Really nice, Clara!! Soundcloud suggested (forced me into) this afterwards... ^_^

Superbe ! Ce morceau est incroyable , il met en jeu des aspects sonores complètement nouveau !

Music I Like

Angry Wife

Iannis Xenakis
"Terretektorh", pour quatre-vingt-huit musiciens éparpillés dans le public (extrait) 
Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris
Ensemble intercontemporain 
Matthias Pintscher, direction

Enregistré en direct à la Cité de la musique le 18.03.2022

Iannis Xenakis, Terretektorh (extrait)

Out of the Box January 2023
A Sonic Ballet - Part Four

Attending Space Church On The Ninth Day Of The New Year

Holobiont
for ensemble and electronics (stereo version)

Ensemble Collettivo_21
https://www.collettivo21.com/

Lorenzo di Marco – flute
Lorenzo Moretto – saxophone
Alberto Anhaus – percussions
Daniele Nava – piano
Alessandro Mazzacane – cello
Luca Guidarini – electronics


Recorded at Casa della Musica San Michele 
https://www.cdmsanmichele.com/

Holobiont

Dong Zhou: electronics
Bastien Pouillès: accordion

Recorded live on 3.09.2023 in Hamburg - concert series Erhoertes Unerhoertes

Accordion & live-electronics improvisation: duo w/ Dong Zhou - live in Hamburg

"Instantes" (Instants) seeks to be a collection of moments of introspection. Perception of the body, of the world, of time. "Listen to me with your whole body," Clarice asks. 

Clarice Lispector's text, taken from "Água Viva" (adapted), is read by Tiago Boto, Nuno Veiga, Juliana Campos, Sara Marita and also by myself. The sound material that gives life to the piece comes mostly from these voices, and all the narrative constructed has the purpose of serving absolutely the text, either in episodes where the word itself is sound, or in episodes where the sound serves the word in an almost madrigalesque way.

This piece is also the result of a range of influences from several composers who inspire my work. Particularly Annette Vande Gorne, in the way she composes voice and text, and her research on space as a musical expressive parameter in acousmatic music; Jaime Reis, in his search for polyphony of gestures and spatial movements; Elizabeth Anderson whose complex textures of the pieces "Les Forges de l'Invisible", "Solar Winds" and "...and Beyond" appear in my piece as a support to Lispector's narrative. And also Luciano Berio, who in "Visage" gives us the voice with a true musicality.

Instantes, acousmatic

Apprendere dal fango, d'après Volodine 

Acousmatic, stereo version

Apprendere dal fango

Troglodyte Angels Clank By (2015), for amplified ensemble
Commissioned by Radio France.
Ensemble 2e2m conducted by Pierre Roullier

Live Recording, Radio France, Festival Présence, 10 February 2016, Paris

Clara Iannotta : Troglodyte Angels Clank By (2015), for amplified ensemble

3 pour 2 (2006 - 10) for 17 Musicians

for string quartet and electronics

Paris, Centre Pompidou June 7th 2017
Quatuor Diotima

**********************

As a kid we had a television set with an antenna that rotated (you could rotate it from inside of your house). When the major channels would go off-air you could rotate it and pick up strange other channels from smaller cities around - from across the border, Buffalo and so on - and you would see strange things, that were kind of hard to see (there was a lot of static) and it was very intriguing to watch that kind of things. That was really the core, the crystal at the centre of this movie: my experience with that thinking “what if the images that you pulled up were really quite extreme, disturbing, possibly illegal, and what would you think then, would you keep seeking out those channels or would you call the police or what would you do, how would you respond to them?”

David Cronenberg on his movie Videodrome (commentary track of the Criterion Collection BlueRay)

The Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion was a television signal hijacking (probably the most famous and certainly the longest signal hijacking ever) that occurred in Chicago, Illinois, United States on the evening of November 22, 1987. The signal pirates, whose identities were never found, succeeded in getting their broadcast intruded onto WTTW (a local Public Broadcasting Service television station).
The pirate broadcast, which lasted 90 endless seconds, featured an individual disguised as Max Headroom (a sci-fi computer-generated television character quite popular in the 80s, coming from dystopian near-future dominated by television and large corporations).
Around 11:15 p.m. an episode of the British TV-Series Doctor Who was suddenly interrupted by television static, after which an unidentified man wearing a Max Headroom mask and sunglasses appeared. The man started to moan, scream and laugh, uttering various random phrases (the audio was distorted and crackling), including New Coke's advertising slogan "Catch the Wave" while holding a Pepsi can (Max Headroom was a Coca-Cola spokesperson at the time). He then tossed the can out of sight, presented his middle finger wearing a rubber extension, sang an excerpt of “I’m losing you” (a 1966 Motown hit recorded by the Temptations), hummed the theme song of Clutch Cargo (a clumsily-animated television series of the 60s), moaned painfully complaining about his piles, farted, put on and off a giant glove (similar to the one worn by Michael Jackson at the time). He then partially exposed his buttocks, howling: "They're coming to get me!”, while an unidentified female accomplice wearing a French maid outfit started to spank him with a flyswatter. The transmission then blacked out for a few seconds before resuming the Doctor Who episode in progress.

“The 1987 Max Headroom Broadcast Incident” features a string quartet “enhanced” with transducers and preparations. 
The digital processing of the instruments is largely inspired by the same modulation techniques that were - and still are - commonly used for radio and television transmission. 
The piece, an hommage to obsolete or soon-to-be deprecated technologies and to the media-dominated, dark future that the “cyberpunk” sci-fi of 80s foretold, is dedicated to the memory of Fausto Romitelli.

Mauro Lanza - "The 1987 Max Headroom broadcast incident" (2017)

paw-marks in wet cement (2015–17), for piano, two percussionists, and amplified ensemble.
Performed by Wilhem Latchoumia, and the EOC conducted by Daniel Kawka.

Clara Iannotta : paw-marks in wet cement (2015–17), for piano, 2 perc, and ensemble

Tim Hodgkinson, Bass Clarinet. Composed 2001, rec 2003, Hyperion studios

Ana-Maria AVRAM: "Telesma" for bass clarinet and computer sounds

Live recording in San Diego Spring Music Festival, 2003. Gustavo Aguilar, percussion. World premiere

Ana-Maria AVRAM: Galaxy-reflection for solo percussion

Live in London, Conway Hall, November 2008. Hyperion ensemble, conducted by the composer
Ana-Maria AVRAM 

Composer, pianist and conductor, 
After graduating from the National Conservatory of Music in Bucharest, she obtained a degree from Paris Sorbonne in 1992. 
PHD in Musical Esthetics at Sorbonne, Paris (1995)
In 1994 she was awarded the Grand Prize in Composition from the Romanian Academy.
She is considered to be one of the most important Romanian composers of her generation.
Her music is affiliated with the spectral music trend.
She represents the Hyper-Spectral music trend in contemporary avant-garde music. 
Conductor with Iancu Dumitrescu of the Hyperion Ensemble - a chamber music ensemble from Romania, based in Bucharest specialized in the performance of contemporary classical music, more particular as the main promoter in Romania of the Spectral Music trend
Her music is spectral, acousmatic, heterophonic and transformational.
She composed over 200 works, music for soloists, chamber
music, music for symphonic orchestra, electronic and computer assisted music.
Avram received numerous commissions for composition from Radio France, Art Zoyd (France), Les Ateliers UPIC (Paris), Ensemble Lucilin (Luxembourg), Ensemble Mozaik (Berlin), Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles (Mons-Belgium), IMEB-Bourges, Bodo Sinfonietta (Bodo- Norway),  
She was  awarded at Ars Electronica - Linz in 2000 for  the work “Traces, Sillons, Sillages” for ensemble and computer assited sounds.

Founder and President- since 2006- of the Romanian Community of Electro-acoustic and Computer Assisted Music – CREMAC.

Vice-President of the International Community of Electro-acoustic Music – CIME – affiliated to IMC and UNESCO.  

 She is also founder and Artistic Director of several national and international festivals dedicated to experimental, electronic and spectral music trends:

« Acousmania »- in partnership with Romanian Broadcasting Corporation – six editions, from 2002 to 2006

« Musica Nova » – In partnership with the Ploiesti Philharmonic Orchestra 2002-2004
« Spectrum XXI » - dedicated to spectral music trends and held annually in three European capitals. Since 2006 the festival took place in Paris, London, Geneva, Brussels, Berlin, Bucharest, Mons, East Grinstead.

SPECTRUM XXI was financed by institutions such as Romanian Ministry of Culture, Romanian Cultural Institute, Pro Helvetia, European Agency for Culture, Education and Audiovisual – EACEA towards the program Culture 2007-2013.

In 2010 Avram was elected as “Blodget Artist in Residence” at the Harvard
University, Department of music where she taught composition to postgraduate students. She also sustained numerous workshops, lectures and conferences at Harvard University, the  University of Maine, Farmington (USA), Univeristy of Minneapolis-St Paul (USA), Technical University of Istanbul (Istanbul,Turkey), Institute Jacques Dalcroze (Geneva), Centre de Creation Musicale Iannis Xenakis (Paris),  etc…  

Main compositions:

"Quatre Etudes d'Ombre" for bass flûte (1992)
"Axe" for cello (1993)
"Métaboles" for bass clarinet (1985)
"Quatre Etudes orphiques" for female voice, electronics and ensemble (2006)
"Nouvelle Axe" for strings (1997)
"In Nomine Lucis" for orchestra (1992)
"Telesma" for clarinet, percussion and computer sounds (2002)
"Chaosmos" for orchestra (1996)
"Lux Animae" for ensemble and computer assisted sounds (2004)
"Voices of the Desert" for ensemble and computer assisted sounds (2005)
" The Endless Burning Fire" for ensemble and computer sounds (2007)
"Un raggio Ardente e di si chiara luce" for strings (2000)

 Contribution in musicology:

”Ana Maria Avram and Iancu Dumitrescu” - Musicworks Nr 71, 
“Being composer” - MusicWorks nr.76 ( 2000);
“Ana-Maria Avram: an adventure in experimental music” an interview with
Costin Cazaban, Bananafish, Los Angeles no 15 ( 2001)
Jean-Noël Von Der Weid: “La Musique du XX Siècle” - Paris, Hachette, 2004
“ Roumanie Terre du Neuvième Ciel” Interviews with musicologist Harry Halbreich – Bucharest, Axis Mundi, 1992.
“ The Spectral Music at the beginning of XXIst Century” – 2006. CREMAC

 
Her musics are published by Edition Modern, Electrecord, Artgallery, Radio
France
Her compositions were performed") in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Standford, in Vienna  in the Wien Modern Festival in 1992, 1994, 2003 ) in Paris (several times at Radio France, in Theatre de la Ville) in London (several times at The Royal Festival Hall, LSO St Luke’s, Conway Hall, etc.) Berlin, Nancy, Allicante, Lisbon, Baden-Baden, Darmstadt, Moscow, Belgarde, Istanbul, Minneapolis  etc.
Her works has been commissioned by prestigious international ensembles such as Kronos Quartet (San Francisco) « 20 Jahrhundert » from Vienna, Musiques Nouvelles (Mons), Lucilin (Luxembourg), Mozaik (Berlin),  iO String Quartet ( USA), Bodo Sinfonietta (Norway), soloists from l'Orchestre National de France.  In her own country she worked with the some of the most important groups: The Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra, Romanian National Orchestra, Romanian Radio Chamber Orchestra, L'Orchestre de Chambre de Roumanie, etc.
« On the Abolition of the Soul » - a Radio France commission was released
on a double CD- Radio France, an anthology of Prix Italia since 1949.











PRESS Fragments

“When Ana-Maria Avram conducts, she sometimes seems to be plucking
stars from the sky, or jabbing into hives, causing thousands of tiny critters to fly up into the air like flurries of gold dust. Avram allows the moment to shape the music. In her view, the analytical approach of serial and structuralist composers in recent decades represents a desacralisation of sound space. The conductor is instead drawn to spectral composition, in which everything develops from the nature of the sounds themselves. Moreover, to Avram, spectralism is not an academic, technologically assisted manipulation of the organism sound. Her work allows the sound to emerge from fluctuating acoustic systems in an interplay between composed and improvised passages, in which the musicians are co-creators in the most literal sense.  According to her, this is how musical activity and inner life can be combined, this is how music can open the doors to other areas of human life. A cursory glance at Avram’s catalogue of works reveals her dedication to the arcane, the archaic, the religious, and even, at times, the occult. Developed over recent years, Lux animae – Licht der Seele is an entire series of works for soloists and ensemble. One inspiration may have been the Rumanian spectralist Horatiu Radulescu’s 1996 work for viola solo, which bears the same title. Radulescu added the following notes to her piece: “Try not to be at all normal”, “always play always a bit little drunk", "all the new colours are beautiful", and "you must end in the air – imagine the sound vibrating in eterno". In comparison, Ana-Maria Avram’s philosophy seems more sober, but also more militant. For her, being modern means ”to be alive and vital. To accept risk. To dare. To think. To dare to think. To free yourself of preconceptions. To believe. To be brave. To be yourself. To know your weaknesses and not give up, by always asking yourself the same fundamental questions.” It follows that she always starts a new work by meditating; a dream that slowly takes concrete shape, until she finally brings it to life in the concert hall.”  Lux Aeterna Concert Ana-Maria Avram at Berghain 11th march 2011 by WanderingStar e.V.


“ De son coté, Ana-Maria Avram, maniant les sonorités de souche spectrale,
d’une tradition plus européenne, et instrumentales en intégrant l’imaginaire du son archétype, tout en privilégiant la structure dont elle exploite les différentes colorations dans un camaieu de résonances. Lignes brouillées, démultipliées, s’intermodulant en une géologie d’harmoniques fluides, l’album de Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram constitue une parfaite introduction  à l'oeuvre de deux des compositeurs roumains les plus innovateurs and représentatifs de ce siècle”
Serge Belleudy - d’ESPINOSE : CRYSTAL LAKE, 31 Mars 1996


“Both Avram and Dumitrescu are convinced that if they have been able to
open new doors in music, it is because they have made or found precisely those connections bandween musical activity and inner life that remain unarticulated in conventional musical training. This is not, however, simply a matter of theit philosophy and motivation as artists. The psychological reality if their music is directly grounded in a conception of the acoustic reality iof sound.” Tim Hodgkinson, “Musicworks” No 71, Summer 1998,Toronto.


Works also features three compositions by ANA-MARIA AVRAM, born in 
Bucharest in 1961. Wonderful to hear music where textural innovations aren’t employed to colour pre-existing structures, but evolve form in process. On Zodiaque she plays prepared piano opposite Dumitrescu, a percussionist and magnetic tape. Seems like these Romanians are engaged in a similar kind of sonic research to that which resulted in the masterpieces of Giacinto Scelsi and Ennio Morricone : collective endeavour, genuine ‘deep listenning’. The results are similarly overpowering a milion miles from the tootling inconsecuence of most of what passes for New Music in the classical world. BEN WATSON - The WIRE, LONDON, May 1995

“Avram descends musically from a long line of European spectralist composers. 
Listening to her pieces forces one to recall the tradition of composers like Grisey and Murail, and sonically is incredibly reminiscent of earlier proto-spectralists like Giacinto Scelsi. She is most closely associated with fellow Romanian hyper-spectralist Iancu Dumitrescu, with whom Avram works closely as a composer, conductor, and pianist in the Hyperion Ensemble (founded by Dumitrescu in the 1970s). (…)
Spectral music can sometimes seem a bit cold, even mechanical, in its execution. Avram's music is particularly remarkable because of the very real warmth with which she imbues each of her pieces. Whether composing a solo work which she herself performs, or a piece for electronics, pre-recorded tape, and an entire chamber ensemble, Avram has a brilliant flair for the dramatic paired with a sense of subtlety that lends great contrast and excitement to each moment of each of her works.

Like other Romanian contemporary composers, such as Stefan Niculescu and Horatiu Radulescu (as well as, of course, Dumitrescu), Avram focuses on the use of bird calls, wind sounds, bells, and "natural" sounds that mix harmonic and inharmonic elements in the creation of her hyper-spectralist pieces. Her music is wonderfully textural and phenomenally beautiful. These clips included here are just a few examples of the already deep contributions Avram has made, at only age 50, to the world of New Music” .  WFMU Radio Station



Ana-Maria Avram: Noumena for ensemble (2008)

live in LSO st Luke's, London, November 21, 2011. SPECTRUM XXI festival

Hyperion International. Soloists: Yoni Silver, Tim Hodgkinson ( clarinets, bass clarinets), Haggai Fershtman, Steve Noble, Alex Yonovich (percussion).  Conductor: Ana-Maria  Avram

Ana-Maria Avram: Orbit of Eternal Grace for ensemble and bass clarinets

Comment les sons s'écoulent.
Comment les sons découlent, les uns des autres.
Comment les sons s'écoulent-ils les uns dans les autres.
comment un son, d'abord contenu, peut-il se déverser
Et nous offrir une surface
Sur laquelle nous pourrions pratiquer divers sports.
Comment une corde pincée pourrait-elle devenir
Le support mouvant de nos déambulations

pièce instrumentale pour 14 musiciens:Clarinette Basse; Contrebasson; 2 Trombones Basses; 2Timbaliers; Harpe; Piano; 2 Altos; 2 Violoncelles; Contrebasse)  
joué au CNSMDP par les étudiants
enregistré par le service audio visuel

Clara Iannotta : Troglodyte Angels Clank By (2015), for amplified ensemble

Clara Iannotta

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