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(Articles/News)INNOVATIVE WOMEN
COMPOSERS:
A SILENT MINORITY? (3)
By: Montse Andreu
MINNI ANG KIM HUAI TEE:
Malaysian composer Minni Ang Kim Huai Tee
completes her basic musical studies at the Birmingham Conservatoire, specializing in
performance. She continues her studies in London, where she learns Percussion Teaching,
and to Kuala Lumpur, to study piano, besides having a career in Physics at the Universiti
Malaya. Minni Ang gets interested in the use of computers in music, an
interest best honed in her research work in this field, as she develops an interactive
course in the WWW about the appreciation of the music in her country. She has published
several works on music and the multimedia art in internet, among which mention must be
made of the following: "An Interactive Multimedia Music Repository over the
Internet", "World Wide Web Audio: Ensuring Adequate Hardware And Software
Configurations", "A Handbook of Basic Rock Rhythms for Drum Set",
"Pendidikan Muzik dan Zaman Komputer (Music Education and the Computer Age)",
"Peranan Muzik dalam Membina Bangsa Malaysia (The Role of Music in Building a
Malaysian Race)", "Percussion Instruments (and how to write for them)",
etc. Amongst her compositions these are quite remarkable indeed: "War to End all Wars
Overture", "Let There Be Light", "Opus What? An Atonal
Adventure", "The Chapman Suite", "Irama Gamelan Kyai Pranaja",
"Springs of Joy", "The Evening Sacrifice", etc. Some of her works have
been released in audio cassette, among them: "Lagu Rohani Kanak-Kanak. (Spiritual
Songs for Children)", "Musical Pieces by Minni Ang", "The Chapman
Suite", "The Chapman's Dance", "Rachel's Song", "A Melody
for Mary", "Springs of Joy", "Shine Bright", "Resting
Place", etc. Ms. Ang holds a post at the Department of Music of the Faculty of Human
Ecology at the University Putra Malaysia.
DOROTHEA AUSTIN:
A member of the New York Women Composers Association, an
association aimed at women composers specialized in Electronic and Computer Music,
Dorothea Austin has proved her proficiency in the field of the New Musics with
her composition "Transformation for Viola, Piano & Tape", (1973), among
other works.
LYDIA AYERS:
Composer Lydia Ayers is a member of the
New York Women Composers in the Electronic and Computer Music Association who has
experimented within the field of the New Music, while exploring all the possibilities that
electronics, computers, traditional acoustic instruments like the gamelan, the human voice
and in a word, anything capable of producing music has to offer to the creative artist.
Among her works mention must be made of the following: "Merapi" (1995), composed
for gamelan and computer, using microtonal techniques algorithmically generated. In this
work, the computer uses the tuning of the live gamelan. "Nineteen", (1994), for
computer, also algorithmically generated, using a nineteen-tone utonality microtonal
scale; "The Sand Child", (1993), an opera for a solo mezzo soprano, premiered by
Isabel Ganz, who commissioned it, in which the composer also utilizes
computer-generated tape. This work is in actual fact an adaptation of the novel "The
Sand Child" by Tahar ben Jelloun. Here the composer uses once again
microtonality, based on Arabic tuning. "Dreams from the Shadow Lands", (1994), a
work in which the artist experiments with the voice of two sopranos, two altos, two
tenors, and two bass, intertwined with computer generated tape, based on an environmental
text with extended vocal techniques using processed environmental sounds and
algorithmically generated synthesized sounds; Also, the tuning systems include a 13-tone
equal temperment and just tunings of a 13-utonally and 12-otonality. This work was
performed by the Contemporary Chamber Singers in Urbana, IL, in 1994.
"Ah" (1993), composed for algorithmically generated tape, with Andrew
Horner's voice, processed using adsyn linear predictive coding, comb filters, and
some synthesized sounds."Balinese" (1993), with computer generated tape and
microtonality, a piece that uses a variety of Balinese tunings generated with an algorithm
in a quasi-Balinese style. "Electronic, Humorous, Tense and Suite" (1993), for
computer generated tape, this is a suite of "Companion of Strange Intimacies,"
"Glassminute", "Prime", "Balinese" and
"Bioluminescence". "Glass chi", (1993) for computer generated tape,
this is a work that uses the computer processing of a rubbed crystal glass sound together
with synthesized glass and voice sounds. The title, "glass-chi", refers to glass
energy. This work was performed in Bloomington, IN and Urbana, IL in 1993.
"Kaleidoscope" (1993) is another computer work with a microtonal technique,
whose pitch and timbre were algorithmically generated. "Glassminute" (1992), for
computer generated tape, utilizing linear predictive coding analysis of rubbed crystal
glass sounds; In this composition the artist gets transformations of the timbre into a
male vocal sound by transposition into a very low register. "Prime" (1992), for
computer generated tape, a piece in which the composer uses prime number ratios in pluck
and glide instruments so as to get some interesting transformations of the timbre from
inharmonic relationships and registral change. "Bioluminiscence" (1990), for
computer generated tape, in which most noteworthy is her use of Indian tunings and just
tunings up to the 23-limit. "Companion of Strange Intimacies" (1990), for
computer generated tape, a microtonal piece. "Faraway Voices: Two Electronic
Studies" (1984), in which by means of a Buchla analog system the composer creates two
voice-like studies at the California Institute of the Arts.
(Next chapter: RUTH BAKKE, LESLIE BARBER, CATHY BARBERIAN, WENDE BARTLEY)