Anthony Cheung

Anthony Cheung

Luciano Berio Rome Prize
September 10, 2012–August 5, 2013
Profession
Junior Fellow, Society of Fellows, Harvard University
Project title
SynchroniCities for Chamber Ensemble with Electronics: A Twentieth-Century Genealogy of Transcription (Aide-mémoire, Pedagogy, Recording, and the Jazz Canon)
Project description

I plan to return to the format of live musicians and integrated electronics with the use of recorded and processed sounds taken from field recordings to be made in Rome. Aiming for a collagelike effect of various juxtapositions, the work is not meant to be a literal depiction, but a search for synchronicity among very disparate sources, from the ancient and sacred to the everyday present, incorporating sounds from faraway cultures and geographies: a vast sonic travelogue. The material will be ordered and manipulated intuitively as well as with computer-assisted methods, including synthesis/resynthesis, orchestration modeling, and ancient and invented microtonal modes. I will also continue my research into the aesthetics of notation, focusing on a genealogy of transcription and its relationship to recording technology, especially as a pedagogical tool in jazz and other improvised music, and the unintended consequences of turning art forms from oral traditions into written ones.