“Sines & Squares” is one of UK's first festivals and concert series celebrating the recent resurgence of analogue and modular synthesizers. It will feature some of the most renown UK and international performers, composers, lecturers and designers working with Buchla, Serge, Eurorack, Hordijk and EMS modular systems. A novel workshop from Tom Bugs of Bugbrand will introduce attendees to how to build their own analogue synthesizer/processor. The event will feature Rob Hordijk (The Hague), one of the most most creative designers in modular synthesis today, and will present five concerts of live modular free improvisation and fixed media compositions rooted in modular synthesis. It will also include theoretical "Patchbay Sessions" with papers and presentations focused on modular synthesis, a Modular Lounge (system demos) and will include installation performances and the MANTIS System.
Established in March 2007, the NOVARS research centre specialises in the areas of interactive music and media, audification, electroacoustic composition, game-audio, and locative-audio.
Our MANTIS Festival (Manchester Theatre in Sound) explores new areas of creativity and pushes the boundaries of acousmatic performance. The event is an experimental research space for postgraduate students, an international platform for the performance and diffusion of electroacoustic music, and a valuable support network for hosting events in the field of computer music.
As we navigate the fascinating and multi-dimensional world of sound synthesis, we encounter numerous innovators who have pushed the boundaries of instrument design and even stretched the common definitions of a synthesizer. Among these luminaries was Rob Hordijk—a Dutch synth designer and electronic music educator, known for his unique instrument design method, and ingenious creations. The inventor's passing in the fall of 2022 was an insurmountable loss for the synthesizer community, but he has left us with a wealth of designs, ideas, and concepts that will surely live on for generations to come. Hordijk's extensive repertoire of instruments included full-scale modular systems, and stand-alone synthesizers, among which one design stands out in particular: the Benjolin.
Born in 1958, self described "synthesizer designer and builder, " Rob Hordijk began learning electronics from around age 12 after developing a fascination with the glowing tubes in stereo amplifiers. When he was 14 his father who had noticed young Rob's interest gave him a subscription to an electronics course, which lead to an examination for a ham radio license.
Trained as a designer and not a musician, Rob came from an arts background, studying as a sculptor and jeweler in the 1970s. He approached electronic music in a similar spirit to abstract painting, inspired by the ambient works of Brian Eno, and Luigi Russolo's Intonarumori instruments; where attempts were made to blur the boundaries between music and art:
In the early 1980s as various integrated circuits, micro-controllers, and processors became available to hobbyists, Rob began buying things such as the early Curtis chips and RCA 1802 based SuperElf processor board out of curiosity more than professional ambition. Later switching to an Apple ][+ and the Mountain Hardware Music System, for which he developed a Forth language version that could do all sorts of stuff with the Mountain cards, like KarplusStrong-type plucked string sounds and pitch shifting. His first introduction to a DSP was to the DMX1000 around 1984. In 1986 he switched to Atari ST and an Akai S900. These days he is a Clavia Nord Modular G2 aficionado.
After finishing art school, Rob also completed 11 years of study in Information Technology, learning about design methods and inventory control. As well as his own instruments Rob worked on the Nord Modular G2 including contributing many patches to the Nord Modular online community, and wrote a comprehensive unofficial manual of the instrument. He has produced music for environments, buildings, film, and dance performances, but is yet to produce an official release on a label. As of 2022 Rob has announced his retirement and will no longer be taking orders.
Richard Scott is a composer and performer of electronic and improvised music. For much of the last decade he has been dedicated to the compositional and performance possibilities of analogue modular synthesizers. He also works with a variety of digital technologies such as Ambisonics, multichannel diffusion and with instruments such as the Buchla Lightning and Thunder and his self-designed WiGi system developed as an Artistic Resident at STIEM.
John Chantler is a musician and organiser living in Stockholm, Sweden.
He mostly works with synthesizers and electronics to create unpredictable, highly dynamic music where passages of spare, alien beauty bridge held chords, saturated in harmonic distortion. In 2019 he started building a system for performance consisting of multiple battery powered synthesizer/speaker things that can be variably suspended, swung, spun and set in locations without depending on the typical concert/club infrastructure and classical modes of performer/audience interaction.
His most recent solo recording ‘Tomorrow is too late’ (October 2019, ROOM40) was originally commissioned by INA GRM for the 2018 Présences Électronique festival in Paris. In 2020 he released recordings of two ongoing collaborations: a duo with saxophonist Johannes Lund (Andersabo) and a trio with drummer Steve Noble and saxophonist Seymour Wright (Atlantis).
Originally from Australia he spent a decade in London before moving to Sweden in 2014 where he directs a small annual festival for ‘other music’ in Stockholm called Edition. The ‘Fifth Edition’ is provisionally scheduled for early August 2020 2021 February 2022.