Soundscapes

The Soundscapes 2000 Festival

The story of the Soundscapes (be)for(e) 2000 festival goes back to the year 1994. That year, the NPS, Piet Hein van de Poel and me, produced the Soundscapes Brasilia cd in co-operation with the Brazilian Goethe Institute. The sound of the city of Brasilia was recorded and used in compositions by a group of Brazilian composers in co-operation with Hildegard Westerkamp. Not only professional composers but also for example architects were involved in the project. This project also led to our contacts with the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE), the organization in which Hildegard Westerkamp is a leading figure. Both in the programming of the NPS/VPRO radio show Supplement (Radio 4) and in the profile of the Center for Electronic Music (CEM) the soundscapes theme has played an important role since this event.

Here are some of our projects so far:
In 1995 the Brasilia-concept was transferred to the city of Amsterdam and released on cd as Soundscape Amsterdam (Staalplaat Ssccd 001). That same year composer Albert Mayr gave an introduction lecture on the subject in the IJsbreker concert center and I composed the Zoophonia cd (Valves VV CD001) after the diaries of Hercule Florence. A year later I was able to present the first part of Karryon on my cd Hain (Trikont US-0232).

The NPS gave a composition request to Francisco Lopez in 1996, resulting in the cd Addy en al pais de las frutas y los chunches (ND CD10) and to Arno Peeters (see CEM Bulletin march '97, page 24-29). Peeters won the first prize in the Composers under age 30 category in the Rostrum for Electronic Music with his composition called AeroSon, which was later released on cd (Mille Plateaux mp38), The CEM Bulletin regularly publishes the New Soundscape Newsletter, a Swiss initiative by Justin Winkler. Michel Redolfi presented his cd rom Jungles (Albin Michel, LL1101, CD-Rom: ISBN 222605471-5) during the International Gaudeamus Music Week. The cd was composed using sounds of the Brazilian jungle.

Also in 1997 the NPS presented its radio productions in listening chairs during the Environnement Sonore festival in Royaumont, a town close to Paris. The contacts with the WFAE and the Environnement Sonore collective (OES) were further broadened. Around this time the idea came up to organize the Soundscapes (be)for(e) 2000 festival in Amsterdam in the year 1999, a festival (be)for(e) the new millennium.

In October 1997 I composed the radio piece Environnement Sonore for the Supplement radio program. This piece describes my sound travels from Paris to the Cote d'Azur. In 1998 Supplement broadcasted the soundscape about the city of Hanoi by Pierre Marietan, and producer Co de Kloet visited the Hor upp! soundscape festival in Stockholm. The CEM studio was made available for Francisco Lopez to work on his composition La Selva (V2 Archief V228). The studio also collaborated with the IJsbreker in the Childrens Composers Workshop, creating the Soundscape Machine and other soundscape projects for children.

The composition competition 1998
Early 1998 the NPS published a call for producing soundscapes on their homepage. These were to be used in a competition for the Soundscapes (be)for(e) 2000 festival. By December 31st, 1998 the NPS received 85 contributions from all over the world. The jury consisted of Hildegart Westerkamp (WFAE, Vancouver, Canada), Heleen Engelen (Philips design, Groningen, Netherlands), Klaus Schöning (Studio akustische Kunst, WDR, Köln, Germany), Otto Sidharta (Music information and education center, Jakarta, Indonesia) and Daniel Teruggi (GRM, Paris, France). Soon the jury will announce the winners, who will receive a composition request from the NPS in the year 2000. The runner up wins free studio time in the CEM studio. The selected compositions are presented on the festival on November 25th, and will be featured on a compilation cd that will be for sale at the festival. The jury members will be present at the festival and are actively involved in selecting its line-up.

Internet 1998-1999
Since august 1998 the university (HKU) in Hilversum and Worldtune, a German internet initiative, have been working on the problem of how to design internet-specific plugins that generate a new musical content. In January 1999 a call for composition environments for soundscapes was published on the internet (Distributed Sound Lab). The first results of this project will be presented at the Soundscapes (be)for(e) 2000 festival. From September 1998 the Supplement editors started the Vanished Sounds project in cooperation with the Nederlands Audiovisual Archive (NAA). 150 sounds that are no longer available in Holland were found in historical archives and put on an internet page (www.soundscapes.nl) in high quality audio.

The festival
The following organizations participate in the Soundscapes (be)for(e) 2000 festival:

  • De Balie
  • Goetheinstitut Amsterdam
  • HKU Hilversum, Music Technology department
  • Nederlands Audiovisual Archive (NAA)
  • Philips design
  • Supplement radio program, VPRO/NPS
  • Stichting CEM
  • University of Maastricht, Faculty Cultural science
  • Worldforum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE)
  • Worldtune
The following composition request were given especially for the festival:
  • From the NPS to Luc Ferrari, Premiere 19.11.99, de Balie
  • From the NPS to Dyane Donck, Premiere 25.11.1999, Rozentheater
  • From the VPRO to Pascal Plantinga, Premiere 21.11.1999, de Balie
Some projects are still in the planning stage. Here are the ideas so far: From November 19th to 21st cultural center De Balie will organize an exhibition called The story of noise by Karin Bijsterveld (University of Maastricht). The theme of the festival between November 22nd and 26th will be Perception and soundscapes which will be split up into the following theme days:
  • 22.11.1999, Virtual realities
  • 23.11.1999, Sound ecology
  • 24.11.1999, Media art
  • 25.11.1999, Society
  • 26.11.1999, Science
The Goethe Institute will organize lectures which add to these themes daily between 14 and 18 h. These lectures will be documented in a special program book.

Various soundscape concerts will be organized in Amsterdam from 20.00 every night. Some of these are: Michael Rüsenberg presents his latest production on November 21st. Hildegard Westerkamp will present her India project on November 23rd. Klaus Schöning and Daniel Teruggi will present soundscapes from their respective studios at November 24th and 26th.

The Supplement radio program will present the Soundscapes (be)for(e) 2000 festival to their listeners on November 29th and December 6th between 20.00 and 24.00 via Radio 4 and NPS-Webradio.

We will hear.

Michael Fahres
(vertaling: Ruud Lekx).

Here you can find more information on the festival, see pictures that were taken and lots more.