Live electronics & scores

Cities, seen from afar, scintillate with life. They draw you near, each unique, calling your presence to join the system. They generate energy in us yet suck energy from us. They are organisms, living and dying, ageing and renewing. They can be a place to escape to, or a place to escape from. Modern cities, ancient cities, eco cities, industrial cities. We live in cities, we travel to cities, we are tourists in other people’s cities. By 2050 it is projected that more than two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities. 7 billion anonymous people, an elite few with individual impact and the rest organically systematised into groups creating the massive organism. As a visitor we may stumble across magical zones of quieter backstreets, parks and playgrounds: these inner-city neighbourhoods are like counties, the city like a country. At night a new biology awakens. People, animals, a change in the acoustics where sound travels in new ways, mainly heard and visually hidden in the shadows of the street lights. Shimmering Cities is a fictional inner-city journey through the rhythm of day and night, time and space. It is brought to life by fusing a sinfonietta with live electronics and an immersive electroacoustic sound-world, which includes sounds from Paris and fantasy-driven abstractions transforming conventional noise into moments of intrigue and music. It is inspired by the many cities I have either visited or lived in, visited in my imagination and may visit in the future: a magical image of a shimmering city seen from a far-away rural landscape. Shimmering Cities was commissioned by Ensemble Itinéraire and IRCAM, with support from Ensemble Itinéraire, Fondation Francis and Mica Salabert, IRCAM and the Norwegian Cultural Council. The work was premiered in IRCAM’s Espace de Projection on the 18th November 2023. IRCAM Computer Music Design: Natasha Barrett, Augustin Muller. For electronic performances materials please contact IRCAM at: sidney@ircam.fr  For enquiries about alternative technical versions please contact the composer: nlb@natashabarrett.org

The compositions “Hallucination Machine I” and “Hallucination Machine II: No Escape” (2023) are for string quartet, real-time responsive computer graphics, live electronics and immersive sound. The idea is inspired by the work of cognitive neuroscientist Anil Seth who refers to the way the brain constructs models of the world to explain and predict incoming perceptual information as “controlled hallucinations”. Hallucination Machine 1, composed in collaboration with Cikada String Quartet, was created with a machine learning (AI) algorithm, programmed by the composer, that was trained on the performers' sounds and physical movements to produce real-time audio-visual manipulations. In “Hallucination Machine II: No escape”, commissioned by the Danish Taïga String Quartet, the composer learnt from the interactive results of the first work but disabled the AI. The string quartet is now trapped inside their own self-generated hallucination machine, or a reality of their own making, from which there is no escape. Windows open onto outdoor worlds, but rather than finding freedom in a new utopia, these spaces are derelict remains of the past. In the end, we may rather consider closing our eyes in order to see and hear the reality of what is around us. An uncanny reminder of how our perception of world events are dictated by images in the media.

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The compositions “Hallucination Machine I” and “Hallucination Machine II: No Escape” (2023) are for string quartet, real-time responsive computer graphics, live electronics and immersive sound. The idea is inspired by the work of cognitive neuroscientist Anil Seth who refers to the way the brain constructs models of the world to explain and predict incoming perceptual information as “controlled hallucinations”. Hallucination Machine 1, composed in collaboration with Cikada String Quartet, was created with a machine learning (AI) algorithm, programmed by the composer, that was trained on the performers' sounds and physical movements to produce real-time audio-visual manipulations. In “Hallucination Machine II: No escape”, commissioned by the Danish Taïga String Quartet, the composer learnt from the interactive results of the first work but disabled the AI. The string quartet is now trapped inside their own self-generated hallucination machine, or a reality of their own making, from which there is no escape. Windows open onto outdoor worlds, but rather than finding freedom in a new utopia, these spaces are derelict remains of the past. In the end, we may rather consider closing our eyes in order to see and hear the reality of what is around us. An uncanny reminder of how our perception of world events are dictated by images in the media.

The Transformer is an audio-visual performance instrument created by Natasha Barrett using the latest in computer vision, audio analysis and AI. The Transformer first listens and sees in ways similar to our perception. Then, instead of normal live electronics processing it creates its own real-time sound and video as a controlled hallucination modelled on perceptual features derived from the entirety of the incoming signals in real-time. The Transformer is programmed in MaxMSP and Jitter, including sonification, the FluComa machine learning toolset and OpenGL. This is the first full prototype - The Transformer #1 - has been trained on the voice and movement of Silje Aker Johnsen. The performance is an interactive composition and improvisation. The work was supported by the Fond for Lyd og Bilde and the The Composers’ Remuneration Fund (Komponistenes Vederlagsfonds) and later updated and improved in The Transformer #2.

When does a shockwave become sound? When does pressure create impact? When do lies spread faster than truths, and channels of social communication become vessels of disinformation? What happens in the medium on the other side of the supersonic boundary? Beginning with the air pressure inside the massive organ, Where Shockwaves Become Sound is about these things: the reality of physics felt on our body and the waves of disinformation that infiltrated 2020. Where Shockwaves Become Sound was composed for Nils Henrik Asheim.

These two 'Altered States' pieces are a collaboration with the vocal ensemble Nordic Voices. Each work expresses nature defending itself against human disturbances, finding an altered state in the rehumanisation of the acoustic and electronic voice. 'Altered States 1: Coastal Waters' hints at the connection between the warming oceans, native and invasive aquatic species. 'Altered States 2: A Forest of Their Own' moves between expressing the safety of the forest as a home and the forest as a place of inimical power. The pieces exist in two formats: a live concert version for performance, and a binaural spatial sound-world for headphones.

These two 'Altered States' pieces are a collaboration with the vocal ensemble Nordic Voices. Each work expresses nature defending itself against human disturbances, finding an altered state in the rehumanisation of the acoustic and electronic voice. 'Altered States 1: Coastal Waters' hints at the connection between the warming oceans, native and invasive aquatic species. 'Altered States 2: A Forest of Their Own' moves between expressing the safety of the forest as a home and the forest as a place of inimical power. The pieces exist in two formats: a live concert version for performance, and a binaural spatial sound-world for headphones.

Islands of Lost Passports is about identity. Its about identity lost, rejected or hidden. Tokens of lost identity may leave traces, mixing up to form new personas, washing onto the shores of the Islands of Lost Passports. Islands of Lost Passports was commissioned by Asamisimasa with support from the Norwegian Cultural Council.

Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star), is a bright and very compact astronomical radio source at the centre of the Milky Way, and is thought to be the location of a super-massive black hole. Although black holes let out no detectable matter, they are apparent through the effect on their surroundings. Ultimately, what is experienced is not the black hole itself, but observations that are consistent only if there is a black hole near Sagittarius A*. Inspired by both the scientific and romantic mystery of this phenomena, in 'Sagittarius A*' the violin begins a journey inside a real, Norwegian forest, while touching on fragments of ancient musics of the world. Sounds and themes become focused, entangled, broken apart, stretched, reshaped, and energised, as they are drawn away from real-world sources. Rather than the total annihilation of falling into the black hole, which could have been musically portrayed as noise and then silence, the music instead enters a sonic spatial-musical indulgence more akin to the stretching and bending of gravitational lensing. Two versions are available for concert performance: • A version for 11th-order SN2D ambisonics decoding over 16-24 loudspeakers surrounding the audience, and extra nearfield speakers beside the violinist. This is the main version projecting the full spatial-musical experience. A knowledgeable computer performer, who may double up as a dedicated technician, should perform with the violinist. • A version for 8-channel loudspeaker array. A dedicated technician should accompany the violinist. The work was commissioned by violinist Karin Hellqvist, with support from the Norwegian Composers' Fund.

After dark, on Saturday nights, towns and cities transform from daytime hubs for shoppers, café-goers, sightseers and businesses, into a night where the societal rules change. Traverse the darkly lit streets, hearing our way around stone buildings and partygoers revelling behind half open doors, curious yet with a sense of excited fear, chameleon like, attempting to camouflage and escape detection. Traversing a Small Town at Night was commissioned by Bjørnar Habbestad with support from the Norwegian Cultural Council. The linked to recording is the original versions from 2015. A 2024 revised version for three flutes and updated live electronics is now available.

Allure and Hoodwink entices and deceives. It plays with visual and non-visual sounds produced by larger performance motions contrasted to tiny physical actions necessary for sound production. The performers set themselves inside the 'unseen' sound of the electroacoustic world. The instruments speak within mutating spatial scenes and the performers explore the boundary conditions between themselves and the listeners. Allure and Hoodwink is further inspired by Ravel's piano work Gaspard de La Nuit, which weaves in the instrumental counterpoints, textures and sonorities. Allure and Hoodwink was commission by Heloisa Amaral and Karin Hellqvist with support from the Norwegian Composers' fund.

A collector's chest holds many small compartments within which are organised all kinds of treasures: from a child's stones, shells, dead insects, leaves or trinkets, to priceless type-specimens or collections from world voyages. In this composition, treasures are collected from recordings of the Norwegian ensemble POING-FEED's interpretation of composed musical ideas. These are then transformed and organised as 'type specimens' in a collector's chest of sounds. The music assembles in performance: improvisation meets notation and acousmatic sound, and a multitude of compartments are opened to let sound escape into the air. A Collector's Chest was commissioned by POING-FEED with support from the Norwegian Cultural Council.

John Dowland's song Can she excuse my wrongs? was published in 1597 in the First Book of Songs. The song is in the form of a galliard that we find as both consort setting and as three galliards for lute solo. Taken together, these lute pieces may give an idea of Dowland's art of extemporization. In 2003 Barrett began work on a live electronics composition for guitarist Stefan Ostersjo. This composition, Where shadows do for bodies stand takes as its starting point Dowland's Can she excuse my wrongs?. The electroacoustic medium provided a means to connect antique music to a new aesthetic of sound-surrealism that dually serves to expand the guitar's quiet and intimate sonority. Dragging the antique into the modern even further, deconstruction of the three galliards was the source of Deconstructing Dowland. Deconstruction can be a process of dismantling to create something new; a transgression, a disruption, a shifting of meaning from the inside out. Deconstructing Dowland was commissioned by Stefan Ostersjo.

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"Rhizaria (Barely_part 4)" is the forth part of the 'Barely' cycle. For more information on Barely, see the notes for "Gentle Sediment (Barely_part 3)". In "Rhizaria (Barely_part 4)" the idea of "experienced thresholds" are explored through extreme close microphones drawing nuances of the cello's quieter sound-world and details of the cellist's performance closer to the ear of the listener. Experienced thresholds are also explored structurally through the time axis. In "Rhizaria" the electronic layers of the work are created directly from the cellist's real-time performance. The idea is to ensure a unity of live-electronic sound and gesture over micro- and macro-time. "Rhizaria" was composed for cellist Tanja Orning. The Barely project was researched, and the different parts composed, during a grant from the Norwegian Cultural Council, 2006-2008.

Atomic Crack : Deep Ice : Crack Horizon Crack is one of several projects from recent years where I have explored ways to connect musical structure to phenomena found in nature. In these projects I intentionally avoid general abstractions such as fractal processes, and instead find ways to align the listeners perception of the process in the music to a general awareness and understanding of the process in nature. Crack is scored for percussion, trumpet, electric guitar and computer. The electroacoustic part is substantial and requires extreme synchronisation and interaction by the performers. To achieve this interaction a series of sensors are connected to the percussionist arms and the output of these sensors used to calculate attack instance, attack velocity and motion direction for two arms in the vertical plane. Atomic Crack begins at the atomic level of a crack process and is derived from the how a crack in silicon is initiated, how the crack tip propagates and becomes unstable. As Atomic Crack develops the perspective widens to take in the energy connected with the creation of crack clusters. In Atomic Crack it is the performers and their instruments creating both the material substance and the crack. All electroacoustic material is created live in performance through sampling, playback and transformation. There is no pre-made sound. Deep Ice is the antithesis of Atomic Crack. The sound of ice cracking as it is submerged in water is recorded with high quality microphones at an extremely close proximity. The recording is slowed down by 128 semitones and data extracted from this transformation is used to create a framework for the instrumental part. In Deep Ice the electroacoustic part is dominated by pre-made acousmatic (non-instrumental) sound controlled moment by moment by the performers. Live sound transformation acts as the glue between pre-made and live sound elements. Crack Horizon takes such a wide angle that the percussionist articulates points on a distant field and acts as a disturbance to the continuity of the sustaining instruments.

John Dowland's song 'Can she excuse my wrongs?' was published in 1597 in the First Book of Songs. The text is thought to be by Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex, a court favourite of Queen Elizabeth. The song is in the form of a galliard that we find as both consort setting and as three galliards for lute solo. The divisions in these lute pieces are quite diverse and, even if the authenticity of P. 89 is put in doubt, taken together they may give an idea of DowlandÕs art of extemporization. In 2003 Barrett began work on a live electronics composition for guitarist Stefan Ostersjo. This composition, 'Where shadows do for bodies stand' takes as its starting point Dowland's 'Can she excuse my wrongs?'. The atmosphere embodied in Dowland's original are re-interpreted rather than re-arranged. The electroacoustic technique provides a means of escape from modernism, connecting antique music to a new aesthetic of sound-surrealism and dually serves to expand the guitar's quiet and intimate sonority.

Symbiosis, for cello and computer, takes the cellist and the listener on a journey towards a symbiosis of timbre and theatre. In the first acquaintance, the cellist and the computer occupy two different sound worlds and the cellist struggles to be heard above an accumulating industrial-noise. Gradually, through a journey into the landscape - a journey into nature - the two form a symbiosis. The cello becomes the organism within a larger electroacoustic sound picture, cello and computer mutually benefiting the other to create a rich counterpoint of articulations, melting timbres and extra-musical allusion.