New Music By Karlheinz Essl

Listen with headphones! Binaural sound performance by Karlheinz Essl as a sonic comment to Peter Paul Ruben's painting "Landscape with Thunderstorm" (1620-1636). Broadcasted on May 13th, 2018 at the KUNSTRADIO of the Austrian Radio Ö1. Presentation: Anna Soucek. More information: http://www.essl.at/bibliogr/essl-soucek_kunstradio.html

NB: Listen with headphones to enjoy the immersive sound of this piece! Generative soundscape based on a random walk between four binaural recordings from different spots in the city of Vienna, Austria: 1) Café Mozart near the Opera 2) reading hall of the Austrian National Library, 3) children’s playground at Draschepark, 4) pond near Gerasdorf with swimmer and kids. Soundscapes recorded between March and April 2018 with Sennheiser Ambeo Headset. Generative software written in Max7 with objects from Karlheinz Essl's RTC-lib. © 2018 by Karlheinz Essl

Radio live performance by Karlheinz Essl at ORF Kunstradio, Vienna on 25 Feb 2001, preceded by an interview with Susanna Niedermayr. http://www.essl.at/works/replay.html REplay PLAYer is Karlheinz Essl’s contribution to the Kunstradio Series RE-PLAY UPDATE. Karlheinz Essl approached the exemplary selection of sound material presented in in the exhibition "RE-PLAY Beginning of International Media Art in Austria” with reference to their compositional usability. A special characteristic of the software developed for the project REplay PLAYer is that the supplied sound examples will be sampled, fragmented, and newly arranged according to a given score during the live-performance. Karlheinz Essl performance his piece with m@ze°2, a real-time composition and improvisation tool, that is likewise computer-based and that the artist himself developed in 1996. With his project REplay PLAYer, Karlheinz Essl is following his vision once again of a Music "that is composed, as if from itself (auto-poetic), in the moment o

NB: Listen with headphones to enjoy the immersive sound of this piece. Generative soundscape based on a random walk between four binaural recordings from different spots in the city of Graz, Austria: 1) farmers market near the Opera, 2) street crossing at the Stadtpark with cars, motorbikes and bicycles, 3) trams, busses and passengers at Jakominiplatz, 4) birds and a creek in the park of the Music University with a distant vibraphone. Soundscapes recorded on April 19th, 2018 with Sennheiser Ambeo Headset. Generative software written in Max7 with objects from my RTC-lib. © 2018 by Karlheinz Essl

Excerpt from the generative sound installation SEELEWASCHEN, a multi-channel sound environment for a light installation by Rainer Gottemeier for the Donaufestival 2004. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/seelewaschen.html

OUT OF THE BLUE Agnes Heginger: voice Karlheinz Essl: electronics This live recording is based on spontaneous improvisations performed by OUT OF THE BLUE at the Danube Festival on Aug 6th, 2017. The live-electronics are based on pre-recorded sound samples which are processed in realtime by computer algorithms, developed by composer Karlheinz Essl. Agnes Heginger’s magnificent voice freely meanders through a maze of texts by German and Austrian poets like Ingeborg Bachmann, Joachim Ringelnatz and Christine Nöstlinger. The result is an hermetic, megalithic, cathartic, and evocative sound experience. Released on 22 Aug 2017 by Nachtstück Records.

Performed at MUMOK (Vienna) on Jan 21st, 2018. Bulenda Felicia, Krenn Elisabeth, Reis Pedro, Wurzer Edeltraud: clarinets Four clarinets are positioned in the corner points of a virtual square around the audience. The score is organized in a sort of chess board with 7x7 fields. Each field contains a musical phrase which duration is left to the discretion of the player. After finishing a phrase, the player makes a pause of an undefined length. Then he proceeds to the next motif and so on. Each musician begins in one of the four corner fields of the grid. The entrance of the players is staggered. Player 1 starts with his phrase. When the maximum of the crescendo is reached, the second player enters, then the third and finally the forth. Each player takes an individual path through the grid following the directions of the respective arrows. Each path describes a spiral that finally ends in the center field...

Sound performance for the painting "Thunderstorm with Philemon and Baucis" (1625)by Peter Paul Rubens. Commissioned by Jacqueline Kornmüller for the theatre project GANYMED NATURE, performed at Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. "In seiner Komposition Some Way Up erforscht der Komponist Karlheinz Essl die "Gewitterlandschaft"" von Peter Paul Rubens. Vor dem Werk wird er spontan wie ein Wettermacher immer neue Stürme entfesseln, Regenmassen niederprasseln lassen und elektronische Regenbögen erschaffen." (Jacqueline Kornmüller) Info: http://www.essl.at/works/some-way-up.html

Sound environment for the photo exhibition "The Last Day" by Helmut Wimmer, shown at the Kunsthistorische Museum Vienna between March and December 2018. Composed and produced by Karlheinz Essl at Studio kHz http://www.essl.at/works/wheres-the-rainbow.html

OUT OF THE BLUE Agnes Heginger: voice Karlheinz Essl: electronics This live recording is based on spontaneous improvisations performed by OUT OF THE BLUE at the Danube Festival on Aug 6th, 2017. The live-electronics are based on pre-recorded sound samples which are processed in realtime by computer algorithms, developed by composer Karlheinz Essl. Agnes Heginger’s magnificent voice freely meanders through a maze of texts by German and Austrian poets like Ingeborg Bachmann, Joachim Ringelnatz and Christine Nöstlinger. The result is an hermetic, megalithic, cathartic, and evocative sound experience. Released on 22 Aug 2017 by Nachtstück Records.

Generative sound environment for three speakers attached to moving sculptures for a dance/performance by Nagl ~ Wintersberger. Written in MaxMSP. Bass clarinet: Georg Riedl

Version for sound sculpture and live-electronics, performed by Karlheinz Essl. Recorded live at the Technical Museum Vienna, 3 Oct 2009 http://www.essl.at/works/non-sequitur.html „non Sequitur” is a series of pieces for various gadgets (like punch-tape controlled music boxes, kalimbas or sound sculptures) and live-electronics which are side products of Karlheinz Essl's Sequitur cycle. Although the non Sequitur pieces are using a similar software as the Sequitur compositions, they are mainly based on improvisation and can only be played by Karlheinz Essl himself.

Granular re/de/construction of Mozart's string quintet in G minor (KV 516), written in Max and performed live by Karlheinz Essl on April 29th, 2017 at Studio kHz. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/mozart-lamento.html

Version for church organ and voice, performed by Wolfgang Kogert and Anna Clare Hauf on April 5th, 2017 at the Hofburgkapelle in Vienna. Diese Musik versteht sich als Reflexion auf die Werke von Harald Naegeli, dem "Sprayer von Zürich". Es gibt in diesem Stück keine Partitur, die einen reproduzierbaren zeitlichen Verlauf festschreibt; die Musiker spielen aus von einander unabhängigen, nicht-synchronisierten Einzelstimmen. Erst durch das bewußte Reagieren auf die Klänge der anderen Instrumente entsteht - unter Berücksichtigung genauer Spielregeln - im Moment der Aufführung die Komposition. Und ebenso wie Naegeli mit an sich bedeutungsfreien "neutralen" Zeichen operiert, habe ich ein Repertoire von Partikel-Klängen entwickelt, die in ihrer reduziertesten Form von den drei Geräuschen abgeleitet sind, die eine Spraydose zu produzieren imstande ist: der kurze Punkt, der lange Strich und schließlich das rhythmische Klackern der im Inneren der Dose befindlichen Kugel. So verwandeln sich die Blasinstrumente gleicher

Soundtrack of a multi-media performance by Karlheinz Essl reflecting the situation of female workers in a textile factory in Vienna in the early 20th century. Die Musik entwickelt sich aus zwei gegensätzlichen Klangmaterialien – einem Nähmaschinengeräusch bzw. Fragmenten aus Schuberts Klavierlied „Gretchen am Spinnrade“ – und steigert sich zu hochenergetischer Klangverdichtung, die als „Wall of Sound” mit voller Härte auf das Publikum trifft. Die Klangebene sowie die ebenfalls von Karlheinz Essl als Algorithmus konzipierten Visuals befinden sich während der Live-Performance in einem ständigen, sich langsam verändernden Transformationsprozess. Dazwischen gibt es lyrische Abschnitte mit Klavierimprovisationen, die - ebenfalls bereits den Keim der Veränderung in sich tragend - sich dramatisch zu neuen Gestalten und Erlebnisqualitäten verdichten. Ganz im Sinne der alchemistischen Transmutation verändern sich auch hier die Substanzen: Der „Fabriksdreck“ und die harte Arbeit der Textilarbeiterinnen verbinden sich

Performed by Karlheinz Essl at Plivka, Kiev (UA) on Nov 19th, 2016 using his MaxMSP-based computer instrument m@ze°2. http://www.essl.at/works/da_braccio.html

Generative music mobile, accompanying an art projection by Jürgen Messensee, shown at the Essl Museum (Klosterneuburg/Vienna) in 2006. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/7x7x7.html In his so-called art projection "Portrait E.", the painter Jürgen Messensee conducts an unusual experiment: a photo of a painting is deprived of its resting static state. Its parts slowly begin to shift, turning and interlocking and forming a three-dimensional spatial structure that moves in time. Through this process the iconic object becomes liquid, gaining two further dimensions with the inclusion of spatial depth and the flow of time. This approach is closely connected with my own compositional thinking, since I often start with static sound material (so-called "samples") in my computer-generated realtime compositions but transfer them into fluid processes through specially developed compositional algorithms. Panta Rhei - a sound environment for Jürgen Messensee's installation "Piscina di Venere" - testifies to this. It is the

Excerpt from a generative sound installation for a Hermann Nitsch exhibition at the Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg (Austria) in 2003. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/mysteredorgue.html As musical accompaniment for the major Hermann Nitsch retrospective at the Essl Museum, Karlheinz Essl has created a expansive sound installation which has its centre in the Rotunda and, from there, floods the large hall and the galleries with sound. For Nitsch, music has always been an integral element of his Orgien Mysterien Theater, which found its climax in the 6-Day-Play in August 1998. For this meticulously choreographed "Gesamtkunstwerk" the artist composed an original music score which has recently been released on 51 CDs. Sound samples from this recording have been used as basic material for the sound installation Le mystère d'orgue. A specifically developed computer program splits these samples into atoms of sound and re-combines them into ever-new sound shapes in real-time. The resulting sound stream wafts through the

Granular de/re/construction of a well-known Christmas carol, performed live on 20 Dec 2016 with a computer program written in Max. Info: http://www.essl.at/works/stallnichte.html

Live recording, performed by Juna Winston (trombone) and Coleman Goepfert (electric guitar) at Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten in Graz, Austria on 6 Dec 2016. This composition is a drama in sound, performed by two protagonists – a trombone and an electric guitar – that do not have much in common: a breath-driven brass instrument and an electrified plucked string instrument are probably the most diverse instruments on can think of. Nevertheless, both actors try to develop various strategies to approach each other in an attempt to fuse their specific sound worlds (GLUE), followed by situations where they try to break free, showing their idiosyncratic and individual abilities (EXIT). In this piece, the amplification system of the electric guitar is modified so that its sound characteristics come closer to that of the trombone. Instead of a common guitar amplifier, a device called Talkbox is used: a small stomp-box like device with a built-in amplifier and a small loudspeaker which sends the sound waves through