Awards season 2021: Oticons Faculty Competition announces their winners

Oticons Faculty Film Music Competition have announced their winners for 2021:

https://faculty.oticons.com

As Administrator of the Jury and jury member since 2017, it is a pleasure each year to witness the new and rising film music composition talent that comes through this competition! This year, the winners were quite clear and showed real professional promise. It is a statement to the resiliency of music that the quality of musical ideas remain high, even as many creatives are fatigued with all the changes and cancellations in the industry. Here’s to the new talent!

Presentation of paper on reciprocal Sound Art at Seeing Sound 2020 12.12.2020

Yati will be giving a paper on his research and performances of sound art works to Saundaryalahari at the Seeing Sound 2020 conference at Bath-Spa University on 12th December 2020 between 14:45 - 16:45 with a live Q&A afterwards. The conference normally takes place every two years and outlines most high-level research in sound art and visual music techniques in academia.

The programme and running order can be seen here:

http://www.seeingsound.co.uk/seeing-sound-2020/2020-presentations/

The paper itself can be viewed here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LQravr6tLfb4904FLULqdIK6git3pHoY/view?usp=sharing

The title of the paper is: Saundaryalahari – a search for a reciprocal audio-visual system

Abstract: The Saundaryalahari project is a series of works based on an 8th Century Indian literary work in Sanskrit written by Adi Shankara called the Soundarya Lahari or Saundaryalahari (Sanskrit: सौन्दर्यलहरी) meaning "Waves Of Beauty”. The outputs of this project explore through music, sound and visuals the “non-verbal” creativity found in these ancient texts while utilising the structuralism of the spiritual/graphic formation of the Sricakra, which defines and arranges the verses from outside to inside. As part of this, the Saundaryalahari sound art “system” utilises signal modified electronics and interactive visuals to attempt to translate image into sound and back again – providing the opportunity for the music to have a “feed forward” loop to regenerate musical materials within a composition and interact directly with the performer or ensemble during a performance.

In this paper, I will explain the genesis and evolution of the current Saundaryalahari reciprocal audio-visual system and why going beyond an arbitrary representation of visuals to audio/music allows for more distinct co-compositional approaches in performance and creation. Considerations on research into synaesthesia, experimental animation and improvisation will be discussed along with an introduction to the most recent Saundaryalahari audio-visual sound art works by the author. The project is funded by a Creative Scotland – Sustaining Creative Research Grant with the goal of exploring how Sound Art works can play a role in potentially transcending inequities of excessive miscommunication (i.e. social media, fake news and other overly prolific verbal/text-based communication in media).

A blog into the current research strands of the Saundaryalahari project can be found here: http://www.yatidurant.com/saundaryalahari-blog.

Hosting of AcadeMeet IMMSANE Europe and European Talent Award at Soundtrack Cologne 17

For a 5th year in a row, Yati will moderate the presentation and head the jury of the European Talent Award for film score and sound design at Soundtrack Cologne 17 on Saturday, 17th October 2020 in Cologne, Germany. This award, now in its 17th year, has become one of the most prestigious compositional awards in Europe focussing on film scoring and sound design. The Jury-members this year are the conductor Gordon Hamilton from the WDR Funkhausorchester, composer Stephen Warbeck, composer and director Maya Lavelle and composer Diego Baldenweg.

Additionally, Yati will also head the newly-renamed AcadeMeet IMMSANE Europe (formerly EEAMS) on Thursday, 15th October 2020. This initiative is designed to share research, discuss pedagogic resources and issues and disseminate new ideas in teaching film music and sound design and it is by invitation only for colleagues in the HE field, professionals and their students. Soundtrack Cologne partners with IMMSANE to create a platform for the regional association of IMMSANE at this meeting.

Due to the Covid pandemic, Soundtrack Cologne 17 - which was originally planned to take place in April - had to be moved TWICE, to take place during this week.

More information on Soundtrack Cologne 17 can be found here.

1st International Media Music and Sound Arts in Education Zurich Congress 1st - 3rd October 2020

The official programme for the 1st International Media Music and Sound Arts in Education Zurich Congress 1st - 3rd October 2020 has been confirmed and is now live here: https://www.immsane.com/immsane-zurich-2020-programme

The IMMSANE Zurich Congress will be taking place in-person at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and also via LIVE STREAM for IMMSANE members.

The programme will focus on the 1st IMMSANE General Assembly and will feature keynotes by Rens Machielse (HL, HKU and author of The Soundtrack) and Bryan Mingui (CN, PKU Beijing). The programme also benefits from the collaboration with Soundtrack Zurich and Zurich Film Festival and features case studies and panels with Marco Biscarini (IT), Marcel Vaid (CH), Michael Künstle (CH), Nicolas Rabaeus (CH), Olivia Pedroli (CH) and Jacob Eisenbach (CH). There will also be a panel on International Film Music Competitions and a panel on Sound Design with International participation. A Sound Art panel will headed by Eleni-Ira Panourgia (GR) with papers from Joseph Hyde (UK), Roger Alsop (AU) and Germán Toro-Perez (CH). Finally, an evening Sound Art performance and Film Screenings will also take place.

Participation and accreditation to IMMSANE Zurich is available on-site and requires membership to IMMSANE: https://www.immsane.com/become-a-member. Participation via LIVE STREAM is available for free to IMMSANE members. In-person event congress badges may purchased on-site, and includes the Sound Art performances, film screenings and refreshments for CHF 25 (students), CHF 50 (IMMSANE, ZFF and SMECA) and CHF 100 (standard entry).

Additionally, we ask that all participants undertake a short survey before IMMSANE Zurich 2020: https://umfragen.zhdk.ch/index.php/759855?newtest=Y&lang=en

IMMSANE is directed by Yati Durant (UK) and developed together with Prof. André Bellmont (CH) to expand collaboration, develop initiatives and research and share pedagogy with educators and industry professionals around the world. IMMSANE Zurich 2020 is hosted by Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and collaborates with Soundtrack Zurich and Zurich Film Festival. Further partners can be found on the IMMSANE website:  https://www.immsane.com