peter traub

Curve

peter — Thu, 13 May 2010 01:00:32 +0000

Curve is an installation for four speakers and a long curved wall. It was also the final work of my five-piece dissertation series exploring physical, virtual, and hybrid spaces as compositional tools. The balcony walkway at the rear of UVA’s Old Cabell Hall is bounded by a curved wall creating an intense, prolonged, and stunning echo that varies dramatically as one moves along the space. Curve played with this pronounced artifact along the wall’s 150 foot length. Using four speakers placed along the wall, the piece created an enveloping sound environment that varied as listeners walk from one end of the balcony to the other. In combining the unique sonic properties of the space with precisely tuned pitches, timbres, and rhythms, the installation made audible both the dramatic ricocheting echo and the effect of sound taking 135 milliseconds to travel from one end to the other–a perceptible and musically useful delay. The installation’s swells, drones, pops, pitches, and silences transformed the less-visited rear of the hall into a large immersive instrument.
listen to a short excerpt of Curve, taken while walking along the balcony.

Curve premiered at the Digitalis 2010 Concert on May 4th. I hope to run it again in the future, as it could be fairly easily tuned to work along other long, curved, reverberant walls.

Not to Scale: New Music for Hybrid Space

peter — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:34:54 +0000

On April 7th, 2010, I will premiere a new work performed by flutist Wayla Chambo – Passages and Recesses: for solo flute and hybrid space. This is the fourth piece in my dissertation series and is the result of a technical collaboration with Eric Montgomery, a recent graduate in computer science and music from UVA. Eric will also premiere a new piece for solo piano and hybrid space, called Sound Across Grounds, performed by pianist Benjamin Yobp.

Each piece will be performed from a different space – Eric’s from cavernous the Main Lounge of Newcomb Hall, and mine from the resonant upper stairwell of Old Cabell Hall. They will acoustically connect their respective spaces via the network with the Dome Room of the UVA Rotunda – a United Nations World Heritage Site and the architectural heart of the campus. The program will start at 12:50PM in the stairwell. There will be a fifteen minute break in-between pieces to allow listeners to change locations for Eric’s piece.

The event is the culmination of a project funded by a Double Hoo Grant, an award given out annually by the Center for Undergraduate Excellence at UVA to encourage collaborations between graduate and undergraduate students.

Chirp! : playing summer in winter

peter — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:08:23 +0000

Chirp! was an evening I created for Audio March at The Bridge in Charlottesville on March 10, 2010. It was an experiment in effecting seasonal disorder. We raised the temperature inside the Bridge’s main gallery space up to 83F and added a little humidity. I created a continuous sound installation, Freesound Summer that surrounded the space with sounds of summer such as birds, cicadas, children playing, and fireworks. I also hung a 660 watt ‘sun’ that I constructed from clamp lights, wire, and lighting gel scraps. While we were a small group, our wonderful performers, New Loft, Dzian!, and Cathy Monnes really had fun with and in the space. The performers played with the sound installation surrounding them, and the resulting mix worked well enough that I will try to do this again. Listen to New Loft’s improv below to hear the combination of their live instruments with my installation.Chirp! was not a serious evening, but a reason to have fun, wear short sleeves, and get a little bit of summer in the air after our very snowy winter. Thank you to our performers, as well as The Bridge for hosting Chirp!.

Study No. 1 for Bodies, Metal, and Air premieres

peter — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:35:45 +0000

After several months of work in the metal shop and rehearsals with my choreographer partner, Dinah Gray, and our dancers Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp, Lisa Eller, and Aaron Wine Goldman, our piece Study No. 1 for Bodies, Metal, and Air premiered at McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville on March 5th, 2010. It was the third completed piece in my dissertation series. We did three performances over the evening, and each one was well-received. Audience members were able to play with the metal items in the sound environment after each performance. The accompanying video is from the second performance of the evening. As the sound is so spatially-specific, the subtle changes do not translate well to a recording, but the video gives a general idea of the piece. You can read more about how it works on the Sounds page.

Installing at the Center for the Study of the End of Things

peter — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:20:21 +0000

In February of 2010, two local artists, Ashley Williams and Wes Milholen, organized an art show, The Center for the Study of the End of Things in a soon-to-be demolished former furniture store in Charlottesville, VA. The participants ranged from UVa students to established local artists. Sculptures, paintings, and installations were displayed in a variety of spaces. I was able to take over a small former office space near the center of the building that overlooked the showroom floor. I installed four speakers and a single microphone, put in red lights, and a single bright white spotlight recessed into a portal in the ceiling. The installation, which I titled Sound Study at the Center of the End of Things worked in five-minute cycles. It first recorded audio in the room for thirty seconds, then progressed through a five minute composition based on spectral manipulation of the audio. It was played loudly, and could build to a significant intensity.

I also performed a half-hour live set with fellow grad student, Erik Deluca (see slide show for photos).

ground loops at PASIC ’09

peter — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:21:29 +0000

Mike Schutz performing ground loops at PASIC '09

My 2005 piece, ground loops: for solo percussion and internet feedback, got a really good performance by percussionist, Mike Schutz, at the PASIC 2009 Focus Day. After a few hitches during the sound check the night before, everything went fine during the performance and I was very happy with the way the piece turned out. The last half of the piece can vary significantly depending on the sounds contributed in the first half of the piece. The ‘tail’ of this performance was one of the better ones. Listen here to the unofficial recording (made with an Edirol R-09):

Solera reviewed in C-Ville

peter — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:59:02 +0000

Photo courtesy of Dan Addison / UVA Public Affairs

Brendan Fitgerald, a writer for Charlottesville’s weekly Arts/News/Events magazine, wrote a review of Solera for their Nov. 3 – 9 issue. You can read it online at their website:
C-Ville: Feedback Column – Peter Traub’s sound sculpture is something to shout about.

Solera is now down. It ran very well (minus a few bugs that have since been worked out). I’m now on to other projects using the same gear, but am planning to install Solera again in the not-too-distant future, and hopefully in a very public space. I will likely make some changes for the next install based on what I learned from this one – primarily in how Solera encourages participation from the public.

Solera featured in UVA Today

peter — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:03:53 +0000

Solera is now up and has been featured UVA Today, the University of Virginia’s main news outlet. Public affairs reporter Jane Ford did a story on the piece as well as my other dissertation works. Read it here.

I had a few problems starting the piece due to some software issues, but hopefully it will run smoothly from here on out. It looks nice hanging in the lobby, as the speakers and suspension system blend in to Ruffin Hall’s open industrial ceiling quite naturally.

Solera: for sound, site, and time

peter — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:29:21 +0000

Solera is a new installation (and part of my dissertation) that I will premiere in the main lobby space of Ruffin Hall at the University of Virginia on October 26, 2009 – it will run there for two weeks, 24 hours a day. Solera will spend each day accumulating and playing back the sonic activities and characteristics of the installation space – people passing through, conversations, machines, and music. Over the two weeks of the installation, the incidental sounds of each day and the acoustic resonances of the space will be layered upon each other, creating an aural memory of the space that will grow and change over time. Multiple visits to the piece are suggested.

I will give a free gallery talk on the piece on Monday, November 2nd at 5pm in the main lobby of Ruffin Hall. As the talk will take place in the space of the installation, it will also become part of the piece.

ground loops to be performed at PASIC ’09

peter — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:28:21 +0000

ground loops, my 2005 piece for solo percussion and internet feedback will be performed at the Percussive Arts Society’s International Conference (PASIC) on Wednesday, Nov. 11 during the Concert 1 of Focus Day. Percussionist (and now assistant professor in music
cognition/percussion at McMaster University) Mike Schutz, will perform the piece. The concert begins at 9am in the Wabash Room.

listen to Mike Schutz perform the premiere of ground loops in 2005.