Call for Ambisonics works to be performed at ICSA and transmitted on the radio. The "PURE Ambisonics Concert" features Ambisonical music as an art form, where an experienced musical sound field is placed in the main focus. We encourage you to submit musical pieces for this purpose and bring it to new live with your creativity: 

Fr.18.Sept., Mumuth at Art University Graz, Austria "Pure Ambisonics Concert" -  2015, 19h30 - 22h
"Night of Ambisoncis" - 11.p.m. - 2 a.m. + open end and bar  for ICSA-2015 (Internationale Konferenz über Spatial Audio 2015) and national radio Ö1

PURE Ambisonics Concert & the Night of Ambisonics

Categories of Ambisonics music cover an open range from pure synthesis, abstract sound collages, imitation of real room instruments (e.g. church organs), spatial audio recordings of concerts, environmental soundfield recordings, experimental audio art work ... .

Selected contributions for the "PURE Ambisonics Concert" are dedicated composition for soundfields to be preproduced on computer, so that they can be performed by playback (with moderation) on the 3D Ambisonic loudspeaker system up to 5th order of the concert venue.

There is also plenty of time for additional pieces in the "Long Night of Ambisonics" after the concert, in which spatial audio recordings in Ambisonics of any order are one featured topic, along with recordings with virtual microphones within virtual 3D spaces.

There is also a special interest in historical Ambisonics pieces, even if they might not fit the  state-of-the-art quality. Interviews and live moderation will be held with the participants and audio contributers to be transmitted in the national radio Ö1. The moderation and a spatial audio material is mixed in the Ambisonics domain and will automatically be rendered for binaural and 5.1-downmixed radio broadcast(terrestrial/satellite).

Historically you could interpret the Ambisonic music experience being in line with absolute music at the end of the 18th century and pure electro-acoustic works performed in the late 19th century.

Like absolute music (or abstract music), Ambisonics pieces need not be explicitly "about" anything, and in contrast to program music, they may also be non-representational. Rather than playing with different loudspeaker characteristics and their spatial distribution, as e.g. in acousmatic music or loudspeaker theaters, the Ambisonic technology allows to feature and musically compose and shape the contents of the presented sound field as a "Virtual Auditory Environment" - AVE.

Technical information

"Call for Ambisonics Music" is done in combination with the "International Conference on Spatial Audio", organized by Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) University of Music and Performing Arts and Technical University of Graz, Austria. 

In cooperation with Radio Österreich 1 and ORF musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst.

MUSIC CALL

• ICSA calls for Ambisonic music contributions to the ICSA concert night on September 18th 2015. 
• Multichannel music files are preferred to use the .WAF or .CAF and comply with the AmbiX format (full 3D, ACN channel ordering, SN3D normalization) up to 5th order, 48kHz sampling rate and 24 bit depth. (.WAV files must have a channel description.)
• Music proposals can be submitted until  June 30th 2015 (proposal submission deadline)
• including a short description (250 words) and a file-sharing link to a 30 sec excerpt/trailer. Note that the finally submitted piece should be up to approx. 15 min long.
• Notification of acceptance will be issued on July 30th. Deadline for final submission of the entire piece is August 31st 2015.

Notes on contributions

• Please monitor your contribution before submitting, using the binaural Ligeti Hall (MUMUTH) presets of the AmbiX Plugin Suite (http://matthiaskronlachner.com), to check its acoustical appearance.

• Concerts will take place in the Ligeti Concert Hall of MUMUTH and there will be a radio transmission in binaural (analog) and 5.1 (digital satellite radio). With the submission you will agree to be played at the concert and transmissions in connection with this concert.

• In addition, the broadcast mix can also be monitored at the conference in dedicated headphone/5.1 listening rooms.

• To produce the AmbiX format we recommend the AmbiX tools, where examples are provided as resources. 

• If you use any other spatial audio format, we try to convert it to the proper AmbiX format, if you supply us with the needed information about the file format you submitted.  If you have any question regarding the format or content, please contact us per email "music@icsa2015.iem.at".

• If you do not have access to or do not want to use a public or other file-sharing plattform please contact us, so we can provide you your personal upload link: "music@icsa2015.iem.at"

Text: Winfried Ritsch (IEM)