ACOUSMONIUM 2023

International festival of multichannel electroacoustic music

ACOUSMONIUM 2023

International festival of multichannel electroacoustic music.
Curated by Anton Iakhontov and Armando Balice
Coordination: Petra Leisentritt

co-production of the Floating Sound Gallery Vienna, Alcôme and echoraum

ACOUSMONIUM festival was launched by the Floating Sound Gallery as an annual platform for international artists in 2018 at the New Stage of Alexandrinsky Theater St.Petersburg. It offers a platform of the “loudspeakers orchestra”, proposed by Francois Bayle in 1974 as an environment for live concert situation of electronically made music, to communicate the works of experimental genres. This year we enjoy the collaboration with two contemporary classics – Alcôme from France, who are not only bringing their program but also their loudspeakers system, and Diapason, pioneers of multichannel in New York.

https://floatingsound.at/acousmonium-2023

Entrance: 08. – 10. 03.: 10,– Euro / 7,– Euro. Festivalpass (all 3 days) : 24,– Euro / 18,– Euro.

PROGRAMM

8 MARCH

commissioned by Alcôme:
Armando Balice, La lumière vire au noir (2023, premiere)
Maylis Raynal, Ostadara (l’arc-en-ciel) (2023, premiere)
Paul Ramage, M comme Mauvaise rencontre (2023, premiere)
Livia Giovaninetti, Foxp2 (2015)
Qingqing Teng, Yin System (premiere 2023, inspired by first Alcome collective project Système-S premiered in 2013)

Patrick K.-H., fwer (2022)
Angélica Castelló, Abismo (2023, premiere)

More Info: https://floatingsound.at/acousmonium-2023-first

9 MARCH

commissioned by Diapason Gallery:
Amnon Wolman, Low Ground Clearance (2004)
Bruce Andrews, Spaced Out (2005)
Tetsu Inoue, Fragment: Dot (2002)
Micah Silver, You and Me, Going (2008)
Esther Venrooy, Vessel (2008)
Zeena Parkins & Douglas Henderson, Polyconic Projections (2006)
Marina Rosenfeld, anti-Warhol movement (in 16 cues) (2003)
Jason Kahn, Winter (2003)
Stephen Vitiello, Rush and Lullaby (2005)
Jim O’Rourke, Untitled (2017)
(all excerpts from the Diapason archive)

Michael J. Schumacher, Stills (series, since 1990s)

Bernhard Gál, Vierband (2023, premiere)
Maja Osojnik, EXPOSITION #01 / a sound postcard to an abandoned home (2022)

More Info: https://floatingsound.at/acousmonium-2023-second

10 MARCH

Armando Balice, The light went out before I could see (2022)
Paul Ramage, Romance is a ticket to Paradise (2023)
Patrick K.-H., Postards (series, 2021-23)
Katharina Klement, Wasserlauf, parts 5,6,7 (2021)
Daniel Teruggi, The Shining Space (1999)

Volkmar Klien
1. Zusammengesetzt aus den Defiziten Vieler (2022)
2. Klingelkopfi – Kopfiklingel (2023, premiere)

More Info: https://floatingsound.at/acousmonium-2023-third

Floating Sound Gallery Vienna
As a venue to present multi-channel pieces and (learn to) work with multi-channel systems, Floating Sound Gallery Vienna appears to be an entity on the crossing point of art gallery, concert hall and label. The listener is invited to experience sound works as if they were sculptures or pictures, out of “time” dimension – that sides it with art gallery; from concert hall, if to leave behind its practice of stage focusing, Floating Sound Gallery Vienna inherits a practice of musicking; finally, since there are no other wide-spread facilities to listen to multi-channel pieces at home or portably or else, Floating Sound Gallery Vienna holds an extension of music label in that sense – all these three shapes the concept and the practice of a Sound Art Gallery.
https://floatingsound.at

Alcôme
Since its foundation in 2013 by Armando Balice and Livia Giovaninetti, Alcôme has been promoting electroacoustic, acousmatic and experimental music with the aim of being part of their time and at the forefront of contemporary creation. For almost 10 years, the company has been wiring its acousmonium (loudspeakers’ orchestra) in France and Europe, offering concerts of acousmatic music performed by its collective as well as by guest performers. The four members of the collective (Armando Balice, Livia Giovaninetti, Paul Ramage, and Maylis Raynal) present their own creations and also wish to promote new creations as well as repertoire music, notably by commissioning works on a regular basis for their events. The Alcôme acousmonium, an instrument on its own and a true visual installation, allows the concert space to be inhabited and is a unique device where electroacoustic works are sublimated, allowing the listeners to dive into the heart of a 360° living sound space. https://www.alcome.fr

Diapason Sound Art Gallery
a short commentary by Michael J. Schumacher, founder & director:

There should be a dedicated public listening space in every city of, say, a half million people and up. A space where people can listen, in a way they couldn’t anywhere else, to a kind of work that would be impossible to appreciate in quite the same way in any other situation. I ran one for 15 years in New York, one of only a handful in the world. I called Diapason a gallery for sound art, though it had been founded before the term was generally known in the United States, my original intention being to create a space suitable for presentations of electro- acoustic music. Eventually, at its four locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, it served the community’s need for a dedicated environment for creating and experiencing sound art, process-based music, extended-duration performances and multi-media work.
A “sound gallery” is different from other settings for listening such as concert halls, churches, art galleries, museums, black box theaters,“alternative” or pop-up spaces, salons, night clubs, recording studios, living rooms or “the world” (i.e. via earphones). Just as these various spaces grow, more or less spontaneously, out of the specific needs of the kinds of music (and other activities) performed or presented within them, as well as the social structures that engender them, so the sound gallery aligns listeners’ social interactions, bodily positions (vis-à-vis the sound producers) and mental focus to coordinate with the structure of the work presented.There is a growing body of work in this genre and having more listening spaces will spur more creativity. Diapason, for example, with very limited resources, commissioned or in some way facilitated the creation of over 100 new pieces.
The experimental sound art and music community is small and not well funded, yet this doesn’t diminish its importance. Diapason served DIYers, academics, famous as well as obscure artists, people from a variety of disciplines including music, visual art, writing, dance, architecture and science. It could be a testing ground for new ideas but also a first rate presenter of polished, finished work. As fantastic as places like ZKM, EMPAC and IRCAM are, there is also a need for low- budget professionally-run spaces like Diapason to help grow this community. READ MORE

ACOUSMONIUM 2023 is supported by: