Horizons

Horizons is a new exploration of the expressive possibilities offered by transformations of acoustic cello sound using dual-control digital audio processing: both by the cellist's gestures, tracked by inertial sensors on her hands, arms and torso, and by live intervention on the virtual instruments using potentiometer.

The intention is to use electroacoustic techniques to extend the sound body of the instrument to the body of the performer. The same applies to the voice.

The composition process goes through stages of research and consolidation of new playing techniques combining musical gestures in the traditional sense - those that make the acoustic instrument sound - with extra-musical gestures. These gestures alone would not make the acoustic instrument sound any different, but they add playing dimensions and expressive possibilities to the augmented instrument, i.e. the combination of the acoustic instrument and digital audio transformations controlled by the gestures of the instrumentalist.
This is a long, iterative process: both the virtual instruments and their mapping, i.e. the assignment of the values of the axes of the inertial sensors (accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers) to the parameters of the instruments, are progressively modified and adapted in order to refine the symbiosis between the different types of gesture and the resulting sound outcomes.

The sensors have been developed by Todor Todoroff since 2002 as part of ARTeM, and then perfected as part of his research at the Numediart Institute of the Faculté Polytechnique de Mons - UMons between 2009 and 2011, with the help of the Multitel spin-off for manufacturing.

Alongside elements pre-composed in the studio and spatialised in parallel with the instrumental playing, and those composed to be 'played' using sensors, the project is primarily a live project in which gesture is an essential component.

Composed at ARTeM studio with support from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (Direction générale de la culture, Service de la musique) and premièred on the 21st of February 2025 at the Arsonic Auditorium in Mons (B), in the framework of XPRMTL CELLO concert.

Cello and voice: Sigrid Vandenbogaerde
Electroacoustics: Todor Todoroff
Computer music designer: Todor Todoroff