Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Bang on A Can co-founder David Lang brought his pensive evening-length piece, darker, to EMPAC, for a recording residency and performance featuring Esnemble Signal with live projections by Suzanne Bocanegra.

Scored for 12 strings, darker is a slow exploration of sound. At times, it gives the ensemble the feel of a giant pipe organ or, with the aid of visual artist Suzanne Bocanegra’s live projections, the feel of splattering rain on an immoveable wall. As much a hypnotic sonic and visual object as it is a piece of music, darker weave its intricate solo lines into a delicate and subtly emotional fabric.

darker was recorded in the Concert Hall by Ensemble Signal for future release on Cantaloupe Records.

David Lang is one of the most highly esteemed and performed American composers writing today. His works have been performed around the world in most of the great concert halls. Lang is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can. 

Ensemble Signal, described by the New York Times as “one of the most vital groups of its kind,” is a NY-based ensemble dedicated to offering the broadest possible audience access to a diverse range of contemporary works through performance, commissioning, recording, and education. 

Suzanne Bocanegra is an artist living and working in New York City. Her recent work involves large-
scale performance and installation, frequently translating two dimensional information, images and ideas from the past into three dimensional scenarios for staging, movement, ballet, and music.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Bang on a Can co-founder David Lang brought his pensive evening-length piece, darker, to EMPAC, for a recording residency and performance featuring Ensemble Signal with live projections by Suzanne Bocanegra.

Scored for 12 strings, darker is a slow exploration of sound. At times, it gives the ensemble the feel of a giant pipe organ or, with the aid of visual artist Suzanne Bocanegra’s live projections, the feel of splattering rain on an immoveable wall. As much a hypnotic sonic and visual object as it is a piece of music, darker weaves its intricate solo lines into a delicate and subtly emotional fabric.

darker was recorded in the Concert Hall by Ensemble Signal for future release on Cantaloupe Records.

David Lang is one of the most highly esteemed and performed American composers writing today. His works have been performed around the world in most of the great concert halls. Lang is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York’s legendary music collective Bang on a Can. 

Ensemble Signal, described by the New York Times as “one of the most vital groups of its kind,” is a NY-based ensemble dedicated to offering the broadest possible audience access to a diverse range of contemporary works through performance, commissioning, recording, and education. 

Suzanne Bocanegra is an artist living and working in New York City. Her recent work involves large-scale performance and installation, frequently translating two dimensional information, images and ideas from the past into three dimensional scenarios for staging, movement, ballet, and music.

Composer and Bang on a Can founder Michael Gordon presented his choral work, Anonymous Man, performed by the 24-voice ensemble The Crossing. The hour-long piece expands on Gordon’s architectural approach to composition, layering minimalistic swirls of vocal sounds on top of one another to create a hypnotic group incantation.

Taking inspiration from his neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, Gordon says, “When I moved into my loft on Desbrosses, the streets were empty, since few people lived there. But both then and now, there were the homeless. Over time the neighborhood changed from an industrial warehouse district to a residential area. Anonymous Man is a memoir about my block. The piece is built around my memories of moving in, meeting my future wife for the first time there, and conversations I have had with two homeless men who made their home on the loading dock across the street.”

Michael Gordon and The Crossing were in residence to record Anonymous Man for future release on Cantaloupe Records. 

Conducted by Donald Nally, The Crossing was formed in 2005 and has dedicated itself to expanding the contemporary choral music experience through commissions, collaborations, community, and performances that are characterized by a distinctive unity of sound and spirit. The Crossing has been hailed as “superb” by The New York Times, “ardently angelic” by The Los Angeles Times, and “something of a miracle” by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Formed by a group of friends in 2005, the ensemble has since grown exponentially and has made a name for itself in recent years as a champion of new music.

Stockholm-based composer Ellen Arkbro performed a new solo work For Guitar and Electronics. She was in residence at EMPAC to develop material for an EMPAC commission for Wave Field Synthesis to be premiered in Fall 2018.

Ellen Arkbro is a musical alchemist whose work oscillates between the pop music of the ’90s and the American minimalism of the ’60s, while exploring microtonal realms that blur the standard tunings and harmonies of Western music. Her practice takes the form of compositions for early-music ensembles as well as long-duration performances of synthesized dream music, including one piece composed to last 26 days. Her sound work is heavily informed by her studies in just intonation tuning with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in New York and with Marc Sabat in Berlin. She describes her 2017 album for organ and brass as “a very slow and reduced blues music” written for the 17th-century Sherer-Orgel organ in Tangermünde, Germany, paired with microtonal arrangements for horn, tuba, and trombone.

The second week of the Spatial Audio Seminar is a workshop format, giving participants focused time and hands-on access to EMPAC's Wave Field Synthesis system in order to develop new creative work. This portion of the seminar will be reserved for only a handful of participants who submit project proposals in advance. Submissions will be reviewed by seminar leaders and accepted based on the degree to which they utilize the capabilities of these spatial audio systems and the potential to realize the proposed project within the given time frame.

WAVE FIELD SYNTHESIS

EMPAC’s Wave Field Synthesis array was constructed in 2016 and consists of 558 independently controllable speakers spread across 18 portable and reconfigurable modules.

VENUES

The workshop will take place throughout the EMPAC building, granting participants access to a range of sophisticated audio systems in a variety of acoustic settings. Three venues will be outfitted with high-channel-count audio arrays, including:

• Large absorptive studio
  (66’x51’x33’; 315m2, 12m high) with with two 186-channel Wave Field Synthesis arrays (one frontal linear array and one overhead linear array).
• Large diffusive studio
  (44’x55’x18’; 230m2, 9m high) with 186-channel Wave Field Synthesis Array.

HOW TO APPLY

Applications for Workshop Week will open on March 1 and close on May 1.

Stockholm-based composer Ellen Arkbro was in residence to develop material to use with EMPAC's Wave Field Synthesis Array. While Arkbro was at EMPAC, she also performed a new solo work For Guitar and Electronics.

Arkbro is a musical alchemist whose work oscillates between the pop music of the ’90s and the American minimalism of the ’60s, while exploring microtonal realms that blur the standard tunings and harmonies of Western music. Her practice takes the form of compositions for early-music ensembles as well as long-duration performances of synthesized dream music, including one piece composed to last 26 days. Her sound work is heavily informed by her studies in pure intonation tuning with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela in New York and with Marc Sabat in Berlin. She describes her 2017 album For Organ and Brass as “a very slow and reduced blues music” written for the 17th-century Scherer-organ in Tangermünde, Germany, paired with microtonal arrangements for horn, tuba, and trombone.

This intensive seminar offers musicians, composers, audio engineers, and programmers the rare opportunity to study the fundamentals of multi-channel spatial audio in pristine acoustic environments. Participants will experience multiple large spatial audio systems, including Wave Field Synthesis, High-Order Ambisonics, and Binaural audio.

Researcher Markus Noisternig (IRCAM), professor Chris Chafe (Stanford), Rama Gottfried, and other guests will join EMPAC’s audio staff in dissecting technical and artistic concerns in the creation and presentation of high-count multi-channel sound projection. Using the full capabilities of EMPAC’s sonic infrastructure, including over 700 channels of audio and EMPAC’s Wave Field Synthesis array, the seminar will consist of lectures, roundtables, listening sessions, workshops, and performances.

The first week of the seminar is an open forum for participants of all backgrounds and experience levels to dive into general concepts, workflows, and control mechanisms related to spatial audio. Topics will include introductory, intermediate, and advanced patching for IRCAM’s SPAT software, in-depth discussions of Wave Field Synthesis, Ambisonics, Binaural and Transaural audio, 3D audio recording and mixing, and more. The second week of the seminar is a wave field synthesis workshop giving a limited number of participants focused time and hands-on access to the system in order to develop new creative work.

WAVE FIELD SYNTHESIS

EMPAC’s Wave Field Synthesis array was constructed in 2016 and consists of 558 independently controllable speakers spread across 18 portable and reconfigurable modules.

VENUES

The workshop will take place throughout the EMPAC building, granting participants access to a range of sophisticated audio systems in a variety of acoustic settings. Three venues will be outfitted with high-channel-count audio arrays, including:

• 1,200-seat Concert Hall
  with 64-channel Ambisonic array.
• Large absorptive studio
  (66’x51’x33’; 315m2, 12m high) with two 186-channel Wave Field Synthesis arrays (one frontal linear array and one overhead linear array) and 25-channel Ambisonic array.
• Large diffusive studio
  (44’x55’x18’; 230m2, 9m high) with 186-channel Wave Field Synthesis Array. 

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:

MONDAY, JULY 9

Introduction with Markus Noisternig
EMPAC WFS array demo
Object Based Audio with Markus Noisternig and Rama Gottfried.

TUESDAY, JULY 10

Talk with Chris Chafe
Panoramix with Markus Noisternig
Intro to Spat with Rama Gottfried
Listening Session and Q&A time
Okkyung Lee will perform a piece presented by Markus Noisternig using the WFS array

WEDNESDAY, JULY 11

Overhead Wave Field Synthesis with Bobby McElver
Intermediate SPAT Patching with Rama Gottfried
Tour with EMPAC’s Audio team

THURSDAY, JULY 12

Demos in Spatial Audio Recording/Room Impulse Responses
Jens Meyer will give a talk/demo of the EigenMike
Listening Session
Advanced Spat Patching with Rama Gottfried
Tour with EMPAC’s Audio team

FRIDAY, JULY 13

Binaural to Ambisonic workflows
Listening Session
Edgar Choueiri TransAural talk/demo
Roundtable discussion

VIDEO ARCHIVE

Media

click the top right menu icon to open playlist of 12 videos.

Fall 2018

Wu Tsang and boychild are in residence with their collaborators Josh Johnson, Patrick Belaga, Jeff Simmons, and Asma Maroof to continue work on a new performance for EMPAC's Theater to be premiered at the 10 YEARS celebration. Footage shot by cinematographer Antonio Cisneros during the August residency will be incorporated into the final performance.

Spring 2018

Wu Tsang and boychild are in residence in EMPAC’s Theater to experiment with light, scrims, and projection surfaces for the development of a new work in their Moved by the Motion series. The performance is conceived in collaboration with Fred Moten, Patrick Belaga, and Klein.

Spring 2016

Artist Wu Tsang was be in residence in the theater with her collaborators boychild and Patrick Belaga to work on the staging of a new iteration of their performance Moved by the Motion.