Experimental Archives • VAN Magazine https://van-magazine.com/mag/tag/experimental/ An independent online classical music magazine Tue, 16 May 2023 08:36:09 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://van-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/cropped-van-logo-square-32x32.png Experimental Archives • VAN Magazine https://van-magazine.com/mag/tag/experimental/ 32 32 192294250 A Collection of Disappearing Sounds https://van-magazine.com/mag/christina-kubisch/ Thu, 11 May 2023 12:33:05 +0000 https://van-magazine.com/?p=21184

Four years ago, I put on a pair of chunky red headphones and was immediately plunged into an entirely new soundworld. Suddenly, everything was buzzing, clicking and pulsing—yet there was no cable running from my headset, no bluetooth link to a nearby media player. I was in the center of Amsterdam for the city’s biennial […]

The post A Collection of Disappearing Sounds appeared first on VAN Magazine.

]]>
21184
Collapsing Time https://van-magazine.com/mag/morton-subotnick-at-90/ Thu, 09 Feb 2023 19:14:45 +0000 https://van-magazine.com/?p=19948

A pioneer of modern electronic music, Morton Subotnick not only encouraged technical innovations but defined new sonic paradigms for the creation of electronic music. Approaching his 90th year in April, he remains as energized and dynamic as ever. As a tech geek and extreme music fan during my high school years in the late 1960s, […]

The post Collapsing Time appeared first on VAN Magazine.

]]>
19948
A Dynamical Systems Playlist https://van-magazine.com/mag/dynamical-systems-playlist/ Thu, 03 Nov 2022 13:04:30 +0000 https://van-magazine.com/?p=17340

A dynamical system is a system whose state evolves with time over a state space according to a fixed rule. A dynamical system is all about the evolution of something over time. To create a dynamical system we simply need to decide (1), what is the “something” that will evolve over time and (2), what is the rule […]

The post A Dynamical Systems Playlist appeared first on VAN Magazine.

]]>
17340
Ode to the Jungle https://van-magazine.com/mag/allora-calzadilla-beethoven-variations/ Thu, 27 Oct 2022 13:24:14 +0000 https://van-magazine.com/?p=17135

Welcome, welcome to Garden Europa! Well, no, not welcome exactly—because you cannot be allowed enter—but welcome to the fence. Peer just over the wire. Look, isn’t it beautiful? Everything’s clean, everything works! And listen, listen to this: our anthem, our glorious anthem, the height, the apotheosis of music—of culture!—itself: Beethoven’s (surely you’ve heard of him?) […]

The post Ode to the Jungle appeared first on VAN Magazine.

]]>
17135
Beauty in Shadows https://van-magazine.com/mag/album-review-daisy-press-hildegard/ Wed, 28 Sep 2022 11:09:39 +0000 https://van-magazine.com/?p=16634

Daisy Press: “You Are the Flower — Music from Hildegard von Bingen, Vol. 1” (StorySound Records) Kotoka Suzuki: “Shimmer, Tree” (Starkland) Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir: “strengur” (Carrier Records) “The quality that we call beauty,” writes Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, “must always grow from the realities of life, and our ancestors, forced to live in dark rooms, presently came […]

The post Beauty in Shadows appeared first on VAN Magazine.

]]>
16634
A Glutton for Sound https://van-magazine.com/mag/john-luther-adams/ Wed, 28 Sep 2022 10:08:41 +0000 https://van-magazine.com/?p=16613

As a Southcentral Alaskan kid in the early ’90s, I was unaware of the composer patiently crafting his strict and sensuous body of work 600 miles to the north, close to the Arctic Circle. In 2013, after living, studying and composing for a decade on the Eastern Seaboard, I co-founded a new music project in […]

The post A Glutton for Sound appeared first on VAN Magazine.

]]>
16613
The Best is Noise https://van-magazine.com/mag/album-review-chacon-nakatani-santistevan/ Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:24:40 +0000 https://van-magazine.com/?p=16183 Raven Chacon

In an ongoing effort to spend as little time as possible with my own thoughts, I often have something on: A new album, a podcast, an audiobook, the same recording of “Chess” that I’ve been playing into warped oblivion for the last two decades… They all more or less see the same concentrated output of […]

The post The Best is Noise appeared first on VAN Magazine.

]]>
16183
Together on the Way https://van-magazine.com/mag/eva-maria-houben/ Thu, 18 Aug 2022 12:58:43 +0000 https://van-magazine.com/?p=15886

Born in 1955 in Rheinberg, Germany, and raised in Westphalia, Eva-Maria Houben’s musical career commenced at the age of 12 when she began playing organ in Sunday services at the church where her father worked as a presbyter. Subsequently working as a teacher at both school and university level, she has written numerous books of […]

The post Together on the Way appeared first on VAN Magazine.

]]>
15886
A Theater of Music Playlist https://van-magazine.com/mag/theater-of-music-playlist/ Thu, 14 Jul 2022 13:48:23 +0000 https://van-magazine.com/?p=15484

You walk on stage, and it’s terrifying: senior-recital-gone-wrong, late-to-a-masterclass-with-Big-Name-Soloist, career-ending-farce-with-your-parents-in-the-audience terrifying. As always, it’s inexplicably hot on the boards (or too cold, or the lights are too bright) and you’re sure the audience can see the sweat glisten on your frustrated, unhappy face. You’re flubbing notes left and right, barreling through an old favorite, lilting […]

The post A Theater of Music Playlist appeared first on VAN Magazine.

]]>
15484
The Birth of a New Ritual https://van-magazine.com/mag/alvin-curran/ Thu, 23 Jun 2022 13:27:01 +0000 https://van-magazine.com/?p=15229

As a child, Alvin Curran would lie in bed at his parents’ Providence, Rhode Island home and listen to the counterpoint between the booms of trains shunting together at a nearby rail yard and foghorns down at the harbor a few miles away. “Was that a piece of music?” I ask him. “Absolutely,” he replies. […]

The post The Birth of a New Ritual appeared first on VAN Magazine.

]]>
15229