🎵Meet Me in Ciminelli, Meet Me at the Hall… 🎶
The Center is pleased to announce a fruitful collaboration has begun through a co-sponsored event, our first of the new academic year. The graduate composers of the UB Music Department made a trip to Ciminelli Hall at UB’s fellow SUNY school, Buffalo State, to hear two presentations by Buffalo State professor Tomás Henriques (PhD in Music Composition, UB ‘97), one about his own musical practice and composition, and the other a talk on spatialized audio focused on its realization in Ciminelli Hall. Dr. Henriques specializes in electronic-human musical interfaces, most notably musical instruments which while electronic in nature provide haptic (physical) feedback to performers similar to videogame controllers or a buzzing cell phone. Not only does he fabricate internationally acclaimed new hardware (2010 Guthman Award), Dr. Henriques has a unique technological skillset, allowing him to match his excellent hardware with his own excellent software, writing programs to take advantage of his invented instruments or which are themselves instruments, as well as writing CIM, a software system which allows the integration of Ciminelli Hall’s three different speaker systems.
Ordinarily, speaker systems which are themselves controlled by proprietary software, such as the Yamaha AFC (“Active Field Control”) system, cannot exchange information or be controlled by third parties. Yet, through his own communication skills, persistence, and technological wizardry, Dr. Henriques has managed to integrate the three speaker systems, controlling them through bespoke software. The graphical, intuitive interface he fashioned fascinated the UB composers. CIM is able to move a sound’s source anywhere in the concert hall, from a far back corner to the stage, at almost any speed. Multiple spatial effects, including bouncing a sound source off a wall, the Doppler effect, and even a sonic game of Pong, are all possible.
“Ciminelli Hall is one of Buffalo’s best-kept secrets,” he said.
“But, you don’t want it to be?” this author asked.
“No – tell everyone!” Henriques replied.
After the presentations, two fifth-year PhD candidates were persuaded to consider bringing their dissertation works to the hall in the next year – Lihuen Sirvent (title TBD for chamber ensemble, electronics, spatialized sound, video) and Jonathan Rainous (Meeting Place, ca. 50 minutes, for solo sax and electronics, performance in late spring or early summer). Stay tuned for performance details and other collaborative efforts!