Sonology Discussion concerts

The Institute of Sonology has a long tradition of giving public concerts of electronic music. Since the 1960s, the department has regularly organised concerts in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Geertekerk and TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht. 

Initially, these concerts mainly involved the broadcast of tape recordings of studio compositions, but today a large part of the repertoire consists of works with live electronic music or with combinations of traditional instruments and electronic sounds. 

The Sonology concerts given by the Royal Conservatoire are embedded in the curriculum. The technical preparations and logistics are organised entirely by the students as part of Paul Jeukendrup’s classes in Sound Engineering in Electronic Music, which are part of the curriculum of both the Bachelor and Master of Sonology. In the week after the concert, one of the teachers chairs a discussion of the programme with the participating students and colleagues who attended the concert during the weekly colloquium. 

In addition to work by students, the repertoire often includes classics of electronic music. Renowned international composers and improvisational musicians are invited to perform their work at these concerts. The programme also occasionally includes works by students from the Composition department and the Interfaculty ArtScience.

Thanks to the outstanding acoustics of the halls, the highly professional reproduction equipment and the artistic quality of the repertoire performed, it is fair to say that this has for years been the best concert series in the field of electroacoustic music in the Netherlands. The programmes are compiled in the weeks preceding each concert and details are published in advance on the website sonology.org and circulated in an external mailing list. 

Programme 16 October

The concert includes new multichannel fixed-media compositions by Justin Bennett, Agita Reke, Kees Tazelaar, a piece for fixed media and actor by Isul Kim, a performance with live coding and electric bass guitar by Seraina Fässler and Klyl Shifroni, Lucie Nezri’s piece for harpsichord and computer performed by Maciej Skrzeczkowski, and a performance by the Sonology Electroacoustic Ensemble.