Welcome to Third Practice 2005

Third Practice is an annual event presented by the Department of Music and the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond. The aim of the festival is to present new electro-acoustic music and works for mixed media. Now in its fifth year, the festival will present works for instruments and computer, video, and stereo and multi-channel works for tape. In past years, Third Practice has featured the work of composers Evan Chambers, Natasha Barrett, Russell Pinkston, and Mario Davidovsky. For further information on the festival, contact Benjamin Broening.

All Third Practice concerts will take place in Camp Concert Hall, the University of Richmond's exclusive venue for musical presentations. Our technical specifications include a breakdown of all the equipment available to our visiting composers, as well as concert hall specifications.

Composer In Residence:   Paul Lansky

Paul Lansky is one of the most prominent and accessible of modern American composers who write primarily for the medium of computer-generated sound. He has made advances in purely technical areas, especially those of Linear Prediction Coding, which he developed for his own first computer-generated pieces, and Cmix (in the 1990s), a set of programs which he has made freely available. In the areas of theory and analysis, Lansky has collaborated closely with George Perle, a former teacher of his, in developing the latter's ideas of "twelve-tone tonality," a way of combining serial techniques with pitch-centered motion. Lansky is a thoughtful and articulate writer and speaker, and has written extensively on his own music. The metaphor most often used by Lansky to describe his use of the computer is as an "aural microscope" (sometimes a "camera"), with which he "tries to make the ordinary seem extraordinary, the unmusical, musical. [I] try to find implicit music in the worldnoise around us." Like photographs, "recordings of real-world sounds ... create a nostalgic ache in that they almost capture events which are, in reality, gone forever," and Lansky's music can be extremely affecting.

Ensemble In Residence:   eighth blackbird

The Modlin Center for the Arts and the University of Richmond Music Department are pleased to announce that eighth blackbird will appear once again as the ensemble-in-residence at 3P05.

The members of eighth blackbird are:

Matthew Albert, violin

Molly Barth, flute

Matthew Duvall, percussion

Lisa Kaplan, piano

Michael Maccaferri, clarinet

Nicholas Photinos, violoncello

Why 'Third Practice'?

The term Seconda Pratica appeared in early 17th century Italy to characterize the emergence of a new compositional style that represented a departure from the modal, equal-voiced counterpoint of the Prima Pratica. The debate between practitioners of the old and new styles centered not only on innovative compositional techniques, but also on shifting compositional values. The Seconda offered composers not only new technical resources but also new ways of thinking about their craft.

The development of electro-acoustic music in the latter half of the 20th century might be understood as a change comparable in many ways to that of the early 17th century. While the specifics of the musical change differ in the two cases, both musical revolutions reflect innovations in compositional technique and practice as well new compositional goals and values.

The Third Practice Festival of Electro-Acoustic Music explores both the variety of the emerging electro-acoustic tradition and its relationship to past musical practices, and is committed to presenting new work through commissions and premieres.