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Adam Stansbie
About the Composer Adam Stansbie is a composer and sonic artist from Leeds, England. He studied Music Production at the Leeds College of Music and is now a lecturer in music, sound and performance at Leeds Metropolitan University. He is currently working towards a PhD in Electroacoustic Composition at City University, under the supervision of Denis Smalley. His output is largely acousmatic although he also composes instrumental music and has scored for several short films.
His works have been performed and broadcast both nationally and internationally at festivals and events including the 11th International Festival of Electro-Acoustic Music, Cuba, the 10th Santa Fe International Festival of Electroacoustic Music, USA, Festival Internacional de Arte Electronico 404, Argentina and Art Trail Soundworks Live, Ireland. He recently received a residency prize at the Bourges International Competition 2006 and first prize in the Metamorphoses Competition 2006, Category A. Adam recently became a member of Freaksignal, a multi-media production collective specialising in creative audio-visual design.
For more detailed information about this composer Click here
Featured Music: Isthmus-
The entire sound world of Isthmus is derived from solo and ensemble performances of three string instruments: the violin, viola and cello. Transformations in the first movement maintain a close relationship to the timbre and performance techniques of these instruments, extending both natural morphologies and textures, yet often regressing to reveal the source recordings. On these occasions physical spaces, and the performer's position within them, can be identified along with references to Modern and contemporary string music.
Transformations become more complex in the second movement, offering a variety of timbral, rhythmic and sonic interactions, which digress from the original performances. The physical spaces become virtual, and instruments loose their static positions, developing abstract spatial movements. References to the source material become less frequent and transformed sounds establish distinct pulses and morphologies that evolve independently.
As the third movement begins, Isthmus has become a purely virtual space with few references to its source. The title of the piece refers to this progression but suggests that the intimacy of Isthmus is beset at both ends by an immense and impending mass.
Samples from Isthmus (From the 3rd movement, starting at about 1 min 10 sec)
110k Mono .mp3 file
2.4MB 16 bit Mono .wav file
The Role of CDP in the Composition of Isthmus- The Composers’ Desktop Project (CDP) provided a wide variety of signal
processing tools that facilitated the creation of Isthmus. Since
my source materials were exclusively derived from instrumental recordings,
their gestural and textural constitution was already familiar. My
intention was to create spectromorphologies that circumvent source-bonding
of instrumental activity and human gesture
1. Thus the start of the piece contains
recognisable instrumental materials but these references are increasingly
disguised as the piece develops.
This excerpt is taken from the third movement where source-bonding is
less apparent. The sound materials were typically created by extracting
(and retaining) small sets of frequency information (using Varibank
Filters) and formant information (Formant Extraction) from
multiple instrumental gestures and then combining these elements (typically
in the time domain although sometime in the spectral domain) to synthesise
new sounds. In addition, I extracted dynamic information from the source
materials and imposed this upon the resulting sounds to provide them with
a richer dynamic profile. The large textures that develop (particularly
during the second movement) were created by firstly octave-stacking pitched
materials and secondly by reconstructing (using granular processes) the
sound with a very high granular density output. The programs were accessed
from the Sound Loom GUI.
1 - See:
Smalley, D. 1997. 'Spectromorphology: Explaining Sound Shapes'. In Organised Sound. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 110.
Selected
Compositions
- 2006: Early Morning
- 2005: Things be Cut Shorter
- 2005: Isthmus
- 2005: From a Tower, Brasov
- 2005: Tisza Frogs
- 2004: One Millisecond
- 2003: Study of a Single Source
- 2003: Donau
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To hear more of Adam's music click here
Contact Adam: a.stansbie(at)leedsmet.ac.uk
This CDP Featured Composer page has been prepared by Peter Ridsdale
& Archer Endrich. Peter has now moved on to new opportunities
abroad, and future pages will be prepared by Archer. We are very
grateful to Peter for all the work he has done to prepare these
'Featured Composer' pages for the CDP Website, helping to bring the
music of some very fine composers to your attention.
If you are a composer who has made use of the CDP sound transformation
software in your compositions and would like to be featured in a future
edition, please contact Archer at:
archer(a)trans4um.demon.co.uk
October 2007
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