Listen to my interview with Chinese new music composer Dr. QI Mengjie. As a composer, sound artist and curator, her music and installation works have been presented at many international festivals, including ICMC, Audio Arts Festival, WOCMAT, CIME General Assembly concerts, International Electronic Music Festival of New York, SEAMUS, ISCM, NYCEMF, SPLICE Festival, Cube Fest, SICPP, Beijing Modern Music Festival and MUSICACOUSTICA-Beijing. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow on AI music and multimedia music performance at the Central Conservatory of Music. As a music curator, Qi Mengjie is devoted to the promotion of cultural and musical communication between China and Western countries. In 2020, she founded the Ensemble Phoenix Beijing which dedicates itself to the exploration and presentation of the works of multiple music styles, cultural elements and media languages.

Dr. QI Mengjie: Music among various domains

Full Of Feelings (Disc 1)

Toru Iwtake: Snake Of Breath

Toru Iwtake: Ritual Court

Full Of Feelings [Disc 2]

Toru Iwtake: A Ruin Under The Full Moon

Listen my interview with Berlin-based composer Misha Cvijović on her piece Emotional Logic. It is pieces composed for voice, ensemble, video, and fixed electronics. Emotional Logic is a research-based piece where the composer focuses on how a long period of isolation due to Covid 19 affects an ensemble, especially in the comparison of the previously documented individual pre-corona self with the respective experiences during the crisis and the relationship to it in the past, present and future. The research, the collection of materials and the formal structure (consisting of improvised and composed elements) reflect the recurring chaos that arises when one is confronted with strong emotions in isolation in a very controlled, unusual situation. The six basic human emotions (fear, disgust, sadness, anger, joy and surprise) are used as a kind of lens through which the composer looks at the quarantine period.

The interview questions:
1. What is a short history of the piece? 
2. What is the central message of the piece and how is this message communicated?
3. How sensorial or listening experience is created through this piece?
4. What software/hardware have you used to create this piece?
5. What was the process of composing this piece?
6. What roles play  technology in this piece?
7. What software/hardware have you used for creating multimedia parts?
8. Can you imagine the same piece without multimedia (NFT)? What could it be?
9. What are the basic compositional principles used in this piece?
10. How does work with performers impact this piece?

Multimedia music series 7: Emotional logic by Misha Cvijović

Listen my interview with Ailís Ní Ríain on her deafness. Ailís Ní Ríain [pronounced A-lesh Knee Ree-ann] is an Irish composer and writer who aims to produce work that challenges, provokes and engages. Ailís works broadly in the areas of concert music, music installation and music­-theatre and has collaborated with writers, dancers, visual artists, filmmakers, technologists and theatre artists.

Ailís is deaf/hard of hearing and some of her work has referenced these themes working with DadaFest, Unlimited, Arts & Disability Ireland, Shape Arts, Drake Music and Outside In. She is a long-time advocate for equality, diversity and inclusion in the arts and a board member of Disability Arts Online. In 2021 she  became a board director of the Ivors Academy.

Sandris Murins