Research Seminar in Music: Unbounded

Speaker: Chiyolo Szlavnics

Abstract

Chiyoko Szlavnics will explore various nuances of the words, 'bound'; 'unbound'; and 'unbounded' through a presentation that draws associations between her iconoclastic compositional approaches through the early 2000s to the present, and the thoughts of several remarkable composers and artists whose exceptionally original writings are currently inspiring her.

She will present an overview of the development of her early drawings-based compositional method; several approaches of working with ratios in fundamental ways to produce distinctive music; and her ongoing interest in how beating can generate rhythmic content in unmetred, duration-based work.

About the speaker

Born in Toronto and based in Berlin since 1998, Chiyoko Szlavnics is one of Canada’s most singularly experimental voices. As a composer and visual artist, Szlavnics’ work finds inspiration in natural processes: lines and waves, temporality and regeneration, incremental change and intersecting events.

Her practice centres on combining sinewaves with acoustic instruments, as well as exploring detailed acoustical and psychoacoustical phenomena in purely electronic works. She most enjoys working on projects that are dedicated to creating new experiences of the movement of sound in highly resonant venues.

Szlavnics has been commissioned by a host of contemporary music ensembles and festivals, including Ensemble Contrechamps (Geneva), Klangforum Wien (Vienna) @ Donaueschinger Musiktage (Donaueschingen), Quatour Bozzini (Montréal) @ Maerzmusik (Berlin), Exaudi Vocal Ensemble (London) @ Wittener Tage (Witten), and Eve Egoyan (Toronto) @ Klangspuren (Schwaz, Austria).

Her striking 'moiré' drawings have been shown in numerous international exhibitions, at venues like C4RD (London), Justina M. Barnicke Gallery (Toronto), Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona), and in exhibitions co-curated by Philipp Frühsorge in Berlin.

She has been engaging with composition students since 2007, through presentions and discussions at universities and new music institutes in Paris, Berlin, Hanover, Zurich, and Ostrava (Czech Republic). In 2011-12, Szlavnics organised two semesters' worth of composition classes dedicated to the work of John Cage, at the University of the Arts, Berlin.