peter mcilwain
composer
About
Peter is a composer specialising in computer and electro acoustic music but has a wide range of musical and artistic interests. These include writing works for traditional ensembles, film and music theatre as well as computer music and installation art. Recent projects have included the development of Nodal software at the Centre for Electronic Media Art or CEMA. He is Lecturer in Composition and Music Technology in the School of Music - Conservatorium at Monash University where he heads up the Sonic Art Group. He is currently President of the Australasian Computer Music Association or ACMA.
Current Projects
Learning Materials - Sound for Musicians
I've been developing interfaces in Processing that simulate various aspects of sonic behaviour. Thanks to Ollie Bown for his help in providing support for this with his sound library which he hope to release soon. An example for this work is SonicRipples and PowerSpectrum.
Visualisation of Gesture and Control in Computer Music Performance
I've been working on a paper about my work in software design that uses graphics to represent performances gestures. Here's the abstract:
An audience at a live computer music performance can have difficulty in experiencing the event in as an actually and in forming relations between performance gestures and resulting sound. An analysis of these problems is given as well as a discussion of approaches that may address them. It is suggested that a taxonomy of performance gesture include visual as well as spectromophological elements. This may inform the design of visual performance interfaces for live computer music that can be presented to the audience as part of the performance. By presenting visual representation of performance gestures relating to the triggering and control of sound an audience can be prompted to create a range of associations to the sounds that they hear. Two works are presented that demonstrate the application of these concepts.
Below are two movie examples of the software instruments that I have made:
Additive [mov] 2'30", 42.2 MB
Tracks and Circles [mov] 3'26", 162.6 MB
Nodal 1.0 Released
"... the most refreshing composition tool in years."
It looks like some people really like our software. Nodal is a unique and fascinating composition tool that we deveoped at CEMA.
It it generates MIDI information that you can use to drive your prefered sound module. Its also free!
Read more...
NodalDemo [mp3] size: 2.2 MB
Landscape Music for Music in the Round
I'm curating a concert that is part of the Music in the Round festival a Monash University. The concert is intended to show the diversity within the School of Music as well as bring a contemporary emphasis. The overarching theme is "landscape". The pieces to be included in this concert at present are:
Instrument Landscape #1 (excerpt) - Mcilwain ( 3')
Instrument Landscape #3 - Mcilwain (12')
In a Landscape (arranged for Gamelan) - John Cage (8')
Rain Spell - Toru Takemitsu (8'40")
Jazz Quartet Improv with computers - Mcilwain and musicians
(12" aprox.)
Artifacts - Reiner and Burke (5 - 10')
Work by Conyngham - Conyngham (8')
The concert is to include computer generated visuals including a slide show with images sourced froom google earth. A demonstration movie is given below.
Slide Show [mov] size 28 KB
Click here to run the Landscape Jazz computer generated score program.
"Just Pick the Pretty One" at the Horse Bazaar
Palle Dahlstedt and myself will be performing live electronic music at the Horse Bazaar - Dec 11. From 9 pm. 397 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne (Between Queen St and Elizabeth St near the corner of Hardware St). Below is the blub for the event:
An evening of interesting and creative music making by two very experienced and talented composers who come from opposite ends of the world. Palle Dahlstedt (Sweden) and Peter Mcilwain (Australia) are respected for both their creative work and their research into the development of new software and hardware tools for generative music. Palle's software is used by the Clavia company in the renowned Nord Modular synthesisers and Peter is a co-designer of Nodal a popular new composition system for Mac OS X. Their compositions have been performed around the world and they are both experienced in live improvisation in groups such as; Palle's duo pantoMorf and Peter's Sonic Art Group. Their commissioned work includes sound installations such as Peter's work in the Virtual Room of the Melbourne Museum.
For further information see:
http://users.monash.edu.au/~pmcilwai/
http://www.ituniv.se/~palle
Eyes on Earth at Science Works
Peter is currently working on a commission for Museums Victoria for the Science Works Museum. The work features a 16 channel sound system with stereo-graphic projection. The officiial lauch will be Dec. 4.
Read more...
EoE Demo Basic Sound [mp3] size: 1.2 MB
