A-Window 2001, 2003

For voice, violin, kamancheh, and computer (Lila). 2001. Premiered at Center for Research in Computing and the Arts, wiith Keyavash Nourai: Violin and Kamancheh, and Shahla Sarechani: vocals.
UCSD, CRCA December 2001.

A-Window at CRCA/UCSD – an excerpt from Shahrokh Yadegari on Vimeo.

Saturday Apr. 12, 2003, 8PM
University of California, Los Angeles
Northwest Campus Auditorium
Obtain directions from an information booth at UCLA

Part II

This concert will use two very different musical traditions and presents them as complementing musical material. The evening will consist of two sections; the first section will include 4 channel tape pieces by Shahrokh Yadegari and the second half will include improvisations by Siamak Shajarian(vocals), Keyavash Nourai (violin and Kamancheh ) and Shahrokh Yadegari (computer). The concert will conclude by a composition based on a poem by Forough Farrokhzad (1935-1967), the famous Persian poet, and it will include a poem by Parvin Javadi.

Persian traditional music has a very old tradition which has been formed through many generations. Improvisation plays an important role in this music, and therefore, the musical expressions are in constant flow of change; however, the musical language within this tradition has barely changed in the past few centuries. In this concert we shall use the computer, a very modern and contemporary machinery, and the utility of its underlying concepts in the domain of sound, such as algorithmic composition and interactive processing of sound, as musical tools for composition, improvisation, orchestration, and spatialization, within the Persian music language.

Computer music is often thought to have a very specific sound which is normally attributed to the western musical traditions. The computer, a product of logical reasoning, has always been portrayed as a Western instrument. Thus, computer music has often been produced based on western ideas. It is often a very difficult task for electronic/computer music to stay in a realm of a certain tradition without misappropriating some aspect of that tradition within the context of the Western frame of mind. The goal in this concert is to use the computer to accompany and create Persian traditional music but not to diverge substantially from the roots of this music.

In this concert the computer is used in a number of ways such as for creating timbres which are not readily identified as electronic and are easily adaptable to the Persian music modal systems. The monophonic sounds of Persian traditional music are juxtaposed and overlaid in time and space to engulf the listener in a meditative state. By utilizing state of the art hardware and software, all the capabilities of the computer, such as algorithmic synthesis of sound, highly precise control mechanisms in pitch and time structures, and, fluid and real-time control of spatialization, are used in harmony with the calm spirit of Persian music. Needless to say, just as any other instrument would, the computer will bring its own new and interesting excursions to the formerly known sonic spaces. Lîla, the interactive computer music instrument used in this concert was built using the graphical programming language Pd (Pure Data), by Miller Puckette.