bien serré: Carrying algorithmic composition into the domain of musique actuelle

James Harley (University of Guelph, Canada)

As a composer, my evolution moved from a background in jazz to a near-total immersion in new music while living in London and Paris. When I returned to Canada, I struck up a friendship with a musician in Montreal, Philippe Keyser, who was very interested in new music of all kinds and who also directed a big band jazz ensemble. He successfully performed the two big band pieces I had composed many years earlier as a Jazz Studies major, and asked for a new piece, written especially for his group. I had engaged in a creative consideration of aspects of jazz that had been important for me (primarily rhythm and texture) in a series of notated chamber pieces over several years: Jazz I (1984) for saxophone quartet; Etude pour une fete (Jazz II) (1990) for mixed ensemble—6 players; Kaleidarray (Jazz III) (1994) for mixed ensemble—7 players. This commission for Kappa, however, provided an opportunity to apply compositional procedures I had developed in the period following studies with Iannis Xenakis to a musical situation involving a rhythm section and improvisation. This presentation outlines my algorithmic approach to composition as applied to bien serré (1998). While the decision-making procedure is built on a nonlinear (chaotic) recursive function, the various elements of the music are organized according to a group-theory-type approach, including degrees of repetition and types of improvisation.
James Harley is a Canadian composer presently teaching at the University of Guelph. He obtained his doctorate at McGill University in 1994, after spending six years in Europe. His music has been awarded prizes in Canada, USA, UK, France, Poland, Japan, and has been performed and broadcast around the world. A number of Harley's works are available on disc and his scores are primarily available through the Canadian Music Centre. He has been commissioned by numerous organizations in Canada and elsewhere. He composes music for acoustic forces as well as electroacoustic media, with a particular interest in multi-channel audio. Harley has published widely on various aspects of contemporary music, and his book, Xenakis: His Life in Music, was published in 2004.