Monday, February 17, 2003

Subject: [BA-NEWMUS:8557] [Fwd: Engine 27 public call for sounds]


Public call for contributions towards the 50th Anniversary presentation of John Cage's Williams Mix Larry Austin's Williams [re]Mix[...stallation] to be presented at Engine 27, NYC in March 2003   Engine 27 and composer Larry Austin invite all composers, musicians and practitioners of electroacoustic and computer music, sonic art, New Music, New Media, and sound design to participate, via the web, in the Williams [re]Mix[...stallation]: a 50th Anniversary Celebration of John Cage's Williams Mix. Public call for sounds: city; country; electronic; manually produced; wind produced; small, which need to be amplified. Call ends midnight, March 16, 2003. Go to http://engine27.org/williamsmix.html to upload your sound files, for more information and for a brief history of Williams Mix. Saturday, March 22, 2003, marks the 50th anniversary of the premiere performance of John Cage's Williams Mix (1951-53) for eight monaural magnetic tapes, the first octophonic tape music composition in the world, created and performed with eight speakers surrounding the audience. To celebrate this historic piece and its first performance 50 years ago, Austin will create the Williams [re]Mix[...stallation], a continuously performing octophonic sound installation to be installed at Engine 27, implemented with Austin's recently developed Williams [re]Mix[er] (1997-2001), an interactive I Ching composing program. The program, in operation, creates ever-newer versions and realizations of Cage's original work, calling on a recorded sound library of hundreds of sounds. The program's functionality is modeled on the compositional processes used by Cage to create his Williams Mix, these processes extrapolated and applied from Austin's analyses of Cage's 192-page score, his sketches, and the eight monaural, analog tapes for the piece. Since first starting the project, Austin has continued to collect sounds for the recorded library of sounds (ranging from 20 to 120 seconds each) according to Cage's six sound categories of city (A), country (B), electronic (C), manually produced (D), wind produced (E), and small sounds (F).   From February 14 to March 16, 2003, everyone is invited to upload soundfiles, via the web for inclusion in the library to be used during the new multiple Williams [re]Mix[ed] realizations to be played during the installation.   Guidelines for contributing sounds
  1. Sounds should be contributed as stereo, 44.1K, 16bit, aiff or wave format soundfiles.
  2. Sounds should be from 20 to 120 seconds in duration.
  3. Each soundfile sent should be labeled by the contributor and placed in the correct folder or directory according to Cage's categories of city (A), country (B), electronic (C), manually produced (D), wind produced (E), and/or small sounds, which need to be ampified (F) and include the author's name or 'tag' and a number signifying how many files you've contributed to the category. The contributor decides which category the sound(s) belong(s) in.
  4. Go to: http://engine27.org/williamsmix.html
  Engine 27's Williams [re]Mix[...stallation] presentation dates: Saturday & Sunday, 2-8pm, March 22, 23, 29, 30 opening reception: Saturday, March 22, 6-8pm, address: 173 Franklin St. (btwn. Hudson & Greenwich) Much more information at http://engine27.org Please forward this announcement to all who might be interested.