ICMC BOSTON 2025
Online Listening Room
Curiosity, Play, Innovation - A 50th Anniversary Celebration of Creativity in Music, Science, and Technology
June 8-14, 2025
ICMC BOSTON 2025: Online Listening Room #5
ID#: 485
given to be heard (2025) ; 11:54
by James May
Brown University
“given to be heard” nestles into the tensions of representation and the real in soundscape composition. It takes as its source material a selection of field recordings I made in the Gulf South between 2019 and 2024, particularly in and around New Orleans, LA—a region itself the site of profound social, political, and environmental tensions—a swampy ecological zone that, by its nature, exists in flux, “a trickster, ready to engulf the unwary in its muddy, suffocating embrace” (Vittoria Di Palma, “Wasteland”). It’s complex and beautiful, a region where the borders between city, community, nature, and industry are porous, for better and worse. Through processing fabrications like resonant delays and impulse response reverberation, I hope to lift the listener out of a “simple” field recording document and into a more complicated negotiation of where the soundscape begins and ends.
James May
James May is a composer, improviser, sound artist, and photographer. His work explores unfurling, fragile spaces, generating unpredictable systems in which performers can dwell. He combines approaches such as improvisation environments, live electronics, notated scores, field recordings, extended vocal technique, and text, often inspired by the natural world or other art forms—especially film photography and literature. James has published writing in Sound American and RTÉ Culture, and was a 2024 Ucross Artist in Residence. James has collaborated on performances and recordings with RE:duo, Versipel New Music, Apply Triangle, Hypercube, Chamber Choir Ireland and Paul Hillier, Stephanie Lamprea, Will Yager, Jamie Monck, JACK Quartet, Echéa Quartet, the San Francisco Choral Artists, Longleash, and the University of Louisville Orchestra and Collegiate Chorale. He was winner of the 2024 NewMusicMosaic Call for Collaborators, the 2019 Seán Ó Riada Composition Contest, the 2019 West Cork Chamber Music Festival Contest, and the San Francisco Choral Artists’ 2017 New Voices Project. His work has also been programmed and recognized by the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), MISE-EN FESTIVAL, Birdfoot Festival, Omaha Under the Radar, OhMyEars, BRACE New Music Choir, New Music on the Bayou, and the Institute for Choral Creativity. James is completing a PhD in Music and Multimedia Composition at Brown University. He was one of 12 recipients of the 2018-19 George J. Mitchell Scholarship, funding an MA in Experimental Sound Practice at University College Cork; previously, he earned degrees at the University of Louisville and The College of Wooster.
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ICMC BOSTON 2025 can be accessed IN-PERSON and REMOTE). ICMA Members at the time of registration will receive a 25% discount.
Early Bird Registration: pre-May 1, 2025 (15% discount)
Regular Registration: post-May 1, 2025
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