First Innovation North Newsletter

Ash Mann from the Marketing Team in our faculty has just published the First Innovation North Newsletter, highlighting events and activities thorughout the faculty.

Nikos Stavropolous' Composition "Nyctinasty" Won First Prize!

The electro-acoustic composition "Nytcinasty" by our staff member Nikos Stavropoulos won the first prize at the First "Punto de Encuentro Canarias International Composition Competition" in Spain.

Congratulations, Nikos!

MScape no longer supported by HP

As I have learned through "inofficial channels", Hewlett-Packard has made redundant the group that developed the MScape platform for Windows Mobile. This is really a pity, because now there is no further support for this very nice mobile geolocation platform. You may remember that in summer 2008 our Leeds Met staff won funding for developing the Our City, Our Music application.

I am not yet aware about how future support of MSCAPE will be made available. It would be great if the software for MSCAPE would be released as OpenSource, so that the Mscape community can continue to develop it.

My best wishes go out to the former members of that now redundant group! You have done a great job developing the MSCAPE platform and making it publicly available.

Adam Stansbie's Music Composition Accepted at EMM 2009

Adam Stansbie from Innovation North has been selected to perform at the Electronic Music Midwest Festival (EMM) which is held in Kansas City 5.-6. November 2009. Over the last 9 years, EMM has programmed over 250 new electroacoustic compositions to audiences in the United States. Due to its success and reputation of excellence, EMM attracts participation from a number of high-profile composers from around the world. Adam's composition, Point of Departure, a 23-minute acousmatic piece, was selected from a pool of over 200 submissions through peer-juried selection process.

Adam's selection for EMM follows a number of high profile international performances, including appearances at: the Bourges International Music Festival Synthèse, France (2009), selection for the International Computer Music Conference, Canada (2009), Los Angeles Sonic Odyssey, USA (2008), Seoul International Computer Music Festival, South Korea (2009), FILE Electronic Language Festival, Brazil, (2009), International Electroacoustic and Polymedia Art Festival, Serbia (2009). In addition to these international performances, Adam's works continue to be performed regularly in the UK, including a recent performance at the Glastonbury Festival (2009).

Richard Stevens is Appointed Chair of IASIG Game Audio Education Working Group

Senior lecturer Richards Stevens from our faculty Innovation North has been appointed chair of the Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (IASIG) Game Audio Education Working Group. In this role he is to coordinate an international team of academics and industry representatives in developing guidelines for a curriculum for teaching audio for games.

The Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (IASIG) exists to allow developers of audio software, hardware, and content to freely exchange ideas about 'interactive audio'. The goal of the group is to improve the performance of interactive applications by influencing hardware and software design, as well as leveraging the combined skills of the audio community to make better tools.

Congratulations, Richard!

Music and Media Educators Conference

On Wednesday 2 and Thursday 3 September 2009 Leeds Metropolitan University in partnership with JAMES (Joint Audio Media Education Services) will be holding the second annual Music & Media Educators Conference at our Headingley Campus, home to our £2million recording studio complex. JAMES is the educational arm of the Association of Professional Recording Services and the Music Producers Guild. Leeds Met has long and successful working relation with JAMES.

This exciting two-day event will include master-classes, seminars, workshops, product demonstrations, lectures and networking opportunities and is open to industry professionals, music educators and students, but anyone with an interest in music technology education can attend.

Keynotes addresses will be delivered by Dennis Weinreich (Managing Director Post Production for the Pinewood Group) and Steve Lawson.

Day 1 will cover issues concerning music technology and education in areas such as Mastering and ‘Long Distance Mixing’.
Day 2 will address issues relating to Film, TV and Post-Production with workshops from Foley Artists and Sound Design Editors.

For further information, or to book your free place, please email:
[Email]innevents_at_leedsmet.ac.uk[/Email]

Live from the Conference "Mathematics and Computation in Music" (MCM 2009, New Haven)

The conference Mathematics and Computing in Music has been held over this weekend since last Friday at Yale University. Today is the last session. This conference has been an excellent event, with very interesting approaches shown for music analysis and mathematical models of tonality. I purchased the proceedings band with the paper presentations. My own poster presentation which I showed on Saturday was well received. I received encouragement to publish this as a journal paper. I also implemented an MScape version of the Tonnetz on my mobile phone, allowing participants to walk around the Yale University campus and experiencing the Tonnetz as a walk-through, with consonant triads being created as one moves from "note to note".

This is the poster which I showed here at MCM 2009: