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CreatePermanence is Now Online!

We have just released a new web application that lets users create their own version of the opening piece “Permanence” of the CD “Listening to Istanbul”. CreatePermanence web application includes listeners in the process of making music. “You can listen to many improvisations and musical gestures that I recorded specifically for this website and then remix them on a timeline at certain points in the compositions,” says Seda Röder, who has been described as “the master of avant-garde pianism” by piano legend Alfred Brendel. “Permanence” by the Turkish composer Tolga Tüzün is written in open form and consists of composed segments and improvisational sections that can be played in an order chosen by the performer. The web application features improvisations that were recorded for “Listening to Istanbul”, plus additional ones that were intended specifically for this web application. With this web application you can re-arrange these segments and improvisations, and change the sonic path of the piece. After you are done, you can download your own version of “Permanence” free of charge.

Please feel free to share it with your friends!

GO TO CREATEPERMANENCE WEBSITE.

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Blackbox #012: The Music of Noise

Blackbox 012: The Music of Noise Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In this episode I would like to talk about understanding “noise” as a musical element and discuss briefly two milestone pieces that show different approaches to integrating noise into a composition: Poème électronique by Edgar Varèse and Guero by Helmut Lachenmann.

Enjoy!
- Seda

Watch&Read
Art of Noises (1913) by Luigi Russolo

Poème électronique by Edgar Varèse (audio only)

Poème électronique by Edgar Varèse (original video)

Background on Poème électronique

Guero by Helmut Lachenmann (video)

Excerpts in the podcast come from:
CD 1: Electro Acoustic Music: Classics, Neuma Records, 1990
CD 2: Lachenmann, Piano Music / Marino Formenti, Col Legno, 2003

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Seda Röder improvizes first-ever electro-acoustic cadenza for a classical concerto

In this video, New Music Pianist Seda Röder improvises the first-ever electro-acoustic cadenza for a classical concerto!

Röder, who specializes on bringing contemporary music to new audiences, says that “the public at Beethoven’s time would have expect the soloist to improvise in the cadenzas. I wanted to do the same, but in a style that is my own and entirely modern.”

To turn this vision into reality, Seda worked together with Mexican composer Edgar Barroso who provided an electro-acoustic framework that she could use for her improvisations.

When Röder was approached by Harvard conductor Hanjay Wang with the suggestion to perform with the Chinese Symphonic Masterpieces Orchestra, the unusual idea finally came to life!

To find out more about this very special project, please listen to the latest episode of Seda’s podcast in which the pianist shares her thoughts on the unusual performance.

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Seda plays “Drifting Through the Echoes of Time” @CCRMA, Stanford University

New Music pianist Seda Röder performs Turgut Ercetin’s Drifting Through the Echoes of Time at CCRMA, Stanford University. The composition is featured on Seda’s latest album, Listening to Istanbul.

Inspired by post-spectral as well as computer-aided music Turgut Erçetin introduces a wide range of sonic novelties into his first solo piano piece Drifting through the Echoes of Time. These sounds are produced by alternative playing techniques, such as plucking the strings of the piano, whistling into the piano, as well as by a small device called E-Bow that creates long resonances when brought into close proximity with a piano string. The piece explores the tranquil flow of time and contains excerpts from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke (Mein Leben ist nicht diese steile Stunde) that sets the mesmerizing and serene tone of the entire work.

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Blackbox #011: Beethoven and Electronics

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In this episode I would like to invite you to my upcoming concert with Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto. The concert is taking place on Friday, April 15th at Harvard’s Paine Hall. I will also talk a little bit about what makes this concert so special.

Those of you who can make it to the concert on Friday will hear something very extraordinary. I will be improvising a contemporary cadenza to the first movement of Beethoven’s 5th concerto using a live-electronics framework by composer Edgar Barroso.

In the concert on Friday I will insert an electro-acoustic improvisation into the middle of Beethoven’s notated cadenza demonstrating how different elements from within the concerto are perfectly suitable for such an experiment.

I hope to see many of you at the concert on Friday, if you cannot make it to the concert you will be able to hear a recording on my website, www.sedaroeder.com. I am really excited about this unprecedented experiment, and am looking forward to your comments.

Fri, April 15
8:00 PM
Paine Hall, Harvard University
$5 students
$8 general

Tickets can be purchased at the Harvard Box Office, or at the door.

Presented by the Harvard-Radcliffe Chinese Students Association.
Chinese Symphonic Masterpieces II
proudly presents:

Plum Blossom Country
composer Masaaki Hayakawa

Journey to the West
Double Concerto for Flute and Erhu
World Premiere; Co-commissioned by CSM
composer Oliver Caplan (Harvard SEAS Staff)
soloists Kevin Leu ’11, Flute; Charles Vanijcharoenkarn ’11, Erhu

Allegro from Piano Concerto No.5, Op.73 “Emperor”
composer Ludwig van Beethoven
soloist Seda Röder (Harvard Music Department), Piano

Music director Hanjay Wang ’11

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