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This week, Stephen Altoft collected the new 19-division trumpet conversion kit from Musik Gillhaus (Freiburg, Germany). After tweaking the Prototype and then the Mark I Kit over the last 21 years at the workshop, we are thrilled that Takuma, a current apprentice at Musik Gillhaus, has taken on this project. Under the guidance of Siegmar Fischer (who built the original kits) and using the experience gathered through building other quarter-tone slides and conversion kits, Takuma has not only reproduced the parts but also improved upon the original design. They also intend to make new quarter-tone conversion kits for Stephen’s Bb and C trumpets.

Our partners in Sydney, Kraig Grady and Michael H. Dixon are co-curating the 6th Sydney MicroFest.

Music by: Kraig Grady, Michael H. Dixon, Amanda Cole, Stephen Altoft, Matthias S. Krüger, Greg Schiemer, Praveen Venkantaramana and Michael Bakrnčev. 

Today I added another useful and fantastic resource: ‘Writing for the quarter-tone accordion’ by Lore Amenabar Larrañaga, who recently was awarded her PhD from the Royal Academy of Music in London. Many congratulations to her and many thanks for providing this article for Microtonal Projects’ Resources Folder.

Her website is: www.loreamenabar.com

There will also be additional resources for other microtonal instruments added over the coming year.

Registration form link:

Microtonal Projects

A ground-breaking recording project by Lore Amenabar Larrañaga

I really enjoyed listening to this new CD of quarter-tone accordion works by Claudia Molitor, David Gorton, Donald Bousted, Mioko Yokoyama, Michael Finnissy, Christopher Fox, Electra Perivolaris and Veli Kujala.

The CD is available here and on all digital platforms. Please have a listen!

As part of EUROMicroFest 2024, we will once again host a concert in Freiburg, Germany (8th March, 2024, 8pm) under the title ‘Das Stimmt!!’ – this time ‘with strings attached!’ It will be held at the Elisabeth Schneider Stiftung, Weinschlösschen Freiburg, and focusses on microtonal trumpet and flugelhorn (Stephen Altoft) with strings, using local musicians, and juxtaposes composed works with improvisation in 19-divisions, 24-divisions, Spectral and Just Intonation tunings.

This is our ‘new start’ following the pandemic and the sad loss of our artistic director, Donald Bousted.

To mark the coincidence with the International Women’s Day, Stephen will give the world premiers of music by Emily Koh, and Eleri Ralli and the german premier of a piece by Eleri Angharad Pound. Dialogue for 19-division trumpet and computer by Cambridge (UK) composer, Paul Rhys receives it’s german premier too. Katharina Schmauder will play viola music by Horatiu Radulescu. The improvisations will be performed by FLOWduo (Stephen Altoft, 19-division trumpet and flugelhorn, Johannes Nied, double bass) and Harald Kimmig (violin) with Lee Ferguson (malletKAT).

PROGRAMME

Stephen Altoft will be back in the UK in February giving a short tour on the 19-division trumpet and microtonal flugelhorn (19-and 24-divisions of the octave). He will be appearing at the Universities of Huddersfield, Manchester and Cambridge. This is the first tour using the microtonal flugelhorn!

At Huddersfield he will play a concert dedicated to our founder, Donald Bousted, who was a composition tutor there in the ’90s, and will include a first performance of his former student, Geoffrey Cox; now himself a Senior Lecturer in Music at Huddersfield. Geoff’s work, ‘Don’s Vision’ is for 24-division flugelhorn, and is based on quarter-tone material on which he orginally worked on with Donald. The programme also includes Donald’s ‘Time Dreaming’, plus two pieces for which he produced the electronics for- ‘Hidden Jewels’ by Stephen Altoft, and ‘Lud’s Church‘ by Richard Whalley. Stephen will also give the premier performances of ‘Flugelhornpipe’ (for 19-divison flugelhorn, live plus 4 recorded parts) by Ben Lunn, and a new flugelhorn work by Eleri Angharad Pound.

At Churchill College, Cambridge, Stephen will give the first performance of Cambridge Composer, Paul Rhys, ‘Dialogue for trumpet’ (19-div) and a new flugelhorn work by Hilary Robinson (London). Also on the programme, the same works from the Huddersfield concert by Stephen, Donald and Richard Whalley.

In Manchester, Stephen will give a workshop on ‘Improvisation and Intuitive Music’.

Calendar:

Thursday 8th February, 2024, 1pm. ‘Time Dreaming’- Microtonal Trumpet and Flugelhorn. St. Pauls’ Hall, University of Huddersfield, UK.

Dedicated to the memory of former composition tutor, Donald Bousted. Music by Stephen Altoft, Donald Bousted, Geoffrey Cox (WP), Ben Lunn (WP), Eleri Angharad Pound (WP), Richard Whalley.

https://www.hud.ac.uk/performance/february/

Friday 9th February, 11am, ‘Workshop: Improvisation and Intuitive Music’, University of Manchester

Friday 16th February, 2024, 6.15pm. ‘Time Dreaming’- Microtonal Trumpet and Flugelhorn. Churchill College, Cambridge, UK.

Music by Stephen Altoft, Donald Bousted, Paul Rhys (WP), Hilary Robinson (WP) and Richard Whalley.

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/churchillcollegemusicsociety/1133835

19.5 Playlist

To mark the birthday of our late friend and artistic director of Microtonal Projects, Donald Bousted, on 21st November, we are releasing three movements of his 19.5, recorded live to video by duo Contour. They which were originally one online performance made as part of the ‘Mikrotöne: Small is Beautiful’ Symposium hosted by the Ekmelic Society in 2021. The 19.5 playlist is on our YouTube channel.

Our longterm partners, The International Ekmelic Society have released the 4th Journal of the presentations from the 2021 edition of the ‘Mikrotöne: Small is Beautiful’ Symposium, at which Donald gave his last presentation- on 19.5, with duo Contour. Patrick Ozzard-Low provided an article reflecting on this work, together with a Foreword by trumpeter, and long time collaborator of Donald, Stephen Altoft. It can be ordered from here.

Table of contents

-Agustín Castilla-Ávila: Prologue

-Stephen Altoft and Patrick Ozzard-Low: Personal reflections on Donald Bousted’s 19.5 for 19-division trumpet and malletKat

-Navid Bargrizan: The Lineage from Harry Partch to Manfred Stahnke

-Sam Cave: Resonance, Overtones, and Miniature Voice

-Rami Chahin: Microtonal: Music Classifications in Theory and Education

-Jim Dalton: A Software Instrument and Tool for Just Intonation in MaxMSP

-Caroline Delume: Flexibility of sound space in Francisco Luque’s music for plucked instruments

-Vytautas Germanavicius: Identification of Microtonal Interval Relations in Lithuanian Vocal and Instrumental Folk Music and their Application in Music Composition

-Franck Jedrzejewski: Petr Chernobrivets and the 20-Tone Universe

-Gerhard Klosch: The sliding Keyboard – The Construction of a New Pure Tonal Instrument

-Raphael Ophaus: Microtonality as a structure-forming principle in the work of Michael Quell

-Felipe Pinto d’Aguiar: Two pieces for solo guitar and one piece for 33 guitars utilizing microtonal scordatura

-Viktor Pushkar:The Family of 24-tone Unequal Temperaments

-Ulf-Diether Soyka: Notes on ekmelic Harmony: Partials, 3rd Messiaen Scale and Maqam Husseini

-Manfred Stahnke: “Just Intonation” – Possibilities in Playing and Hearing on String Instruments, especially Viola

-Andrew A. Watts: Tensio Novum: Microtonal Approaches to the Guitar in the Music of Brian Ferneyhough

FLOW duo consists of Johannes Nied, double bass, and Stephen Altoft, 19-div trumpet and 19-div flugelhorn. Founded during the pandemic, playing in public parks, they then began creating special performances for their playlist on YouTube. Stephen contributed photos and video after the audio recording sessions. They are influenced by the outdoors, nature and are concerned with creating a flow, performing ‘long’ improvisations in an age where people usually stop listening (in this case watching) after two minutes.

Check out their newest, third video here and their playlist.

They are currently playing House Concerts, and return to public concerts on December 1st as part of the un-sound@Jos concerts in Freiburg, Germany.

Donald Bousted’s 19.5 for 19-division Trumpet and malletKAT has been described as a tour de force in 19-divisions-of-the-octave tuning. Written for long time collaborators of his, duo Contour, it begins with the recognisable materials (from the point of view of 12-EDO) and by the time the cycle finishes it is a poly-microtonal landscape. Now, two years after the release of the digital album on Bandcamp, Patrick Ozzard-Low (one of the dedicatees) has written ‘A Tribute and Mini-Review of 19.5’, which is available here to read.