. Bram Stadhouders has created a harmony of the spheres with mathematical algorithmic amazement, in which each string of his self-developed “surround guitar” has its own direction. There is no way not to be carried away once inside the 3d music experience Orbit.

With:

• Bram Stadhouders (live)

• INDEx Dj's

https://www.indexmusic.org/

Bram Stadhouders

Multi-awarded guitarist / composer / improviser Bram Stadhouders is one of The Netherlands’ most forward-looking adventurous musicians, operating in the fields of jazz, improvisation, ambient, electronic music. He continuously attempts to push the boundaries in search of innovative projects that challenge genres, disciplines and technology, while forming a deeply personal approach in emotional expression. He has worked with some of the most sought-after musicians in the fields of improvisation and classical music, releasing over 15 albums and performing in over 50 countries worldwide.

Studio LOOS has a spectacular evening for you planned during the DCR Open 2022!

Enjoy an impressive exhibition by Willem Marijs “komplete kunstlicht en geluid objekten show van de 60'er jaren tot heden” (“Complete Artificial Light and Sound Object Show From the 60S to the Present Day”)

During the exhibition, guests are invited to enjoy various performances:

5 PM - 7 PM

Poetry - Dance - Interactive Visuals & Music

• Poetry Circle 070 (Huis van Gedichten)

• Artek <> LOOS (installation IOM-AIM Inside Outside/I'm Sitting in Two Rooms Johan van Kreij + Peter van Bergen)

• Isabelle Chaffaud & Jerome Meyer Dance

7:30 PM - 8:40

REWIRE Artists

• 19.30 - 19.50 Henry Vega & Jan-Willem Troost

• 19.55 - 20.15 Anne Wellmer

• 20.20 - 20.40 Kasia Głowicka

Nederlands:

In deze workshop neemt Martijn Verlinden je mee op sleeptouw in zijn Beat-laboratorium. Hoe begint een gave beat, en hoe creëer je deze? Je kunt ze overal vandaan toveren. Tijdens Beatlab haal je ze uit je directe omgeving, bijvoorbeeld door gewoon met stokken op een tafel of deurpost te rammen. Al experimenterend maak je samen een beat.

Beatlab is een workshop waar we eerst op 'Audio Safari' gaan en geluiden zoeken en daarna worden er met die geluiden samen muziek gemaakt. Het resultaat is een track helemaal gemaakt met eigen opgenomen geluiden.

Met 2 recorders worden er eerst geluiden gezocht. Dat kan binnen of buiten. Er zijn verschillende drumstokken die ook daarvoor gebruikt kunnen worden. De geluiden die gezocht worden zijn korte en lange geluiden, en hoge en lage geluiden. Alles mag worden opgenomen. Des te gekker het geluid des te beter. Als er meer dan 25 a 30 geluiden zijn gevonden dan keren we terug naar het 'Lab'. Daar worden de gevonden geluiden geladen in de computer. Als dat is gebeurd kunnen de geluiden weer worden gespeeld met controllers door degene die ze ook hebben opgenomen. Samen maken we een beat en evt als er dan nog tijd is een hele track. Daarna krijgt iedereen de beat / track mee naar huis.

Dit is een workshop voor kinderen, maar open voor alle leeftijden.

Toegang tot het evenement is gratis, maar wegens de beperkte capaciteit, gelieve u te registreren via de check-out hieronder om een plaats te verzekeren.

English:

In this workshop Martijn Verlinden takes you along to his Beat lab. How does a cool beat start, and how do you create it?

You can get them from anywhere. During Beatlab you get them from your immediate surroundings, for example, by simply banging on a table or doorpost with sticks. By experimenting you will make a beat together.

Beatlab is a workshop where we first go on 'Audio Safari' and look for sounds and then we make music together with those sounds. The result is a track made entirely from your own recorded sounds.

With 2 recorders we first search for sounds. This can be done inside or outside. There are different drumsticks that can also be used for this. The sounds that are sought are short and long sounds, and high and low sounds. Everything can be recorded. The crazier the sound the better. When more than 25 to 30 sounds have been found we return to the 'Lab'. There the found sounds are loaded into the computer. Once that's done the sounds can be played with controllers by the same people who recorded them. Together we make a beat and possibly, if there is time, a whole track. Then everyone gets the beat / track to take home.

This is a workshop designed for children, but open to all ages.

Entrance to the event is free of charge, however due to limited capacity, please register via the checkout below to secure a spot.

An evening of resilience, Ukrainian music culture, and solidarity with Dyvyna folk group

We will carry our pain through the saddest Ukrainian songs of different times about war, hardships and loneliness to songs about the power of women, will to live and love, which always win.

Dyvyna folk group was founded at Donetsk National University in 1998.

The ensemble's repertoire includes Ukrainian folk songs of various genres, most of which were recorded in ethnographic expeditions in Ukraine or in the Ukrainian diaspora (Black Sea villages of Kuban, Ukrainian villages of Western Siberia, Altai Krai).

Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine members of the ensemble had to flee twice - in 2014 from Donetsk and in February 2022 from the Kyiv region. They ended up in Germany and continue to sing.

All the proceeds of the concert go directly to the Dyvyna Ensemble as a donation in order to help the artists financially during this difficult time.

New edition of Ephémère - new age contemporary music concert series on June 9th!

The concert series is curated by Marie Guilleray.

• Leslee Smucker, violin - mutable passage

• August 38th (vocal ensemble) 

Doors open at 8PM, concert starts at 8PM30.

Leslee Smucker “mutable passage”

mutable passage is a sound work for violin, voice, electronics, and four channel audio. Inspired by the poem “Spiral” by Federico Lorca:

My time

moves on in a spiral.

The spiral

limits my landscape,

leaves what is past in the shadows

& makes me advance

full of doubts.

The work is based on the passage of mutable sound: fragile fluctuations in layers of sound are sent along paths that develop and change over time. The work develops the flux and flow of time, how we experience imperceptible changes, and how sound can travel through a labyrinth passage to come out changed on the other side. The audience is a static observer, while the sound moves and changes--sometimes by close frequency shifts, other times by the interaction of loudspeakers and instruments. It is meant to place the viewer in a perceptive and observational state of mind as the sound advances, full of doubts.

Leslee Smucker (1986) is a musician utilizing violin, voice, synthesizers, electronics, film, and  poetry. Her work focuses on ideas surrounding sound perception, phenomenological spatial  relationships, anachronisms, language, and the human/machine relationship. Her music often  explores close frequencies, timbre relationships, layering, high contrasts, and slowly evolving  spatial compositions. She has performed solo projects at Association Philomuses in Paris,  Auditorium Clarisse in Italy for the International Pound and T.S. Eliot Conference, Center for  New Music in San Francisco, Muse Performance Space, The Dairy Arts Center, and ATLAS  black box. Other solo performances include The Scottish Library (presented by University of  Edinburgh’s Cantos Project), the Andriessen Festival in Arnhem, NL, Project Audire in  Portugal, and Interference Series in Flagstaff. She was Assistant Concertmaster with Jonsí and  Alex/Wordless Orchestra tour for their Denver performance at the Paramount Theatre.  Fellowships include a Barnes Fellow in Philadelphia with artist in residence JACK quartet, as  well as a fellow in Ensemble Evolution 2021 with International Contemporary Ensemble. 

www.Lesleesmucker.com 

August 38th 

August 38th‘s performance at Studio Loos is a combination of freely improvised material and  pieces composed especially for this group. Compositions are a vehicle for improvisation and  leave a lot of space for each artist. August 38th acts like a choir and a group of expressive  soloists. During their set along musical pieces performed by the whole group there will be  moments of solo, duo and trio improvisations.

August 38th is a vocal ensemble consisting of 10 professional singers, performers from The  Netherlands, Italy, United States of America, Ukraine, Australia, Turkey and Latvia based in  Amsterdam. 

The focus of this group is improvisation, exploring different possibilities in creating musical  textures, atmospheres and stories by using the human voice. Their performance might make  you laugh, cry, imagine colours, shapes, landscapes or remember your childhood dreams. 

Members: 

Laura Polence (Latvia) 

Marta Arpini (Italy) 

Jodi Gilbert (USA) 

Julia Werner (Netherlands) 

Annelie Koning (Netherlands) 

Saskia Oving (Netherlands) 

Maryana Golovchenko (Ukraine) 

Felicity Provan (Australia) 

Vertrek - Daniëlle Davidson Hans van der Maas

During HOOGTIJ you can visit several art locations in the inner-city of The Hague: from white cube to underground; from established art in galleries and institutions to installations and performances in artists initiatives. Free entrance. HOOGTIJ will be adapted to possible covid measures. Free tours.

Studio LOOS stands up in solidarity of the Dutch cultural sector and protest the current COVID-19 restrictions towards the continuation of not allowing concert halls, museums, and theaters to open.

Together with a great number of participants all around The Netherlands, this protest will hopefully bring attention to the Dutch government and allow easing of restrictions.

Could your hair use a haircut and do you want to enjoy a great performance while waiting?

The hairdressing salon//Studio LOOS event:

Augusto Silva will be your hellish hairdresser with divine hands.

performances by

Johan van Kreij - (IOMAIM/Research)

Peter van Bergen (IOMAIM/Research)

Luis Mascaro - violin and electronics

Cristiano Melli - electronic music

For more information and booking your haircut, please email info@loosdenhaag.com until 12:00 pm

For more information about the organizers:

https://kapsalontheater.nl/

new research developments

Watch this digital concert on the LOOS channel!

Gabriela Areal performs "Solo de Armonio"

Gabriela Areal is a composer and cellist born and based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Originally coming from visual and movement arts, her music practice wonders about the space between and within presences. Her work relates to the tradition of written experimental music, improvisation, performance art, process music, microtonal systems, acoustic phenomena, auditory perception and movement techniques.

During the pandemic times she has devoted her time to compose and record music for LCollective; to the making of “ENDE”: a music-graphic practice piece commissioned by Centro de Arte Sonoro (Ministry of Culture of Argentina); to the develop “blandiri”: a piece for voice, cello, sine tones and fire for the Argentinian resonance of the Listening Biennial (DE) BIENAL : DE : ESCUCHAR; to produce the 2020/2021 season of her concert series SAGITAL where she commissioned and recorder works by 8 local musicians active in the Experimental and the Early Music scene.

Kristin Norderval - “Future Past”

a PhD in Artistic Research at the Oslo National Academy of Arts, Academy of Opera, and I am here in Den Haag for this academic year taking the 1-year course in Sonology. My research focus is on the challenges of developing an interactive audio processing interface suitable for opera singers, one that would require improvisatory responses from the singers.

As both a composer and singer, Kristin Norderval is inspired by hybridity, interactivity and the idea that everything we do is site-specific. She blends acoustic and electronic sound, is fascinated with de-tuned instruments, machines, and ambient sound. In her solo works for voice and electronics she processes her voice in real time often combining it with prerecorded sounds to create complex sonic layers and unusual soundscapes. Custom controllers allow her to manipulate the processed sound with physical gestures.

Joan Jordi Oliver performs "From the Noise"

Interactive environment for saxophone and live electronics. A semi-modular, flexible system created in Max captures the saxophone sounds, filters them to extreme ends and plays them back into the room.

The performer can mix the results in real time, designing a constantly morphing soundscape, adding new sounds to it or saturating it. The digital filters allow them to explore the hidden partials of the original sound, inaudible in the acoustic situation but hearable through the zoom-in process of the electronic system, creating pure harmony from the noise. This relationship in the interaction between performer and machine exposes the fragility of the listening and performative experience and gives a dramatic dimension to the performance.

VBVK (Van Bergen Van Kreij) perform IOM-AIM Research

The “c@tfish” hackLab café workshops, led by Johan van Kreij, is a new initiative to grow the electronic music community in The Hague. Studio LOOS is the perfect location for the workshops, as there are multiple useful tools, instruments, as well as shared guidance for creators and artists with different experience in electronics. Our goal is to create an artistic hub where people work on projects that can include electronics, sensors, micro-controllers, code, and where experts can offer help.

For whom is the hackLab intended?

C@tfish hackLab café is intended for anyone who is working on a project that involves electronics and code. You might be stuck on a problem, or you might be looking for inspiration, a new solution. The experience of the organizer(s) may either help you to move forward or set you on track for finding the solution yourself.

All experience levels are welcome, but be prepared to get your hands dirty.

The hackLab is for all ages.

What tools are available?

We will provide tables with basic tools together with soldering and measuring equipment. Also a 3d printer is available, which can be used at a fee.

How often will the hackLab be organized?

Initially this will be once a month, on a Saturday afternoon. It will start at 2 p.m. and finish at around 5 p.m.

What is the price for participating?

Simply said, participation is free and you’re invited to make a payment corresponding to the value it has for you. Payment is possible in cash or with card.

buy tickets directly

the entrance is based on the donation principle: you decide how much to pay