Recollections concludes the Time Past series of works started in 1981. It examines three key ideas in the works of Marcel Proust - time, memory and dreams - in the context of a solo performer struggling to reconstruct the opening of Dante's Vita Nuova. (He's forgotten the words, perhaps even how to speak and is learning the process all over again.) The amplified solo voice is integrated or contrasted with two tapes (heard simultaneously). One is based upon vocal sounds processed using the Fairlight II Computer Music Instrument, the other upon a simple montage of texts and abstracted fragments. Recollections was commissioned by the vocal group Vocem for Alan Belk with funds made available by Greater London Arts. The tape was realised in the Electroacoustic Music Studio at City University, London between November 1985 and January 1986. It was first performed by Alan Belk and the composer at an Electro-Acoustic Music Association Concert at The Place, London on the 20th of January 1986.

Recording of Florivaldo Menezes' Phantom - Wortquelle; Words in Transgress.

Work done in 1986. The material of the band comes from controlled improvisations of a guitarist. It was mainly transformed by a Serge synthesizer. After composing the band part, Laakso composed a live guitar part that includes some small movements of freedom for the performer. The work was done in close collaboration with guitarist Seppo Siirala who also played the solo guitar part on this band. Technical assistant Juhani Liimatainen.

Images (composed in 1986) is based on the results of research into the perception of rhythm. For example, distortion of a composite rhythm at the beginning of the piece occurs because of unavoidable inaccuracies in the synchronization between performers. Yet another distortion occurs at the end of the piece when the performers are required to play with the tape in a rhythm having a period longer than the upper perceptible limit of synchronization, approximately 1.8 seconds. The soprano does not sing any texts, but rather creates timbres from phonemes. The tape part, computer synthesized at CCRMA, Stanford University, in 1986, requires that the performers follow it precisely in order to achieve a close dialog with it. Among other timbres, the tape uses simulations (images) of each of the live instruments. The tape canonically mimics the performers' rhythms, sometimes mechanically, sometimes with human-like inaccuracy. Computer-assisted composition was used most extensively in the middle sections. Pitches and rhythms were selected for the instruments and the tape by a program from lists which evolved according to a predetermined formal plan. The composition of this work was made possible by a grant from the U.S.-Spanish Joint Committee for Cultural and Educational Cooperation. Thanks to …

Recording of Jacky Schreiber's La Paz de Los Mundos in Memoriam Orson Welles.

"Cryogénie" was composed in 1986 in the electroacoustic music studio of CNR Amiens. Selected at the electroacoustic music competition of Bourges 1986.

It makes use of the MIRY program which allows the computer to " listen " and response to the actions of the clarinetist. The software creates rearticulations and transformations of the musical material it " hears " from the clarinet thus creating a real-time improvisational dialogue between the performer and the computer. Despite the limited capabilities of small computers, the system is able to produce interesting musical responses by focusing on perceptually salient aspects of the live performance. The computer only deals with the simplest and most basic musical elements - patterns of pitch, dynamics, and durations, yet these sufficient resources for musical interaction with a live performer. A digital eclogue explores a series of textures articulated by changes in orchestration and levels of clarinet activity. The clarinetists is free to interact improvisationally with the computer's responses - establishing a unique relationship whereby the performer is both determining and responding to the output of the computer.

Litany for the Dead is a composition comprised only of vocal sounds - 2 female and 2 male voices. 1 male speaks a traditional Hebrew prayer that dissolves into the female reading of a traditional Christian Prayer both extensively processed. These provide a kind of harmony (ostinato) for the other voices reading and singing (with vocalise). 3 poems taken from the 14 haiku poems series called Litany for the Dead by Nick Virgilis, poet & author. The poems chosen as they appear in the music are: 1. stoking the ovens/ rising from the smoke and flames/ the names of the dead, 2. the starving village:/ a shriveled shaman chants/ the names of the dead, 3. gladiola bulbs/ wrapped in old newspaper / the names of the dead. The poems are broken down into vowel & consonant sounds and sung, strained, spoken, whispered, etc. then articulated in a clearer way; though music elements override intelligibility at times. Subtleties are focused on which usually required a few listenings to perceive all of the vocalizations. This piece was made with full authorisation and permission of the poet.

This piece was created in 1985 at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University on the Samxon Box Digital Concepts Synthesizer. It was inspired by an early morning walk in Vondelpark in Amsterdam and was made in conjunction with a film, also by the composer. The pigeon of the title "Pigeon Fantasies" is in some sense the protagonist of the film. Water is an important image in the piece. Great pains were taken to resynthesize the sound of water, using a program devised by Julius Smith. The program is a phase vocoder-based analysis/synthesis system able to track inharmonic partials. It was designed to model piano tones. Sound generating techniques included additive synthesis as well as digitally recorded and processed natural water sounds and frequency modulation synthesis. Both the music and the film were created with the intention that they could function separately as well as together.

Recording of Andrea Vitale's Les bons sauvages se mangèrent la douce Politta.

This work was created by the multi-lagering of entirely acoustic sound sources. Scrap metal, voices, bowed aluminium pot hids and guitar have been orchestrated in large numbers (averaging 200 tracks and up to 500 atacks per second) to produce new sound structures through synthesis complexity. It is an extended orchestrational approach which arms at developing the morphological (inner structure of sound) rather than the syntactical (the ordering of sounds) aspect of musical structure. The gestures tend to be extended to effectively neutralize or suspend the initial dramatic import of otherwise familiar gestures. Crescendi, accelerandi and increases in density all take on a now sensibility in this context.

"Inori" was commissioned by the Nordic Institute for National Concerts on request by the Dutch/Icelandic cembalo player Thora Johanseed. The composition hardly deals with the dualism between the cembalo and the digital synth. The first being close to rigid in terms of timbre while the second symbolizes the opposite. Consequently, the basic lines of the piece deals with the transformation of the DX-7 from being an "instrument like" instrument (using the very typical DX-7 harp sound) and gradually transform into the classical FM-instrument (bell-sound, inharmonic spectra, etc.). This is in conjunction with the relation in shape, gesture and go on between cembalo/DX-7 forms that are the main characteristics of the piece. Structures were composed with computer aid, using some of my own software for the generation of structures. Structures were registered and edited using "professional performer" for the Apple Macintosh and the piece was finally done using "professional composer".

Recording of John Celona's Pacific Rims.

Sinfonia Concertante is modeled on the dramatic essence of its classic namesake: the interplay of the chamber orchestra and the computer music narrative; of sweet consonance and angry dissonance; of innocence and duplicity; of pleasure and sorrow. The text for the taped narrative heard through the piece is formed from excerpts from ten letters written by Mozart from Mannheim and Paris to his father in Salzburg during a nine-month period from November 22, 1777, to July 9, 1778. The text was digitally recorded in English translation by German actor Stefan Hurdalek, whose voice also served as the source for all computer music heard on the tape. The taped computer music was realized at the Center for Computer Music at Brooklyn College, C.U.N.Y., while the composer was guest in residence from February to mid-May, 1986, at the invitation of Charles Dodge, Director of the Center. Special voice analysis/synthesis techniques, developed by composer Paul Lansky of Princeton University, were utilized to achieve the pitched, talking-singing timbres and events. The orchestral score was composed at MacDowell Colony during six winter weeks in 1986 in New Hampshire and, later, five spring weeks at Yaddo in New York. The piece was commissioned by the Cleveland …

The cube is the representation of the sound block, it is composed as follows: - creation of a material - creation of a writing - spatilization - total interaction between the sound micro-structure and the shape of the sound block. It comes in different forms (perspective) according to its location in space. This is not a variation of the sound block, but its presentation in a form each time different. The whole of the symphony results from the composition of the sound blocks. It is from this concept that I have developed a methodology of work in three stages / three sequences, of which the last "souprematika" is the creation of a new musical aesthetic. The sequence 3: Souprematika This third sequence is characterized by the creation of digital sounds from the analysis of the sound spectrum of the raw materials of the sequence 1, and those of the sequence 2, with the aim of creating a melodic mass. The whole piece is computer controlled, its extreme precision allows me to have control over all the musical parameters: stop, changes of frequencies, cycles, dynamics, heights, intensity, etc ... ) The themes are exposed without their developments. Use of tone as …

This piece is performed entirely in real-time from a classic clavier-type keyboard, and vocally. There are not pre-recorded tapes or interactive systems involved. The composer is the sole performer.

This piece uses concrete sounds, not retouched, of our urban environment (circulation, industry, trade etc ...) contained in an electronic framework. The title thus refers to the place where these two antinomic elements meet in an incessant conflict, symbolizing in this the games of tensions, contrasts, movements in delta, omnipresent in the work. Completed in June 1986, this work was produced in McGill University studios in Montreal using Synclavier II and DX-7 synthesizers. It has also received support from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Recording of Jonathan Berger's Diptych.

Quartet was written in 1978 and the tape portion was performed at the Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center. The work includes an introduction that presents all the harmonic material and patterns used throughout the rest of the piece, followed by three main parts developed in the form of an arc. The outer parts of the arch are very close to each other, with the central adaggio for horns alone giving the contrast and serving as keystone to the whole structure. The performance heard on tape will soon be released on CRI disk.

This piece was written in 1986, commissioned by the International Conference of Digital Music (ICMC) in 1986 and written for Harry Sparnaay. The tape was created at CEMAMU in Paris using the UPIC system. The mixing of the tape was done at Stichting Klankscap. The sound material for the tape was limited in such a way that one approaches the confines of what one can normally associate with acoustic instruments in order to obtain a parity relation between the tape and the bass clarinet. In the same way the contrasts and similarities between the tape and the clarinet were calculated musically a kind of intimacy was pursued, no different from the current senses of intimacy with the machines in general.

Environs was written as environmental performance piece for outside performance in a large, open, urban square. It deals with our surroundings and the ways in which we perceive ourselves within the environment. In this case surroundings is taken in the broadest sense – physical, spatial, temporal, emotional. The piece focuses on the use of sound to manipulate our perception of the environment and attempts to create a new context in which new relationships lead to new forms of experience. Environs is scored for three Emulator II digital sampling keyboard instruments, soprano saxophone, tenor voice, and visual images. It mixes recognizable and abstract sounds to create a sometimes surrealistic, sometimes serene world of sound and image. Sounds present within the natural environment are welcome to mix into the piece to forge an integration with the real world.

Recording of Ton Bruynèl's "Kolom".

This piece was composed for three instruments and a live computer electronics system that includes a DMX-1000 Signal Processing Computer,and Transfer Processor (designed by Jo Scherpenisse), a PDP-11/34 computer, a PDP-11/23 computer and other equipment at the Institute of Sonology in the Netherlands. In this piece, the PDP-11/23 computer controls a Transfer-Processor and the PDP-11/34 computer controls a DMX-1000. The main program for the PDP-11/23 was written in FORTRAN and for the PDP-11/34 in PASCAL. The Transfer-Processor handles 256K memory where the sound of instruments, sampled live from the stage via the A/D converter, is stored. The Transfer-Processor deals with these sampled and stored instrumental sounds in memory and manages to produce sound via D/A converters. It also samples and produces sound at the same time. On the DMX-1000, three real-time computer sound synthesis programs written in micro-code, are running. In two of them, the instrumental sounds from the stage are sampled via A/D converters and their pitch and amplitude control some parameters for the real-time computer sound synthesis. During the performance, the synchronization (timing adjustment) between players and a live computer electronics system is realized by controlling two PDP-11 computers at two terminals in the concert hall. This piece …

Eclipse reflects the ongoing interest of the composer in evolutionary processes as models for musical ideas evolve simultaneously, but their evolution also reflects their interaction with each other. There are areas of predominance for the different musical entities and periods during which each is dormant. The large scale form of the 20 minute piece is in two halves of almost equal duration. The first half is itself in two parts during each of which a different type of musical element is predominant. In the second half of Eclipse there are more struggles for predominance among the materials.