Co-Me-Di-A - Comedy!

INTRODUCTION
The 10th edition of Making New Waves Festival will be presented as one of the projects of a European Union cultural collaboration called a „Co-Me-Di-A” (Cooperation and Mediation in Digital Arts). The common objective of the project is to establish a functional platform for artistic and cultural networked interactions.
The playful initialism of the collaboration served as an inspiration for allocating a theme and giving the subtitle to the festival: Co-Me-Di-A. Let’s play comedy in multiple meaning! Let’s examine, how an antique tool can be redefined in the field of contemporary music and multimedia art.
In fact Comedy is a very specific kind of story. It is not simply any story which we shall see, a story may follow the plot of comedy without being intended to be funny at all. The conflict is built up with the help of mixing reality with mockery. Real identities are hidden and obscured by different tools like disguise, confusion.
Digital technology and permeation of the Internet secures a never seen communication potential for the artists of the XXIst century. The theoretically unlimited possibilities are source of a new, exciting tension. New tools have been created for hiding real identities and creating virtual personalities. At the festival the audience will hear and see examples of how artists apply the new tools in their pieces.
 

CONCERTS - PROGRAMMES
 

4 DECEMBER 2008 (Thursday) 8pm
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Mantra
Karlheinz Stockhausen – Mantra: one of Stockhausens masterpieces, composed in 1970, at the height of his creativity.
The first of his formula compositions which, based on the Mantra-formula, unfolds over the duration of 70 minutes in a ceaseless stream of new incarnations.
Jennifer Hymer-piano, Bernhard Fograscher-piano, Georg Hajdu-live electronics
 

5 DECEMBER 2008 (Friday) 8pm
David Moss: „Music By, For and Against John Cage”
An eccentric evening of solo pieces - 2 by Cage & 4 by Moss as homage & attacks on Cage's aesthetics and ideas. A loving tribute and tickle - with electronics, objects, voice, and percussion - to one of the giants of 20th century music. Some people think this is a little scandalous, but so was Cage!
"The most extraordinary performance was by David Moss, whose improvised vocals lay somewhere between scatting and scary. Think Jim Carrey doing an impression of Ella Fitzgerald while being eaten by the creature from Alien.² [Sydney Morning Herald]
David Moss is considered one of the most innovative singers and percussionists in contemporary music. In 1991 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship: in 1992, a DAAD Fellowship (Berlin). He is co-founder and artistic director of the Institute for Living Voice.
 

5 DECEMBER 2008 (Friday) 9:30pm
European Bridges Ensemble
The European Bridges Ensemble was established for Internet and network performance.
Its current members are Kai Niggemann (Münster, Germany), Ádám Siská (Budapest, Hungary), Johannes Kretz (Vienna, Austria), Andrea Szigetvári (Budapest, Hungary), Ivana Ognjanovic (Belgrade, Serbia), Georg Hajdu (Hamburg, Germany), and Stewart Collinson (Lincoln, England), performing with Georg Hajdu’s interactive network performance environment Quintet.net.
Using the term bridges as a metaphor, our initiative makes an attempt to bridge cultures, regions, locations and individuals, each with their particular history. Particularly Europe with its historical and ethnic diversity has repeatedly gone through massive changes separating and reuniting people often living in close vicinity.
Johannes Kretz, Georg Hajdu, Ivana Ognjanovic, Siska Ádám, Kai Niggemann, Stewart Collinson, Szigetvári Andrea
 

6 DECEMBER 2008 (Saturday) 8pm
Salt Itinerary – multimedia opera / electroacustic theatre
The multimedia opera Salt Itinerary is the end result of a creative project on writing: on musical writing, poetic writing, the gestural writing of the musician/actor and of his own image, in which the voice is the extension of the body and of the thought of the poet. Here, then, is the symbiosis between the essence of the word and the evolution of the Being, presented in the form of a new dramaturgy called Electroacoustic Opera.
MISO ENSEMBLE is essentially, a duo of flute and percussion with electronic in real time. In 1985, MISO ENSEMBLE was founded by the percussionist and composer Miguel Azguime and by the flute player and composer Paula Azguime.
Distinguished for their program’s originality and the diversity of their musical work, the latter reflects an approach that relies on the multifaceted capabilities of its members (composers, instrumentalists and improvisers), this duo has built for itself a unique path.
Miguel Azguime
 

6 DECEMBER 2008 (Saturday) 9.30pm
TORNACULUM – dance-music with live electronics
The piece Tornaculum represents imaginary revolving doors with the help of electronic music loops in a form of periodicly repeating rhythmical formulas. The dancers’ movements follow the rhythm and character inside of the loop. The dancers can also start and stop loops and control their parameters by color tracking software.
Ladányi Andrea-dance, Bánki Zsolt-dance, Szigetvári Andrea-live electronics
 

7 DECEMBER 2008 (Sunday) 6pm
CLOSING CONCERT
The closing concert will present the pieces created during the creative workshops of the festival.
 

Workshops
 

• David Moss: Provokalia Choirs
Short, intense vocal pieces, composed and led by David Moss, for massed voices (between 20 and 100). The power and passion of the human voice is always physical, seductive and startling. Provokalia Choirs offers a new look at the sounds of many voices. Each Provokalia Choir performance is a kaleidoscope of phrases, loops, textures, timbres, chants and vocal dances.
After one rehearsal the participants will perform Provokalia Choirs at the closing concert of the festival.

• David Moss: Play with the notes, shape your solo!
Using each person’s own work as a starting point, this workshop includes: singing together and alone– including surprises, limitations, exaggerations, duos, interruptions, pop-up performances, one-minute solos, habits, momentary transgressions, frustration fandangos, the attraction of opposites and elementary ecstasies. We will be together for 3 days in a performance-active workshop centered on the experience of shaping a solo with our voices!
Singers, non-singers, performers, actors, composers, musicians, dancers and poets are welcome to participate; some performance experience is necessary.
 

• Sonification
The aim of the workshop is to create audiovisual works, where visual data can be used as the means of generating sound by applying different sonification methods. The participants will create hand-drawn films, which will be manipulated and sonified digitally.
The workshop will take place in two locations and will be part of a new network collaboration project between Lincoln University (UK) and University of Pécs(H).
The visual material created by by the participants can be sonified by themselves using a variety of methods, and strategies, and by the other group of participants through means of an exchange of the material via the internet during the workshop, in that way, sharing ideas and creating common pieces.
The works created will be presented at the closing concert of the Festival.
 

• Quintet.net
The workshop gives an introduction to Quintet.net, a networked multimedia performance environment developed by Georg Hajdu. Up to five performers, as well as a video artist and a conductor can participate in a performance. The participants of the workshop will work towards the goal of a performance on the closing concert of the Making New Waves Festival. The workshop will touch on aspects such as using controllers for sound synthesis, data mapping, how to control a network improvisation and developing modules for Quintet.net.
 

TALKS
4 December 2008 (Thursday) 6pm
Andrew Gerzso (IRCAM) talks about the Co-Me-Di-A project
Trafó, Studio
 

5 December 2008 (Friday) 2pm
Jennifer Hymer talks about the piece Mantra of Karlheinz Stockhausen
Music Academy, room 26
 

6 December 2008 (Saturday) 6pm
Pedro Rebelo presentment
Trafó, Studio
 

You can find the final detailed version soon on flyers and on our website.