“Among the different styles of music that have occurred since the Middle Ages, the arrival of electro-acoustic music was certainly the greatest event of all time” (Olivier Messiaen)
Stijn Govaere is a Belgian electroacoustic music composer based in Barcelona who specializes in acousmatic music creation. However, he also has composed for instruments, and music for dance. He received his initial musical training at the age of 12 in the local wind orchestra playing the alto saxophone, orchestra of which he would become the director a few years later. After finishing his saxophone studies at the Conservatorium in Mechelen, he continued at the Royal Conservatories of Brussels and Ghent studying chamber music, harmony, counterpoint, analysis, orchestration and composition in the class of Roland Coryn and Acousmatic Music(*) at Musiques & Recherches with Annette vande Gorne.
Member of FeBeME (Belgian Society for Electro-Acoustic Music) and AMEE (Asociación de Música Electroacústica de España).
Honorary Mention at the Fifth International Competition of Electroacoustic Composition and Visual-music organised by The Destellos Foundation in Mar del Plata, Argentina.
Finalist of the International Electroacoustic Music Competition MUSICA NOVA 2012
(*) Acousmatic music is a form of electro-acoustic music that deals specifically with acousmatic sounds as a compositional resource and is projected on loudspeakers in concert with no live intervention of instrumentalists.
The acousmatic listening experience is independent of the visual domain and thus frees the mental images and creative forms of our imagination. Acousmatic sounds heard through a loudspeaker with no clue as to what causes them are the basic elements of the acousmatic art and ‘musique concrète’ vocabulary. These sounds called “sounds objects” are impressions organised and liberated from an “explanatory” way of listening, they offer us access to an emotion/sensation metaphor – Therein resides the work of the composer.
acousmatic music on wikipedia
Some audio examples from 60 year history of electro-acoustic music.
(foto (c) Klaas Broekema)