August 3 | Nit Electro Sonora, Castell de Flix

flix castle glitched from above! julio d'escrivan©2013

flix castle glitched from above!

julio d'escrivan©2013

The first Nit Electro Sonora was organised by Joan Bagés FUSIL was invited to play as part of a night long festival. Although the web presence of the event was pretty scatty (!) the event was fairly attended by people from the area as it included a lot of local talent, included the conservatoire from a neighbouring town performing an orchestra+electronics piece by Joan Bagés who organised the evening. Iñigo and I drove down from Bilbao to Flix in under four hours (the great Spanish roads put UK roads to shame!). There were alll kinds of music including some free jazz and DJing -which I think should have been on a main stage!! as well as some traditional electroacoustic music with well known guests from France. I didn't particularly enjoy listening to acousmatic music, but if you were a total neofite it was probably an interesting experience as they set up a multichannel system that worked fairly well. Lots of noise makers too, acoustic composition feautured inside the castle and we played outside projecting our video work on one of the castle walls, and all in all a lively evening which I hope will develop into a yearly event. Iñigo and I recorded an EP in Bilbao before going down to Catalunya and played a version of it there. An excerpt below and some pictures. I was taking them but I have not found anybody who took photos of us... pity!

The EP, published by ZAWP Records will be available on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon from 1st September at the latest! 

 

Listen below for some excerpts! 

 

and here are some pictures I took before we played... 

 

July 10th | Frome Festival - in Tones:AV

Invited by Adam Jansch, Monty and I presented Geometries of Flight was featured as part of the Frome Festival on the 'in Tones, audiovisual electroacoustic works'  programme.

“in tones returns with an event dedicated entirely to the audio-visual. Hosted by Rook Lane Arts in Frome, in tones: AV presents electroacoustic and live electronic AV works by in tones regulars Claire M Singer and Adam Jansch, fresh faces Monty Adkins and Julio d’Escriván, and local West of England talent Jo Hyde and Patrick Dunn.
”
“Geometries of Flight
Created by Monty Adkins and Julio d’Escriván
Geometries of Flight was commissioned by Tobias Fischer for a publication and audio-visual celebration of the work of Kenneth Kirschner.

For this work, Monty Adkins took five short samples from Kirschner’s 10 July 2012 and exploded their harmonic and gestural content creating an epic 20 minute track that slowly unfolds layer by layer.

This epic sonic landscape finds its counterpart in the video by Julio d’Escriván with its focus on the slow movement of polar ice and glaciers and with the exploration of these environments.”

June 28: xCoAx 2013 with FUSIL+

We played with Fusil+, featuring Monty Adkins on laptop at the xCoAx2013: Computation, Communication and Aesthetics in Bergamo on 28th June. I did some VJing as part of the show and we played in a beautiful 15th century courtyard, under clear night skies at the university there, in the late evening. The audience was very appreciative and we were able to do a fair set as part of a whole enjoyable evening!

“xCoAx is designed as a multi-disciplinary and nomadic enquiry on arts, computers, computation, communication and the elusive x factor that connects them all.”

May 25th: Terra Nova performance @ ZAWP Bilbao

On May 25th, we premiered Terra Nova for videogame player and small ensemble including electronics and improvising. I conducted using soundpainting techniques. Here is an excerpt from the first depot section... towards the end the audio doesn't correspond to what they edited on video but at least somebody captured some of it.

April Rehearsals for Terra Nova, ZAWP - Bilbao


Here we are, going through the video game piece with the soundpainiting ensemble!
Mikel Arce - videogame player
Jerónimo Martín Corrales - piano,
Iñigo Ibaibarriaga moja - saxophones
Pablo Martínez - Trumpet
Elías Merino - Laptop
Hasier Oleaga - drums
Victor Parra - violin
Jon Piris - double bass
Luis Alberto Requejo - clarinet
Izadi Velez - Bassoon
Mikel Zabala - baritone singer / voice over
and...
Julio d'Escriván - conductor (soundpainter)
Iñigo Ibaibarriaga - Producer

Harpsichord duet concert

Dan Tidhar and Francis Knight are just now rehearsing their programme for tonight here at the Churchill Music Centre. It's rare to have a diet of harpsichords and doing an all contemporary music recital at that! Dan will be playing my reGoldberg, a 'tape+instrument' piece after Variation 14. A slightly manic collage of harpsichord percussion, car alarms and rhythms from Harley Davidson's idling. I am in very august company... Maxwell Davies (oh! The horror! :) Edwin McLean, Graham Lynch, Ivan Moody, Dick Koomans and me... Some pics of tuning and rehearsals follow! Wish me luck.

Live Composition: Soundpainting at hACERIA, Bilbao, Spain.

 a video documentary from rehearsal to performance of Julio d'Escriván and the sound painting ensemble at hACERIA

 

The contemporary music collective, KLEM-KURAIA, from Bilbao (Basque Country) held the 2012 edition of its festival at the beginning of October 2012. As part of this international gathering of composers and performers, Julio d'Escriván was invited to create and conduct a Live Composition event, with a group of professional classical and jazz performers from the Basque country, using the music signing language developed in the 1980s by Walter Thompson in New York. The performance took place as a closing act to the festival at the hACERIA , one of several creative spaces in the Isla de Zorrotzaurre, part of the old port of Bilbao. In the past two years abandoned warehouses have been setup there to accomodate theatre, dance, music, rehearsal spaces, artist residencies and exhibition galleries. The ensemble are set to record a CD with d'Escriván in the spring of 2013 for the new ZAWP label, in Bilbao.

 

for more info on Soundpainting go here:  http://www.soundpainting.com/ 

for more info on KLEM KURAIA 2012 go here: http://www.docenotas.com/festivales/festival-klem-kuraia-2012-bilbao-marca-el-norte-en-musica-contemporanea

 

Julio d'Escriván is a member of the Centre for Research in New Music, CeReNeM , at the University of Huddersfield, England.

 

Live Coding at ICMC2012

 

Performing my "Give me a word, any word..." 

more info about the conference HERE

My participation, here is to do some live coding, in Ljubljana. Tonight at 8:30 at Kino Siska.

Beautiful city, kind young people. Lots of skating, cycling, walking and running. Paper venues are at an auditorium of the main electricity company... organisational poetry: Stara Elektrarna; Old power station. Yesterday's concert was interesting, not my taste at all. Did not feel moved by anything, really, like the theme of the conference, truly non-cochlear! 

 

Move to Huddersfield

 

 

Just moved to the University of Huddersfield! Settling in my new office and getting to know the place. Lots of great cycling and running routes around here. So, perfect!  :)