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For other uses, see Institut royal de la culture amazighe.
IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) is a European institute for science about music and sound and avant garde electro-acoustical art music. It is situated next to, and is organizationally linked with, the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The extension of the building has been designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.
A Center for Musical ResearchSeveral concepts for electronic music and audio processing have emerged at IRCAM. John Chowning did pioneering work on FM Synthesis at IRCAM, and the real-time audio processing graphical programming environment Max/MSP and many of its derivatives such as jMax, were developed there. Max/MSP has subsequently become a widely used tool in electroacoustic music. Many of the techniques associated with spectralism, such as analyses based on Fast Fourier Transforms, were made practical by technological contributions at IRCAM. IRCAM has also developed a special microphone capable of isolating each of the cello's four strings for separate amplification or electronic treatment. With the rise of cheaper electronics from Japan, complex audio computing has become possible also at smaller institutions and many smaller music laboratories are therefore able to compete with IRCAM. IRCAM provides classes to train composers in music technology. Composers who do not have programming experience to create the technology end of a piece for ensemble and electronics are provided with an assistant who helps them to realize technically intensive parts of the piece. The assistant will follow the conceptual advice of a composer with no technology experience to realize a computer part, or will help a composer who can program in Max/MSP to make their "patch" more efficient and elegant. Tristan Murail's Désintégrations is an example of a piece realized in this program by a composer with significant technological skill, whereas Harrison Birtwistle's Mask of Orpheus required an active and creative role for the technology assistants, such as Barry Anderson and Ian Dearden. A Cultural Center for Musical ModernismApart from electroacoustic programs, IRCAM has programs in contemporary classical music. It has disseminated music of post World War II modernist musicians such as that of Luciano Berio or Pierre Boulez, as well as younger performers and composers. Musical spectralism such as that of Tristan Murail, has also received support from IRCAM. Murail taught at IRCAM for a time (Anderson 2001). Kaija Saariaho, whose work has been influenced by spectralism, has also been supported by IRCAM (Born 1995, 363 fn3). IRCAM has also helped to develop various performance models. A resident ensemble of IRCAM, Ensemble InterContemporain, specialized in contemporary classical music, where each performer could be called upon to perform solo literature or ensemble literature. The enhanced flexibility of such an arrangement anticipated contemporary problems with orchestras, whose cumbersome size and format expectations have caused some to question their viability. Ensemble InterContemporain has been a model for many large ensembles in Europe, for example the Ensemble Modern and Klangforum Wien. Many classical contemporary pieces have been written for the chamber orchestra dimensions of Ensemble InterContemporain. There are regular concerts at IRCAM. HistoryIn 1970 president Georges Pompidou asked Pierre Boulez to found an institution for the research of music. In 1973 the part underneath Place Igor Stravinsky was finished, and the center opened in 1977. From the outset, Boulez was in charge of the center (Manning 2001). The initial administrators included Luciano Berio, Vinko Globokar, Jean-Claude Risset, and Max Mathews. In 1992 Boulez, who then became honorary director, was succeeded by Laurent Bayle (Manning 2001). In 2002 the philosopher Bernard Stiegler became the new head of the institute. On January 1, 2006, Stiegler became Director of Cultural Development at the Centre Pompidou and was replaced by Frank Madlener. The creation of IRCAM coincided with the rise of the debates about modernism and postmodernism in culture and the arts (Born 1995, 32), and a sort of crisis of confidence for musical modernism.[citation needed] Because of IRCAM's associations with musical modernism, and the ways that it puts into practice theoretical ideals of musical modernism, such as the advocacy of musical styles positively influenced total serialization, education of audiences, or state funding of the arts, it has often been criticized by the advocates of musical postmodernism,[weasel words] who suggest that the arts would be better served by the intellectual and financial support of a mass market. Its multimedia library was established in 1996 (Chronological History). It is one of the very first music hybrid libraries to have been created with close to 1,000 hours of recorded music and over 2,000 scientific articles available online, in addition to its physical collections of sheet music and books on music and related domains. Several international conferences have been held at IRCAM:
Research and development teams
Software developed at IRCAMSome software is being developed at IRCAM. Part of it is free software, such as OpenMusic, AudioSculpt, jMax, a library to handle SDIF data, and some development related to AGNULA. There are also partnerships with companies for the development of proprietary software. Notable works composed at IRCAM
A full list of works composed at IRCAM from 1976 until 2006 or so is available here. See alsoReferences
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