Bios and texts in English

Hanna Hartman (1961, Suecia) The Hot Dogs No comments form the author

Heðin Ziska Davidsen (1977 Faeroe Islands) When Sheep Go South In 2001 I had the pleasure of visiting Argentina whilst touring with a Faeroese band called Shalder Geo. We played in Patagonia, Bariloche, San Martin and surrounding areas. This is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I have a visual idea of South America and I've also chosen a visual idea for my North-South composition. It is a journey from the Faeroe Islands to South America the shortest way possible: straight through the earth. In the piece we stay for a while in a fake Faeroe sound-scape until we plummet into the ground, only bringing what we can carry: a vague idea of Faeroese song. As we approach the center of the earth the heat makes everything melt. From this melting pot we sense some new sounds and travel towards them… to South America! After we've been in South America for a short period of time we realize that we brought a Faeroese guest with us - a sheep.

Heðin Ziska Davidsen Heðin is mainly a rock guitarist with other interests such as metal and jazz music. He started writing small snippets of music since the age of 10. In 1993 he started composing jazz and in 1997 released his first album entitled "In the Eb" (TUTL HJF-47). He then moved to Denmark to study music and upon his return in 2001 released his second album entitled ""Tjant" (TUTL HJF-97) - a collection of jazz music, this time influenced by rock and folk. Since 2005 he has worked with electroacoustic composition and cross-over forms. He released his third album in 2007 entitled "Tjant - A beam of Light" (TUTL HJF-147), this time with a more acoustic approach. ..........

Hans Peter (Island) "ashore..." The North-South project has been a unique opportunity to share personal sound recordings, relating sounds I know and have recorded myself to recordings made by persons I have never met from faraway places I have never visited. Is it possible to "reach out" and internalise sounds of foreign origin? At least as an individual, I think the answer is yes. The project is founded on the idea that one portrays oneself and one’s surroundings - possibly unconsciously - through recordings. We may ask whether composers of one continent form a cultural unit? I find that, though we are not necessarily representative of a single native country as a cultural entity however local, site-specific or exotic, our cultural background is never-the-less mirrored when trying to relate to exotic sounds of another continent. The project has thus challenged me to go beyond the safe resort of personal material and to seek relations in sounds that allow the combination and incorporation of disparate material from remote companions. During actual work I often imagined being at the locations of the recordings where I have never been. To my own positive surprise I realize that the origins of the sounds influenced how I treated them. When choosing sounds I first looked for some that could match each of my own recordings (frog choir at night, rushes in the wind, music from the communion house). I choose Arctic terns (actually recorded in Iceland, but could have been at the South Pacific), Chilenian pifilca flutes, Brasilian church bells and a train rocking its way to God knows where. Next I combined the pairs in likely scenes and designed how they would change in a flow with a dreamlike associative character. I live on a small island traditionally founded on shipping trade and farming. The men, often absent for long periods, bring back news, goods and customs from the big world. The meanings of 'here' and 'abroad' have significance to the Islanders. The island itself is one big pile of sand, situated in the 'vadehavet' with wide, flat, empty shores, with dunes and dikes, sometimes sparkled with amber, driftwoods and other valuable items. High tides flush the shore making it always similar, always changing.                         I was imaging laying in the low waters, dreaming, sounds drifting ashore from far away, melting with memories of sonic experiences from this very island. Flowing between recognisable sources and strange elaborations - being here or abroad? - the dream favors neither one, but rather the changes themselves, ending in a quiet waking up ...

Raúl Minsburg (Argentina) Rutas y retornos “Rutas y retornos” stands in an intermediate point between the use of sounds in a purely musical or abstract way and the direct reference to a recognizable situation or ambience. With this idea in mind I used sound sources from nature and explored their musical essence. In different moments of the piece even if we recognize certain sonorities they fade into a more musical treatment. We could say that what we listen to is an evocation, a recreation of the inherent musicality of nature.

Raúl Minsburg Composer, researcher and professor. He has won several awards including the Bourges Competition (France) for his work “A tu memoria”, the Metamorphoses Competition (Belgium), Cimesp (Brazil) and First Prize in the Juan C. Paz Competition in 1996. He is active as a Professor and Researcher in the Audiovision Degree Career at the National University of Lanús (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and co-director of the International Festival “Sonoimágenes”. He is also Professor and Coordinator for the Projects Area of the CEIArtE - Electronic Arts Experimenting and Research Center at the National University of Tres de Febrero in Buenos Aires – Argentina. His work has been presented in many different concerts and Festivals of Argentina and abroad.

Daniel Schachter (1953, Argentina) broad-A-broad To work with sounds from my own environment plus a world of samples by colleagues living so far away from home was a big challenge and a great pleasure for me. “broad-A-broad” shows an uncommon Sunday morning old wooden Buenos Aires’ subway trip to the district of San Telmo, where street vendors are mixed with local singers and people from different universes. Urban activity and outdoor recordings are central but not exclusive. From the Northern part of the world I looked for similar or contrasting sonic situations that made sense: a child’s cry, people talking or singing, the sound of wind, dripping, the ocean, etc. The title is concerned with this kind of ambiguity among such diverse sonic theatres.

Daniel Schachter Since the late 80’s he has made electroacoustic music his specialty, worked on research and application of sound generation techniques and taken part of different real-time electroacoustic and mixed music composition and performing groups. Schachter is professor and researcher at the Nat. University of Lanús (UNLa) in Argentina, where he is co-Artistic Director of the Annual International Festival Sonoimágenes and a founder member of the RedASLA (Network for Latinamerican Sonic Arts). He has presented his music around the world. He has received two commissions from the INA.GRM for the 1996 / 2006 seasons, several participations at the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival (USA), the Festival Synthèse (Bourges, France), Visiones Sonoras (Mexico), Ai-maako (Chile) and at the 2004 Sonic Arts Network Conference "Soundcircus" in Leicester (UK) thanks to the support of the British Academy. After that event, his talk was published by Organised Sound magazine (Cambridge University Press). His music has been edited by the UNLa, Cosentino Records (Buenos Aires), The National Endowment for the Arts of Argentina and Pogus Records (New York). http://www.myspace.com/danielschachter - www.schachter.netfirms.com

Ricardo Dal Farra (1957, Argentina) Between my sky and your water Entre mi cielo y tu agua (Between my sky and your water) is a picture in sound of the geography and culture of some Latin American regions, and their relationships with the geography and culture of the Nordic region. Surrounded by water or asking for it, with clear and bright skies or cloudy days and long nights, maybe different languages but perhaps common hopes. Who knows? Bridges are all around, both real and virtual. Impossible connections, feelings, thoughts and sensations flow between she and he, and you and me, across my sky and through your water. This piece was composed in 2007 using sounds recorded by colleagues in their native lands, in the north of Europe, with plenty of water around; and by colleagues living and visiting the Cusco region, ancient heart of the Inca's empire in the higher mountains of Peru, closer to the sun but far from the ocean. Entre mi cielo y tu agua is part of the North-South project. An initiative by Nordic and Latin American composers to share experiences and to know more about each other's culture exchanging ideas and sounds, and composing a series of electroacoustic works. All pieces are based in a common pool of sounds, created by the contribution of each composer in the group. Thanks to all the colleagues that were helping this project and the creation of this piece. Special thanks goes to Walter Aparicio (Litho) from the Andean Media Arts Centre Amauta at Bartolomé de las Casas Centre in Cusco, and to Natalia Pajariño and Bernardo Piñero from the Electronic Arts Experimenting and Research Center (CEIArtE) at National University of Tres de Febrero in Buenos Aires for their contribution of some extra sounds that made possible this composition. Entre mi cielo y tu agua was realized at the Electroacoustic Music Studio, Argentina.

Ricardo Dal Farra Ricardo Dal Farra (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1957) holds a Ph.D. in arts from the Universite du Quebec a Montreal. He is Associate Professor and Chair at the Music Department of Concordia University, Canada; Founding Director of the Electronic Arts Experimenting and Research Centre (CEIArtE) at the National University of Tres de Febrero, Argentina; Associated Researcher at the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre of De Montfort University, UK; and Senior Consultant at Amauta - Andean Media Arts Centre in Cusco, Peru. He has been Coordinator of the national program on Multimedia Communication at the National Ministry of Education in Argentina, Director of the Musical Production program at ORT Technical Schools and Director of the Electroacoustic Music Studio in Argentina; Coordinator of the Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage (DOCAM) international research alliance and Research/Creation Coordinator of the interuniversity consortium Hexagram-Institute for Research/Creation in Media Arts and Technology in Canada; and Researcher for UNESCO’s Digi-Arts program, France. Dal Farra has been teaching composition, media arts and music technology. His electroacoustic pieces and new media works have been performed in over 40 countries and his compositions have been featured in 17 international recordings. He also developed the Latin American Electroacoustic Music Collection at The Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology (http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=556); directed radio series devoted to electroacoustic music at the National Radio of Argentina and the Municipal Radio of Buenos Aires for more than 10 years; and curated several CDs with electroacoustic music by Latin American composers (published by Leonardo Music Journal; OODiscs; and The MIT Press-Computer Music Journal). Dr. Dal Farra is a member of: the Board of Advisory Editors of the Journal of New Music Research, The Netherlands; the Advisory Board of the CIANT Gallery, Czech Republic; the Organising Committee of the Electroacoustic Music Studies Network; and the International Advisory Board of Leonardo/International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology. http://www.fondation-langlois.org/flash/e/index.php?NumPage=1601

Jorge Antunes (1942, Brasil) O Colecionador De Pedras Descalço ‘O Colecionador De Pedras Descalço’ was composed in March 2008 at the LIEM (Laboratorio de Informática y Electrónica Musical) in Madrid. The main materials were recorded by Jens Hedman: "sounds of moving stones" and "sounds of wild sea". I was interested in the construction of a small piece alluding to the characteristics of a collector: the anxiety, the perseverance, the pertinacity and the audacity. Hearing the work we see an obstinate collector of stones. He is seeking rare stones near the beach. He walks on the stones. Because he is barefoot he feels pain.

Jorge Antunes studied Violin, Composition and Conducting in Rio de Janeiro.  He also majored in Physics at the National Faculty of Philosophy. In 1961, after constructing several sound generators, filters, modulators and other electronic equipment, Antunes founded the Chromo-Music Research Studio and has since been recognized as the originator of electronic music in Brazil. In 1965 he began to research the correspondences between sound and color and wrote works that he called Cromoplastofonias for orchestras, magnetic tapes and lights. These works also incorporated senses of smell, taste and touch. From 1969 until 1973 he won scholarships to study in Buenos Aires, Utrecht and Paris. Jorge Antunes is professor of composition at the University of Brasilia and is president of the SBME: Sociedad Brasileña de Música Electroacústica (Brazilian Society for Electroacoustic Music). Antunes was a winner of the most important composition competitions in the world and his scores are published by Salabert, Breitkopf&Hartell, Suvini Zerboni, Zimmermann, Ricordi, Sistrum and Billaudot.

Jose Augusto Mannis (1958, Brasil) Mosaico Cruzado ‘Mosaico Cruzado’ is composed of images and rhythms, or sound pulsations that emerge when listening to several soundscapes in confluence and interaction. Besides reverb in the first part and a little time stretch to adjust rhythms in the second part, there is no transformation of the original sounds.

Jose Augusto Mannis works with a variety of musical genres and styles: electroacoustic, instrumental, music for video, theatre, radio art and multi-media installations. His music is characterized by one over-riding factor:  sound and musical gesture are essential concerns.  As a performer of electroacoustic music he has worked with Ensemble LíItineraire (France), Ensemble Antidogma (Turin), Grupo CÌrculo (Madrid), Duo-Di·logos (Brazil) and INA-GRM. He is the founder and former-director (1989-2005) of the Center for Documentation of Contemporary Music (CDMC) at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil, where he is a professor of composition, counterpoint and fugue. His research includes work on a music digital library, a music cataloging system and the development of ideal acoustical spaces for musical research and performance.

Cecilia García-Gracia (Chile) Renacimiento No comments from the author

José Miguel Candela (1968, Chile) "Norden Tabolango - De Wind Waait”…to Francisco Campos North and South: two distant points listening to each other. One single wind blows. This wind brings the epic sound of a southern ritual established at the edge of knowledge and time. Tabolango (“strong wind”) is a little town near Quillota (Chile). Each year the ritual of “Cruz de Mayo” (“May Cross”) occurs. The “Chinos” (“servants”) spend all day thanksgiving and praying with their music and dances. Let's invite their wind to tell us their intention. This piece is dedicated to my friend Francisco Campos, with whom I’ve learned about this culture.

José Miguel Candela graduated in music at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Chile in 1994. He has followed courses on composition and analysis with professor Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt, whom he considers his mentor. He has taught in several Chilean educational institutions (University of Chile, University Vicente Perez Rosales, Escuela SCD, etc.). He has composed works for films, theatre and contemporary dance (Chilean National Ballet, Dance Company La Vitrina, etc.) and has also composed non-functional works with special emphasis in the electroacoustic music field. In 2000 he was awarded a scholarship by Andes Foundation to compose his project "four symphonic movements of indigenist nature". One of them, "Machaq Mara" (dedicated to the aymara culture) was played by the Symphonic Orchestra of Chile. In 2003 he was awarded a scholarship by the UNESCO-ASCHBERG institution to spend two months at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, USA. There he composed his “Saxophone quartet – dedicated to Lola Kepjia, last selk’nam shaman”. In 2005 he received a scholarship granted by the LIPM (Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina) and LAIM (ARCIS Laboratory of Music Informatics), to do a residence in this Laboratory. There he composed his piece “Microciclo ‘Un Camino Nuevo’, dedicated to Salvador Allende”. In 2006 he realizes a tour of concerts along Europe (Barcelona, Bourges, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Aveiro, Madrid). There he performed his own work “de nuevo abrirán” (debut), for fretless electric bass and electroacoustic. In 2007 he receives one of the two Latin American composers support programs, granted by the Spanish Department of Culture for a one-month residence in the Musical Informatic and And Electronic Laboratory (LIEM) of the Center for the Diffusion of the Contemporary Music (CDMC), Center of Art Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain. There he composed "que tarde", for any kind of flute and electroacoustic. His music has been played in Chile and in several countries of America and Europe. He has worked for 13 years at the experimental rock group “Cangrejo” (www.cangrejo.scd.cl) that he founded in 1992. For four years, he was coordinator of the Electroacoustic Community of Chile (www.cech.cl ). He has founded and for six years organized the International Electroacoustic Music Festival of Santiago de Chile, "Ai-maako". He is now composition teacher of the ARCIS University’s School of Music (http://musica.universidadarcis.cl).

Catalina Peralta  (1963, Colombia ) Freedom in Hot & Cold Some of the samples used in ‘Freedom in Hot & Cold’ were recorded at one of the main streets of Bogotá - the Carrera 7th - on Thursday the 5th of July 2007 during a large gathering of people, of all kinds of political thinking. The gathering was a protest against the assassination of 11 deputies from the region El Valle. The deputies were kidnapped nine years ago and became hostages of the guerrilla group the Farc. People protested against the Farc, violence, kidnapping and war. They were asking for peace, for freedom. The other samples were from the cold side of the world, ice breaking and sound of dripping and running water.

Catalina Peralta She is Associate Professor at the Department of Music of the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá where she has teached composition and electroacoustic music since 1996. Composer of the Vienna Academy of Music. Magister Artium at the University Mozarteum-Salzburg.

Natasha Barrett (1972, England / Norway) Rite-3/18 The energy in the Southern sounds was attractive. Lands I have many times wished to visit. Were the sounds exotic to my ears as if from an ancient civilization? Or were they more passionate in their expression than the sounds I would normally hear? What were the impulses that finally lead me to use these three sounds from the ‘South’: the Venezuelan 'Amolador' - a Spanish tradition where a man who sharpens knives and scissors wanders through the city playing a small flute and shouting "amolador", Colombian crowd protests and Chilean Chinos Flutes played in an authentic setting. Later I realised these were the most problematic sounds I could have chosen. The Chinos Flutes are so raucous that after only some minutes of monitoring my head would ache. In working with the crowd sounds I was in danger of loosing the energy of the crowd, while the lonely "Amolador" was in danger of getting lost. Finding place for the Northern sounds finally placed the Southern sounds in perspective. Crisp recordings of cold stones, water and wood set in a spatial, morphological and metaphorical counterpoint against the passion of the sounds from the South carving a semi-abstract musical-dramatic landscape. “Rite-3/18” was composed with support from the Norwegian “Fond for Lyd og Bilde”

Natasha Barrett's work spans the extremes of concert composition through to sound-art. Whether writing for live performers or electroacoustic forces, the focus of this work stems from an acousmatic approach to sound and the aural images it can evoke. The spatio-musical potential of acousmatic sound features strongly in her work. Barrett currently lives in Norway and is active as a freelance composer, performer and researcher. For more information: www.natashabarrett.org

Petri Kuljuntausta (Finland) Heavy Feather Borders don't stop the birds when they fly high at the sky and challenge the force of gravitation. It is no wonder that the birds symbolize freedom. They're free to come and go, there is no sense to ask are they locals or visitors. Bird song is the connecting subject in the sound world of the Heavy Feather. The birds heard in the Heavy Feather are captured in the different environments of North and South. The journey travels from seaside to forest and noisy city. There is a constant play, or competition, going on between the different birds. From time to time ‘natural’ birds encounter ‘artificial’, electronically generated birds. The work ends noisily. There is no place for tiny chirps and delicate whistles in the urban context where the sounds of civilization heavily overload the acoustical environment.

Petri Kuljuntausta has composed music for experimental films, visual art and dance projects and made media and sound installations in museums, galleries and concert halls. His works have been performed in many European countries, Australia and the USA, and he has made recordings for various labels in Australia, England, Finland, France, Germany and the USA. In close collaboration with natural scientists he has made music using whale calls, the sounds of the northern lights and composed an underwater installation from underwater materials. In many ways Kuljuntausta's art is based on knowledge of tradition. Environmental sounds, live-electronics, improvisation and collaborations with media artists have influenced him as a composer. Kuljuntausta is the author of two books on the history of Finnish electronic music, On/Off (2002) and First Wave (2008), and in 2006 he published a book entitled Äänen eXtreme (Transl. eXtreme Sound), on his own approach to music. In 2005 he won The Finnish State Prize for Art, from the Finnish government as a distinguished national artist.

Rikhardur H. Fridriksson (YEAR, Finland) “Postcards from North and South” is a mixture of sounds that don’t really mix. We have environmental sounds from Iceland in the form of birds, water and footsteps, and we have human sounds in the form of voices from South America. These opposites attract, but don’t really communicate. They co-exist in a sonic space where they dance around each other, sometimes fighting for attention and sometimes complementing each other. In the end they at least converse, hopefully leading to future mutual understanding. Where does that leave us? Who knows? Together? Apart? In-between? Elsewhere?

Rikhardur H. Fridriksson is an Icelandic musician whose music falls into two general categories; he either makes pure electro-acoustic music, working with natural sounds and their movement in space, or he does live improvisations, playing electric guitar, processed with live electronics, appearing either alone or with the Icelandic Sound Company.

Anders Vinjar (Norway) "One less than a perfect square" "One less than a perfect square" makes three attempts in four minutes at understanding foreign sound material from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in a context where a small child learns to speak. All three attempts have the same shape. This triangulation process involves two unknowns and one known. Recordings brought from far away places in South-America, the small child singing the world - wanting to comprehend his environment by inputting sonic structure and observing any response, and the processing and structuring of the material in a musical composition.

Anders Vinjar's output includes electroacoustic and instrumental music, live-electronic works, web-art and video-works. He lives and works at Nesodden, just outside Oslo, Norway.

Jens Hedman (YEAR, Sweden) Icebreaker In this piece I focus on my experiences traveling around the world, especially many of the South American countries involved in this project. It strikes me how similar we are but also how different our social-structures, history and living conditions can be. It was interesting to hear sounds unique to the South American composers’ environments. Demonstrations, historic instruments, jungle sounds, lively street sounds, carnivals... In choosing my own sonic material I wanted to find sounds that don’t exist in South America and which might be unique to Sweden. I have used Swedish folk music, the rich sound world of snow, ice and stones that I found along the seashore close to the house of Ingemar Bergman on the island of Gotland - sounds that might capture the Swedish soul. The challenge was to interplay my sounds with selected South American sounds - to find their inherent drama and allow them to interact in a musical way. To me it has been very rewarding to work with other composers’ material. The title infers not only the main source sounds but also the idea of the North-South project as an opener for better contact and understanding between the Nordic and South American countries.

Jens Hedman is a long time established name in Swedish electroacoustic music. His music has been performed at festivals, concerts and on radio all over the world and has received several important prizes in international music competitions. Hedman composes both instrumental and electroacustic music. He often combines his music with other artistic expressions, collaborating with writers, visual artists, choreographers and architects. To Hedman the spatial content of music is very important and many of his works explore space and movement utilizing multi channel techniques. He has also participated in several collaborate compositions together with other Swedish composers.

Adina Izarra (1959, Venezuela) 10º29´N In spite of living in South América, Caracas is situated 10º29´N of the equator. My home is located at 66º 53´W. ‘10º29´N’ is based on Venezuelan birds: Tordos, Guacharacas, Guacamayas. The material also includes the very characteristic Amolador call – an old Spanish tradition from Galicia still present in Caracas. From the northern sounds I chose also birds and especially the sound of stones, trying to construct some kind of maracas.

Adina Izarra obtained a Dphil form de University of York, UK in 1989. She currently teaches at Simon Bolivar University where she directs the “Laboratorio Digital de Música”. In 2002 she was elected member of the Collegium of Latin American Composers “Colegio de Compositores Latinoamericanos de Música de Arte”. http://prof.usb.ve/aizarra