PEMS (Porto Electronic Music Symposium) 2023

Svetlana Maraš

Keynote speaker and Workshop leader

Svetlana Maraš (1985) is composer and sound artist active in the field of experimental music. Her work encompasses variety of formats such as live performance, electro-acoustic composition, sound installations and works for the radio.

Maraš is Professor of Creative Music Technology and Co-head of Electronic Studio at Hochschule für Musik FHNW, Basel. She is the winner of the most prestigious Serbian composition prize “Mokranjac”, awarded by the Serbian Composers’ Association.

From 2016-2021, she was composer in residence and artistic director at Radio Belgrade’s Electronic studio, where she established numerous programs such as artistic residencies, educational courses and most notably, restoration of EMS Synthi 100. During the time at Radio Belgrade, she developed works such as Jezik (shortlisted for Prix Italia award in 2017), Radio Concert No.1 and Radio Concert No.2 – live performances with the use of Synthi 100, as well as Post-excavation activities, the work which has brought her  “Mokranjac” prize in 2021.

Maraš has presented her work internationally, at venues, festivals and events such as Kunstmuseum (Basel), Haus der Kunst (Munich), Ruhr Triennial, CTM (Berlin), Ars Electronica (Linz), Wien Modern, House of Electronic Arts (Basel), Espace Multimedia Gantner (Bourogne), Musikprotokoll (Graz), Heroines of Sound (Berlin), Onassis Cultural Centre (Athens), Stadttheater (Bern), Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgrade), Izlog Suvremenog Zvuka (Zagreb), Blurred edges (Hamburg), ICMC (New York), International Rostrum of Composers (Wroclaw), ISEA (Dubai), International Music Institute (Darmstadt), Orpheus Institute (Ghent) and many other places. Her music was used in theatre plays, experimental and documentary films and presented at places like MOMA (New York), Aubagne International Film Festival and Bitef theatre (Belgrade). 

Svetlana Maraš was SHAPE artist for 2020, and co-curator of 4fakultät concert series in Hamburg. Since 2022, she is part of the Zürich Stadt – Music Commission.  

Andrew McPherson

Andrew McPherson

Keynote speaker and Workshop leader

Andrew McPherson is a computing researcher, composer, electronic engineer, and musical instrument designer. He is Professor of Design Engineering and Music in the Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, where he leads the Augmented Instruments Laboratory. Andrew holds undergraduate degrees in both engineering and music from MIT, an MEng in electrical engineering from MIT, and a PhD in music composition from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining Imperial in 2023, he has been a professor in the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London.

Andrew’s musical instruments are widely used by performers and composers across many genres, and his research has led to three successful crowdfunding campaigns and the spinout of Augmented Instruments Ltd, which develops Bela, an open-source audio maker platform. He currently holds two fellowships: a Senior Research Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering on embedded hardware for audio and music, and an ERC/UKRI Consolidator Grant investigating the cultural implications of engineering decisions. He is deeply committed to teaching: Bela is used in the classroom by dozens of universities, and his online course on audio programming has been followed by learners around the globe.

Carlos Guedes

Workshop leader

Carlos Guedes has a multifaceted activity in composition and sound design, counting more than 90 international premieres of commissioned work comprising music for contemporary dance, theater, film, installation art and conventional concert music. He also develops a parallel activity as a researcher, mostly addressing the relationships between music and computational technologies, counting more than 60 peer-reviewed publications. 

He co-founded and currently directs the Music and Sound Cultures (MaSC) research group at NYU Abu Dhabi, a group that focuses on the study of the music from the Arabian Gulf and its historically connected regions. This group recently developed two exhibitions in collaboration with Qasr Al Hosn focusing on Emirati traditional crafts. ‘The Music of Crafts” was premiered at this year’s Qasr Al Hosn festival and “Formation of Soof,” Abu Dhabi’s pavilion at this year’s London Design Biennale won the Biennale’s Theme medal. 

In 2022 he was a visiting scholar at the Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research where he developed a study on the musical traditions of the Shihuh.

Carlos Guedes is Associate Professor of Music at NYU Abu Dhabi, and affiliated Associate Professor at NYUAD’s Computer Engineering Program and NYU Steinhardt’s Music Technology Program. He holds a Ph.D. and a M.A. in Music Theory and Composition from New York University and B.M. in Composition from the School of Music and Performing Arts at the Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal

friday, december 15, 02:00pm

Accessibility and Inclusion Through Art and Technology (moderation: José Alberto Gomes)

Technology plays a major role in our daily lives, enhancing many of our activities. These tools can also be used for bridging the gaps and overcoming the obstacles that underprivileged people face in their own lives. In this round table we will discuss strategies and opportunities for doing so using the arts.

saturday, december 16, 02:00pm

Composers as Makers (moderation: Rui Penha)

Composing, in the 21st century, requires versatility and, often, the need for building our own instruments, patches, and tools. In this talk we will discuss how this “maker mentality” shapes the compositional approach of our guests.

friday, december 15, 9:45am

What Technology Still Can’t Do (and Probably Never Will) about Music, by Carlos Guedes

saturday, december 16, 04:00pm

Creating digital musical instruments with Bela and Trill, by Andrew McPherson

In this workshop we will build simple yet richly interactive musical instruments using Bela, an embedded hardware platform for creating ultra-low-latency audio systems, and Trill, easy-to-use capacitive touch sensing for makers. We will use vibration sensors to drive digital resonator models, creating instruments that can be retuned on the fly and respond to the subtle nuance of the performer’s actions.

saturday, december 16, 03:00pm

Designing and manipulating sound objects in live electronic music performance, by Svetlana Maraš

friday, december 15, 06:00pm

Community Concert and Pre-concert talk – Os Sonhadores (Somos Nós)

Os Sonhadores (Somos Nós) is a community concert, created by Digitópia and Associação Somos Nós, an association composed by young adults with specific needs and their caretakers. In this concert we will use new instruments and technologies, including the universal instruments developed by Digitópia.

saturday, december 16, 11:30am

Acousmatic Concert and Pre-Concert Talk – IR:IS (Inner Reality: Imaginary Soundscapes), by Projecto DME

An immersive acousmatic concert, by our partners from Projecto DME, using a dome with 16 speakers placed all around the room. It includes pieces by Jaime Reis, Annette Vande Gorne, and Hans Tutschku, and a pre-concert talk by Jaime Reis, explaining the use of the dome system and his compositional approach.

saturday, december 16, 06:00pm

Blue Silence and Empty Spaces – Remix Soloists with Electronics (works by Luigi Nono, Kaija Saariaho, Hugo Vasco Reis e David Teixeira da Silva)

The final concert for PEMS 2023 includes essential pieces from the mixed music (for acoustic instruments and electronics) repertory, as well as new pieces by Portuguese composers, one of which is a world premiere. In the pre-concert talk/round table with the composers, we will discuss their compositional approach, as well as the need for preservation in digital art, to avoid obsolescence. One of the ways we can ensure these pieces are well preserved using today’s technology is to play them.