kyma

Sound designer Javier Umpierrez has two sound-intensive films coming out this month and next. Olallo Rubio’s Tormento stars Natalia Solián as an exhausted security guard with some guilty secrets on her first day on the job covering the graveyard shift at the morgue — what could go wrong? Umpierrez’ sound design for the Tormento trailer … Continue reading “Tormento and Depeche Mode M”

In recent months, composer Giuseppe Tamborrino has been using Kyma for a sonic exploration of feedback on recycled percussion instruments. When he started connecting these instruments to each other, he discovered a complex physical system that significantly increased their timbral capabilities.   Following the research of Agostino Di Scipio and his “acus-mate” concept — in … Continue reading “Refractions on a complex system”

Cristián Vogel is on his way to the music conservatory in Aalborg, Denmark to present a few days of composition and sound design workshops. He writes of Kyma: “Effortless to set up on a train, wonderful I can keep working on my NEL VCS Player…”

Carlos Alberto Augusto’s A Parábola (The Parable) is a cycle of pieces for instrument(s), a pre-recorded track, and the musician/actor’s spoken voice. Augusto has produced four pieces of the cycle thus far: Akinesis for viola (2001); The Moment of Being (O momento de ser) for marimba, glockenspiel and small percussion (2007); A observação do Tempo … Continue reading “A Parábola”

Composer/performer Anne La Berge was the featured artist for the 2025 SPLICE Institute — an annual Institute designed for performers and composers to study the integration of performance with electronics where she presented several performances, worked with student composers, and was invited to do an introductory session on how she uses Kyma in her work. … Continue reading “Anne La Berge live Kyma electronics”

It’s a question at the top of everyone’s mind recently: When your current situation feels broken, should you stay and try to fix it? Or should you go somewhere else and start fresh? We interviewed two Kyma artists — Andrea Young, professor of composition at University of Auckland in New Zealand. And Franz Danksagmüller, professor … Continue reading “Should I stay or should I go?”

“Light Time Delay” is a term-of-art used to express the comms delay between the earth and spacecraft. It’s also the stage name for Kyma artist Théa-Martine Gauthier’s live performance project, recently featured on Modular Seattle’s Modular Nights 13 April 2025, a free monthly event at the Substation venue in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. Opening with phasey … Continue reading “Light Time Delay”

Composer/instrument designer, Chi Wang, was the featured guest artist at this year’s TURNUP Festival in Tucson Arizona on 21 March 2025. After performing two of her compositions—Transparent Affordance and Fusion of Horizons — Professor Wang presented a public lecture about her work, including sound design demonstrations and live performance excerpts in Kyma. Dr Wang’s graduate … Continue reading “Chi Wang featured artist at TURNUP”

Roland Kuit’s R U I S (noise) Sonic installation has been nominated for the prestigious Matthijs Vermeulen Prize for Composition 2025, the preeminent composition prize in the Netherlands. R U I S is one of several pieces that have emerged from Kuit’s years of research conducted with Kyma on the phenomenon of noise. Part of … Continue reading “Kuit nominated for Matthijs Vermeulen prize”

Composer, sound designer, lecturer, acoustic communication specialist and teacher, Carlos Alberto Augusto, performed the premiere of his new project Marthyia de Abdul Hamid at Teatro da Rainha on 5 April 2025 in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. In the live performance of Marthyia de Abdul Hamid, based on the words of Portuguese poet Alberto Pimenta, the composer … Continue reading “Marthyia de Abdul Hamid”

Tom Williams’ Like the Sea Itself (2024) is a work for cello, fixed media and live Kyma electronics. Cellist Madeleine Shapiro will be performing the work at ICMC2025 Boston (where it was selected in a double blind review process) and at NYCEMF 2025. Described as “a musical meditation on the elemental nature of the sea,” … Continue reading “Like the Sea Itself”

Two projects powered by Kyma received top honors at the 2025 Sonification Awards this year. Often likened to a Michelin star in the data sonification world, the Sonification Awards recognize excellence and encourage best practices in the field of transforming data into sound. • Congratulations to Jon Bellona for his award in the Public Outreach … Continue reading “Kyma shines at the 2025 Sonification Awards”

Kyma artists participated in multiple concerts during the SEAMUS ’25 conference at Purdue University in March 2025. The winner of the 2025 SEAMUS/SWEETWATER commission prize was Yao Hsiao for her composition Daiyu, for voice, iPad and Kyma. Yao is a doctoral student at the University of Oregon, studying with Jeffrey Stolet. She completed her master’s … Continue reading “Kyma artists at SEAMUS ’25”

Composer/performer Anne La Berge released two albums in March: Cork, with Phil Maguire, mastered by Jim O’Rourke Threw, Thru & Through, with Tom Hamilton and Suzana Lașcu Cork by Maguire/La Berge Anne notes that Cork is “very patient music” compared to her other collaborations, primarily because Phil is a drone artist. She provided a time-stamped … Continue reading “Cork thru & threw”

Mike Wittgraf’s Turning for flute and live Kyma processing was performed at the Electronic Music Midwest festival in Kansas City on 4-5 April 2025 by featured composer/performer Lisa Bost-Sandberg. Wittgraf’s Turning is a play on words inspired by the mechanism of Bost-Sandberg’s Kingma System® flute with Glissando Headjoint® and, according to Wittgraf, Bost-Sandberg “thrilled audience … Continue reading “Wittgraf & Belet at EMM festival”

Alan M. Jackson has pledged to share the proceeds from his new track Mediation One  in a 50/50 split with his musical collaborators: a choir of birds from his West Sussex garden and another from the South Downs. (The birds’ half of the money goes toward the purchase of high quality RSPB bird food.) Meditation … Continue reading “A 50/50 split”

Two Kyma artists were featured in this year’s MOXsonic (Missouri Experimental Sonic Arts) Festival — three days of concerts, research presentations, workshops, installations, and conversations, 19-21 March 2025. Wyatt Cannon presented “7”, a multichannel fixed media piece with sounds generated in Kyma. Wyatt, currently pursuing a Master of Music in Computer Music Composition at Indiana … Continue reading “Phillips & Cannon at MOXsonic”

Interview with Lowell Pickett, Senior Audio Engineer at Zoox Every company should have an audio professional on staff! —Lowell Pickett, Senior Audio Engineer at Zoox / Sound Lab Eighth Nerve (EN): Yes! I agree 100%! Could I ask you to reflect on the skills and experience that someone from professional audio can bring to other … Continue reading “Driving the user experience with sound”

By augmenting traditional sample-based sound design with generative models, you gain additional parameters that you can perform to picture or control with a data stream from a model world — like a game engine. Once you have a parameterized model, you can generate completely imaginary spaces populated by hallucinatory sound-generating objects and creatures. Thanks to … Continue reading “Generative sound design in Kyma”

John Paul Jones and Anssi Karttunen are the Sons of Chipotle, described as “what happens when two free spirits join forces for an unbridled sonic expedition…” Known for their curiosity and a willingness to learn and explore, when Sons of Chipotle improvise, boundaries and preconceptions disappear. Jones and Karttunen were both friends of Kaija Saariaho, … Continue reading “Sons of Chipotle at Saariaho Festival”