EARS Showcase: Telematic Collaboration and Songwriting Camp

PART I:

I am a voice without form (2017/21) – for flute, electronics, and video
Paulo C. Chagas, composition, electronics
Cássia Carrascoza, flute

“Remember, it is His will — I am a voice without a form.” The title of the piece quotes the great Indian spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), a key figure for the introduction of Vedanta and Yoga philosophy in the Western world. The composition begins with a simple melody of large durations that evolves in a non-linear, fragmentary manner. The music proposes a path of introspection and, at the same time, the acceptance of transcendence that leads to a timeless reality. The electronic music consists on a Max patch that processes the sound of the flute on the basis of the “Schroeder Reverberators” algorithm. It adds a subtle sonic layer that transforms the perception of the melody and emphasizes the everlasting, perpetual dimension. The video was created with 3D images captured at Taljai Hills, a wildlife reserve in the heart of the city of Pune (India). The visual 3D effects transform the images of the nature into dynamic visual abstractions that plunges the performer in a mystic futuristic world.

Mojave (2021) audiovisual composition for flute, electronics and 3D-video
by Paulo C. Chagas and Cássia Carrascoza

Mojave (2021) is a collaborative work for flute, electronics and video that unfolds an aesthetics of audiovisual immersion with telematic performance. The work was developed on the basis of 3D video and ambisonics audio recordings on the desert of Mojave (California) in January 2020. Cassia Carrascoza created a performance for this specific site physically interacting with the landscape and improvising with sounds exploring extended techniques for flute and bass flute. Paulo C. Chagas composed a score for flute and live electronics exploring algorithms of delay and feedback, which create a universe oscillating between latencies and synchronies. Different versions of the piece were created for audiovisual media and live telematic performance. Mojave is a multilayered audiovisual composition that reflects on the presence and absence as vectorial forces of creativity. The contrast between the vast desert landscape and the confined telematic environment evokes the existential feelings of eternal and transitory, the finite and the infinite, and the anxiety we current experience between isolation and the opportunity to immerse ourselves into virtual worlds.

“Virtual Study #5” (2020) – for flute, bass flute, and electronics
Paulo C. Chagas, composition, electronics
Cássia Carrascoza, flute, improvisation

Virtual Studies is a cycle of five audiovisual works to be performed by a single flutist or a group of any number of flutists. The five studies can be performed as movements of a single work, or independently as isolated pieces. Each study consists of a single melodic line to be repeated in canon that can start anywhere in the music, so that it creates synchronic and non-synchronized relationships between the melodic lines. A Max patch is provided for the electronic version of the music. It processes the sound of the flute with a digital delay and feedback algorithm that adds additional layers of polyphony. For this specific performance of the Virtual Study #5, which was accomplished in a live-telematic situation, Cássia Carrascoza pre-recorded different versions of the study that were incorporate into the Max patch. They provided a basis for Cassia’s improvisatorial rendering of the piece that creates a signature for the specific performance. In this sense, each performance of the piece is unique and idiosyncratic of the performer(s).


PART II:
All tracks mastered by EDGE Studios.
“DUO”: This is stock footage, not owned by EARS StudentGroup.
“Somewhere Sunny”: Epilepsy warning
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Paulo C. Chagas – USA/Brazil
Paulo C. Chagas is Professor of Composition at the University of California, Riverside. He has written over 180 works for orchestra, chamber music, electroacoustic music, audiovisual and multimedia compositions. His works is also a prolific author. His scholarship is focused on musical semiotics, philosophy, electroacoustic and digital music. His recent books Unsayable Music (Leuven University Press, 2014) and Sounds from Within: Phenomenology and Practice (Springer, 2021).

Cássia Carrascoza – Brazil
Cássia Carrascoza is a virtuoso flutist and Professor in the Music Department at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo (USP). She is currently visiting scholar at the University of California, Riverside, working on a research on telematic performance under the supervision of Prof. Paulo C. Chagas.

Kirsten Lambinicio – USA
Kirsten Lambinicio is a BusinessAdministration at UC Riverside and is also currently the EARS Student Group co-president for the 2021-2022 academic year. She is passionate about the rise of technology as well as expressing her creativity through
music and the arts, stargin formal training at the age of 2. Her singer-songwriter journey so far has even led her to be on American Idol Season 16.

Brandon Babu – USA
Brandon Babu is an Engineering student at UCR. He has 5 years of experience in music production and songwriting. He is also currently the EARS Student Group co-presiden tfor the 2021-2022 academic year. He is also currently a hardware-engineering intern at
EDGE Sound Research and an independent contractor with EDGE Studios.

Ethan Castro – USA
Ethan Castro is a PhD candidate in Digital Composition at UCR. He is a prolific music producer, songwriter, engineer, and inventor. Ethan serves as founder of EDGE Original Inc. and EARS Student Group, Graduate Studio Manager of UCR’s EARS facility, and was
previously the Vice President of the Riverside Philharmonic.