SUAL Archives | 2013

Helga Arias Parra: Cellolar Synthesis for violoncello and sound projection

Duration:       6‘06“
Featuring:     Michael Moser, violoncello
Type:              Recorded live at SUAL 2013
Credits:          Audio recording and editing by BG
Notes:            Presented in conjunction with the shut up and listen! Award 2013

Cellolar Synthesis

The form of this piece is based on the general idea of a continuum or sound stream, which is roundly built by the addition of the different cello strings. In this sense, the different “fermatas” do not correspond to sections but to the addition of a higher string. The initial gesture starts to build a whole structure in which the direction is purely circular. The electronics are conceived in order to merge together with the instrument and create a perfect symbiosis between the two of them. The artificial resonances are intended to extend the sounds of the cello and leave place to a “meta-instrument”. All the samples used in the electronic part come from real cello recordings, transformed by a wide range of techniques such as granular synthesis, filters, stretching, resonators, etc. This piece was premiered by the Spanish cellist Mery Coronado (Ensemble Taller Sonoro) at the RCSM Victoria Eugenia of Granada and by the Italian cellist Marco Simonacci at the EMUFEST festival of Rome.

Helga Arias Parra

Born in Bilbao, Spain. She obtained her piano diploma in the city of Granada, Spain. After that she began her composition studies in the same city, with the composer Juan Cruz Guevara and later in the conservatory Giuseppe Verdi of Milan, where she studied with Mario Garuti and Javier Torres Maldonado. Besides, she has received lessons from other composers such as Georg Friedrich Haas, Mark André, Alberto Posadas, Dániel Péter Biró, Ken Ueno, Cristóbal Halffter, Dominique Schafer and Javier Álvarez, among others, and participated in master classes with Helmuth Lachenmann, Philippe Manoury, José María Sánchez Verdú or Daniel Teruggi. She has recently been awarded in the international contest “Città di Udine” as well as in the RCSM Victoria Eugenia de Granada contest for Symphonic Orchestra. Her music has been played in festivals such as EMUFEST of Rome, the Klangwerkstatt in the Konzerthaus Berlin, Festival Mixtur in Barcelona, Atlantic Music Festival in Maine, USA, Foro Internacional de Musica Nueva (Mexico), Domaine Forget (Nouvelle Ensemble Modern) Canada, Casa del Suono in Parma (Italy) or Etchings Festival (France). In October 2013 she participated in the Experimentalstudio Academy of the SWR Freiburg. Currently she lives and works in Switzerland and is taking Master’s Degree in Computer Music in the Conservatory of Parma at the same time, with the composer Javier Torres Maldonado.

https://soundcloud.com/helga-arias-parra

Michael Moser

Michael Moser Michael Moser was born in Graz, Austria and studied architecture at the Technical University in Vienna and cello at the University of Music in Graz and Vienna with Tobias Kühne and Rudolf Leopold. Already during his studies of classical music he was intensively engaged with different forms of contemporary music – composition, improvisation, theatre and filmmusic, performance etc. – searching to enlarge the cello´s idiomatic repertoire of expression through experimenting with live-electronics. Michael Moser works as a soloist and chamber musician in Europe, Japan and the USA giving premieres, radio broadcasts and recordings on CD. Numerous pieces for cello solo have been composed at his suggestion. He has collaborated with distinguished artists such as Peter Ablinger, Bernhard Lang, Isabel Mundry, Helmut Lachenmann, Alvin Lucier, KlausLang, Otomo Yoshihide, Pauline Olivieros, Hans Zender, Elliott Sharp, Clemens Gadenstätter, Silvia Fomina, Daniel Rothman, Beat Furrer, Michael Maierhof, Phill Niblock and ensembles as a.o. Polwechsel, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Neue Musik Wien and ensemble on_line vienna. In 1998 his first solo cd “violoncello” was released on durian records. At the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2005 he premiered Bernhard Langs Double/Schatten as soloist together with Dimitrios Polisoides and the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden under Sylvain Cambreling. Besides being an acknowledged interpreter of new music michael moser also works as a composer for the ensemble polwechsel and develops sound installations and concert installations together with wolfgang musil.

http://www.polwechsel.com

[info as of 11/2013]