Marc Sabat

Marc Sabat
Born September 22, 1965 (1965-09-22) (age 46)
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
Years active 1970s – present
Website Plainsound Music Edition

Marc Sabat (born 22 September 1965 in Kitchener, Canada) is a Canadian composer based in Berlin since 1999.

Contents

Works

He has made installations, video works and concert music pieces using acoustic instruments and, in some recent pieces, computer-generated electronics, drawing inspiration from investigations of the sounding and perception of small number relations (Just Intonation), American folk and experimental musics, Minimal Art, and collaborations with other artists. His work is presented internationally in radio broadcasts and at festivals of new music including the Donaueschinger Musiktage,[1] MaerzMusik,[2] Darmstadt and Carnegie Hall.[3] His works do not fall into a single personal style, but they generally share a crystalline clarity of texture and a seek to focus listeners' perception of sounding structures into a process of musical 'thinking'. Sabat is a frequent collaborator, having worked often with visual artists and other composers, including brother painter and filmmaker Peter Sabat. Other collaborators include John Oswald (composer), Martin Arnold, Nicolas Fernandez, Matteo Fargion, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Stefan Bartling. Most recently, since 2006 he has been working on a series of works combining his composition with the sculptural work of Düsseldorf-based sculptor and painter Lorenzo Pompa.

Research

Since the early 1990s, Sabat has been reinvestigating harmony by studying the theory and musical applications of Just Intonation. Together with Wolfgang von Schweinitz he conceived and developed a method of staff notation for JI ratios called The Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation.[4] He has also studied JI intervals empirically on string and brass instruments, developing a list of so-called "tuneable intervals": ratios within a three-octave span which can readily be tuned by ear using electronic or acoustic sounds. These intervals have been used in a number of recent compositions and also are the basis of a self-tuning computer algorithm ("Micromaelodeon")[5] which is currently under development. The most recent version was implemented in April 2009 on a Haken Audio Continuum Fingerboard and programmed in MaxMSP.

Current and Upcoming Projects

Current projects include a retrospective of his complete piano music in Basel to be performed by Daan Vandewalle, new works in his ongoing collaboration with Lorenzo Pompa ('Loss and Gain'), and chamber music pieces for various ensembles, including Ensemble Kaleidoskop (Berlin), the Formalist Quartet (Los Angeles), the Sonar Quartett (Berlin) and the Penderecki Quartet (Kitchener). Together with artist Mareike Lee, he curated the series zwielicht in 2009 and 2010.[6]

Studies, Teaching, Residencies

Sabat studied at the University of Toronto, at the Juilliard School in New York, as well as working privately with Malcolm Goldstein, James Tenney and Walter Zimmermann. He attended courses in electronic and computer music at McGill University. In 2008-9 he took part in a postgraduate pilot project initiated by the Berlin University of the Arts, the Graduiertenschule für die Künste und die Wissenschaften.

He teaches courses in composition, acoustics and experimental intonation[7] at the Universität der Künste Berlin, and has been a guest artist at the California Institute of the Arts, at the Escola Superior in Barcelona and the Paris Conservatoire.

In fall 2010, he was artist-in-residence of the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles,[8] followed by a one-year Stipendium at the German Academy in Rome, Villa Massimo.[9] Previous residencies include Akademie Schloss Solitude (1997–98, music juror: Christian Wolff), Herrenhaus Edenkoben (1996, music juror: Peter Eötvös).

Career as Violinist

Beginning in the 1980s, Sabat has also been active as a performer on violin and adapted viola, concentrating primarily on American Experimental Music of the 20th Century. He has recorded CDs of music by James Tenney, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, and Maria de Alvear, amongst others. In the 1990s, whilst living in Toronto, he formed a duo with pianist Stephen Clarke, as well as performing with the Modern Quartet and Arraymusic. Like the great American pianist and electronic musician David Tudor, in recent years Sabat has largely abandoned a concert career in favor of creating his own music.

List of works

source:

2010-

2000-2009

1990-1999

References

  1. ^ Donaueschingen Archive at SWR Radio
  2. ^ MaerzMusik Artist Archive
  3. ^ Berlin In Lights Festival Program, Carnegie Hall
  4. ^ The Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation
  5. ^ An Algorithm for Real-Time Harmonic Microtuning
  6. ^ Zwielicht Website
  7. ^ UdK Composition Faculty Listings
  8. ^ Villa Aurora Announcements 2009
  9. ^ [1]

External links