We performed Edgard Varèse’s “Ionisation” – the first percussion ensemble piece in Western art music – live at Brandeis University on October 4, 2009.

Ionisation, for percussion ensemble

Special thanks to Jay Bacal for permission to use his digital orchestra arrangement.

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra presented its second concert in the series of all nine Beethoven symphonies.

October 4, 2009, 3:00 pm
Brandeis University
Slosberg Music Center
415 South Street, Waltham, MA

Program

BEETHOVEN • Symphony No. 2 in D, op. 36
FAURÉ • Nocturne, op. 57
WEBERN • Symphony, op. 21
SPINDLER • Animated Watercolor – premiere
GENTRY • A Piece for Several Instruments (or a futile attempt to explain the magical powers of nothingness) – premiere
VARÈSE • Ionisation
UEMATSU • Liberi Fatali, from Final Fantasy 8

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra will present classics of orchestral music with music from the video game Final Fantasy 8, as well as two new student works.  The program will include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D and music by Jeremy Spindler and Christian Gentry, both Ph.D. candidates in composition at Brandeis University.  The performance of Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony is part of a year-long series presenting all nine Beethoven symphonies — a worldwide musical first.  Also on the program are “Ionisation” by Varese, “Symphony” by Webern, and Glinka’s “Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture.”

Mr. Smith takes the digital orchestra out of the studio and into the concert hall to perform Beethoven’s Complete Symphonies.Performing these cornerstones of the symphonic repertoire in concert lets the audience judge whether a digital orchestra can be as expressive and moving as a traditional acoustic orchestra.

“There is no question that the music I’m playing is a masterpiece.  It’s by Beethoven, after all,” Smith says.  “So, what’s left to the audience to decide is whether my performance is any good.  If our first concert is any indication of what’s to come, people are going to be stunned.”

Technology is Not Enough – Musicianship is Key

Smith has taken the Nintendo Wii far beyond off-the-shelf video gaming.  By integrating game controllers into a computerized system with over three million orchestral sounds at the ready, he has created his own musical instrument – the Fauxharmonic Orchestra – with the flexibility and power to play nearly any orchestral music expressively and with the real-time responsiveness to acoustics and timing that great music demands.

But Smith is neither an inventor nor a programmer.  He simply uses store-bought components, coupled with extensive musical training to produce a digital orchestra instrument many recognize as amazing.   “Could just anyone do this? I don’t think so. Anyone can walk into a store and buy a Steinway, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to play it like Horowitz.  Musical ability is more important than technical ability,” explains Smith.

Even so, the quality of the tools is important.  That’s why Smith is using Bang & Olufsen’s acclaimed BeoLab 5 speaker system and the best orchestral sample library (collection of orchestral sounds) ever created, the Vienna Symphonic Library.

“Wii controllers are cheap toys to the rest of the world, but to me they are the highly reliable, mass produced ‘bow’ for my string sections.  And the fact that they cost so little is just a nice bonus,” says Smith.

“The really important technology for this concert is the loudspeakers.  The system that converts the digital information into sound in a real acoustic space has to be able to handle the demands of the music.  It has to be as good a musical instrument as the acoustic instruments whose sounds I’ll be playing.  That’s why I’m thrilled to be using Bang & Olufsen’s BeoLab 5 speakers.  You don’t hear the speakers when you listen to these, you just hear the music.”

Bang & Olufsen, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high-end audio and video equipment, has generously agreed to supply Paul Henry Smith and the Fauxharmonic Orchestra with their BeoLab 5 loudspeaker system. Picked by Time Magazine as one of 2003’s coolest inventions, the BeoLab 5 system will be the “instruments” of the Fauxharmonic Orchestra.  The BeoLab 5’s adaptive Bass Control system, coupled with Acoustic Lens Technology, ensures optimum sound experience regardless of the position of the loudspeaker.

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Recorded live, in concert, on May 20, 2009.

Third movement, menuetto: allegro molto e vivace, from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21
Conducted by Paul Henry Smith. Recorded live, in concert,  May 20, 2009.

]]> http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2009/06/12/beethoven-symphony-no-1-in-c-op-21-iii-menuetto-allegro-molto-e-vivace/feed/ 0 http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2009/05/25/recording_download_may_20/ http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2009/05/25/recording_download_may_20/#comments Tue, 26 May 2009 03:37:02 +0000 Paul Henry Smith http://www.fauxharmonic.com/?p=186

Thank you very much for attending the inaugural concert in our Beethoven Digital Symphonies Series. As a small token of appreciation, we’re happy to offer you these recordings from that historic evening. As you know, it was the first time a Beethoven symphony was played in a live concert with a digital orchestra.

To get your free download, visit InstantEncore and enter your download code (printed in your concert program). Enter it in the upper right corner of the web page.

If you’d like to know about our upcoming concerts, just let us know and we’ll add you to our announcement list.

Enjoy!

- Paul H. Smith

Concert 1
May 20, 2009
Holy Name Church, West Roxbury, Massachusetts

Tom Myron
Two Arias from Iphigenia at Aulis
Tynan Davis, mezzo soprano

II. Mother, why are you silent?
III. Lead me on, destroyer of Illium’s city

George Frideric Handel
‘Ombra mai fu’ from Xerxes
Tynan Davis, mezzo soprano

Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 1 in C, op. 21
I. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio
II. Andante cantabile con moto
III. Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace
IV. Adagio – Allegro molto e vivace

Order a full quality audio CD of the

concert for $12.95 (plus $5 s/h)

]]> http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2009/05/25/recording_download_may_20/feed/ 0 http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2009/04/08/concert-beethoven-symphonies-no-1/ http://www.fauxharmonic.com/2009/04/08/concert-beethoven-symphonies-no-1/#comments Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:22:08 +0000 Paul Henry Smith http://www.fauxharmonic.com/?p=165 Mr. Smith takes the digital orchestra out of the studio and into the concert hall to perform Beethoven’s Complete Symphonies. Performing these cornerstones of the symphonic repertoire in concert lets the audience judge whether a digital orchestra can be as expressive and moving as a traditional acoustic orchestra.

“There is no question that the music I’m playing is a masterpiece.  It’s by Beethoven, after all,” Smith says.  “So, what’s left to the audience to decide is whether my performance is any good.  If our first concert is any indication of what’s to come, people are going to be stunned.”

Technology is Not Enough – Musicianship is Key

Smith's modded Wiimote

Smith has taken the Nintendo Wii far beyond off-the-shelf video gaming.  By integrating game controllers into a computerized system with over three million orchestral sounds at the ready, he has created his own musical instrument – the Fauxharmonic Orchestra – with the flexibility and power to play nearly any orchestral music expressively and with the real-time responsiveness to acoustics and timing that great music demands.

But Smith is neither an inventor nor a programmer specializing in video games or broadband applications.  He simply uses store-bought components, coupled with extensive musical training to produce a digital orchestra instrument many recognize as amazing.   “Could just anyone do this? I don’t think so.  Look, anyone can walk into a store and buy a Steinway piano, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to play like Horowitz.  Musical ability is more important than technical ability,” explains Smith.

Even so, the quality of the tools is important.  That’s why Smith is using Bang & Olufsen’s acclaimed BeoLab 5 speaker system and the best orchestral sample library (collection of orchestral sounds) ever created, the Vienna Symphonic Library.

“Wii controllers are cheap toys to the rest of the world, but to me they are the highly reliable, mass produced ‘bow’ for my string sections.  And the fact that they cost so little is just a nice bonus,” says Smith.

Coolest invention of 2003 - Time

“The really important technology for this concert is the loudspeakers.  The system that converts the digital information into sound in a real acoustic space has to be able to handle the demands of the music.  It has to be as good a musical instrument as the acoustic instruments whose sounds I’ll be playing.  That’s why I’m thrilled to be using Bang & Olufsen’s BeoLab 5 speakers.  You don’t hear the speakers when you listen to these, you just hear the music.”

Bang & Olufsen, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of high-end audio and video equipment, has generously agreed to supply Paul Henry Smith and the Fauxharmonic Orchestra with their BeoLab 5 loudspeaker system. Picked by Time Magazine as one of 2003’s coolest inventions, the BeoLab 5 system will be the “instruments” of the Fauxharmonic Orchestra.  The BeoLab 5’s adaptive Bass Control system, coupled with Acoustic Lens Technology, ensures optimum sound experience regardless of the position of the loudspeaker.

Creating new opportunities for composers and soloists

Noralee Walker, viola

Violist Noralee Walker will join Smith to perform Hindemith’s Trauermusik (Mourning Music), a 1936 work for viola and string orchestra. “I’ve been playing this piece for more than fifteen years, but this is the first chance I’ve ever had to play it with an ‘orchestra,’” says Ms. Walker.

Also on the program is the world premiere of two arias by Tom Myron sung by mezzo-soprano Tynan Davis.

“Expanding opportunities is a great use of digital orchestra technology,” Smith says.  “While we can play Beethoven to prove ourselves, there is also a lot of music being written that we rarely hear because it costs so much to perform it with a symphony orchestra.  There are also hundreds of amazing soloists whose talent we rarely get to enjoy for the same reason.  Orchestras simply cannot afford to present every talented soloist or every worthy new composition that should be heard.  With a digital orchestra we can expand these opportunities — and offer more for concertgoers, too,” says Smith.

Tom Myron, composer

Tom Myron’s new work, Two Arias from Iphigenia at Aulis, was premiered at the concert.  Myron approached the collaboration “with all the optimism and curiosity that working with committed, free thinking artists brings out in me as a composer. Tynan is a fantastic young singer. She should be heard by the widest possible audience. I think Paul is defining a new paradigm in the meaningful interpretation and presentation of ambitious, large-scale musical works.”

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Matthew Quayle’s “Gridley Paige Road”* for string orchestra performed first by The Fauxharmonic Orchestra and then by the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, Markand Thakar conducting

Sunday, November 2, 2008 – 4:00 pm
Brooklyn, New York – Bargemusic

Markand Thakar, left, conductor of The Baltimore Chamber Orchestra and Paul Henry Smith.

The results are promising, but I can easily see that this approach will have limitations as the music gets more complex. For example, when first violins need to be emphasized and then second violins immediately following them, how will the controller “know” which instrument group to modify? We’ll probably have to pair multiple controllers (perhaps Wii-motes) with multiple musicians and computers.