A Future In The Past

Theodore Parker

A Future In the Past is a research project engaging with the application of methods from Historically Informed Performance and Media Archeology towards problems found in the practice of Live Electronic music. In doing so the project sought to expose lost discourses in the medium as viewed from the performer’s perspective. Three pieces by composer Udo Kasemets were chosen as case studies. All compositions were originally written and performed prior to the 1990’s boom in digital processing. Each case study explores themes related to Liveness, Audience Interaction, and Hyper Instruments. In developing the historical context for each work several strategies were undertaken. Kasemets’ archives were reviewed at the University of Toronto, performers of the original pieces were interviewed, and investigations into period specific instruments were conducted. Additionally, Kasemets’ own published writings were used to reference his aesthetic ambitions as well as for comparison with his contemporaries. Rehearsals were carried out with The Estonian Electronic Music Ensemble, where the historical data and performer experiences were combined to create an individual interpretation for each composition. These interpretations were then presented to an audience and alongside contemporary issues currently debated in Live Electronics

1. Introduction To Udo Kasemets

Udo Kasemets was an Estonian born composer who migrated to Toronto, Canada in 1951. Working as a music critic and teacher, Kasemets embraced the new musical thinking of the mid 20^th century and became an important force in the New and Experimental music scene in North America. Deeply influenced by John Cage’s book Silence in 1961, Kasemets’ compositions took on characteristics concerned with aleotoricism, systems art, new technology and mixed media. His work as an organizer and promoter of new music included the notable events Men, Minds, and Music (1963), Issac’s Gallery (1965-1967) and SightSoundsSystems (1968) as well as the publication of Canavangard (1967-1970), a collection of graphic scores from fifty North American composers. Furthermore, Kasemets had close connections with several of the avant-garde artists and composers of his time including John Cage, James Teeney, and members of the ONCE collective,

Kasemets’ music is best described as pertaining to systems art and/or fractal music. Several of his scores feature text or graphics elements which are designed to form the structure of the work. However, the structures created by Kasemets are elastic and contain the possibility of random output, even though the systems put in place are rigidly defined. Adopting similar approaches from the experiments of John Cage, Kasemets’ often pursues compositional designs which are extracted from the Chinese Book of Changes. Throughout his five decade long career, Kasemets experimented with several approaches, but nonetheless consistently focused on the aleotoric behavior of complex systems which can be found as part of our everyday life, nature, and culture.

Additionally, many of Kasemets’ works incorporate the use of electronic instruments, ranging from sine wave generators to modular synthesizers. The pieces included in this research feature cassette players, modular synthesizers, mixing desks, tape machines, computer card sorters, projectors, lighting desk, and devices for amplification of acoustic sounds. Kasemets was interested in pursuing themes concerning mixed media and audience interaction, exemplified by one of the pieces under investigation in this research, Tt. His desire to pursue the new embraced the field of Live Electronics, and several pieces written for such instruments can be found in every period of his career.

Tip

Tip