Ball Jam
Sheefa Variations
Punjar

Zack Settel (BFA Music Comp. Cal Arts 1995, DMA Music Comp. U. of Montreal 2002) studied composition with Mortons Subotnick and Feldman. Keenly interested in the use of technology in music production/performance, Settel moved to Paris in 1986, with a Fulbright Scholarship for computer music research and composition at the Institute for Research and the Coordination of Acoustics and Music (IRCAM), headed by Pierre Boulez. After a two-year composing residency there, Settel remained at IRCAM until 1995, working full-time in the music production and music research groups. In 1997 Settel returned to North America, where he was a professor at McGill University in Canada for two years, chairing the Music Technology area, and teaching courses and graduate seminars in computer music. He was a visiting professor of composition at the University of Montreal (UDM) in 2001-02. In addition to composing full time, Settel now is an associate professor in music composition and research at the UDM, where he founded the Volumetric Audio Lab as an iACT principal researcher. He is also in (arts/science) collaboration with the Center for Intelligent Machines at McGill (CIM), and with the Societé des Arts Technologiques (La SAT) in Montreal, working as a creator/researcher on immersive audio/music projects.

Settel has composed chamber works, studio works, as well as music for film, video, television, theater, dance, and opera. Some of his music includes the use of advanced technologies in live performance. His music is published by Editions Ambrioso (Paris), recorded on the CENTAUR, ICMA, MIT Press, and Empreints Digitales labels, and is performed regularly in North/South America and in Europe and Asia. Settel has composed music for Television and Film, and has worked with various performing ensembles including the Ensemble Intercontemporain (Paris), Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Montréal), Zeitgeist (Minneapolis), the California Ear Unit (Los Angeles), and Chants Libres (Montréal).

Ball Jam (2011)
For saxophone quartet and live electronics
A Quasar commission with the support of the Fondation Quasar

The piece draws on techniques used for augmented reality applications. The real performance space is overlaid with virtual audiovisual layer, where the sounds of the quartet are captured, processed, and reemitted in the performance space by surrounding loudspeakers. Using physical models for motion, sounds played by the performers are captured and "attached" to bouncing objects which are set into motion on the virtual layer. A projection screen above the players on stage provides a view of this virtual layer, where sound objects move about the performance space

In this way, music played by the performers can physically gather and reorganize in the performance space. Each note, or group of notes played becomes detached from the sequence of notes sounded by the performer. In the manner of particles, these notes rebound within the performance space, eventually coming to rest, only to be set back into motion at some later time by the movement of players on stage. The form of the work is loosely canonic, where previously played musical material can recombine with other material (previously played or new), producing new juxtapositions of melody and rhythm. The score includes choreographic information to coordinate player position and movement during the work. Several zones, located on stage, are used to coordinate the capture of performers' sounds and the application of player movement to nearby sound objects. Thus, there is a predetermined relationship to what a player plays, and where and when he/she plays it.

Sheefa Variations (2007)
for saxophone quartet and live electronics
 
Sheefa variations is commissioned work for the Quasar Quartet.  The piece is among the first in a new series of the composer’s works exploring compositon and virtousity in an electronically augmented volumetric musical space.  The movement of the players on stage in relationship to their surrounding audio/musical environment is an essential part of the work ;  an optional image projection system may be added to display this « invisible» part of the performance and the interaction of the players within it.

Punjar (1997)
for soprano saxophone and live electronics

Punjar is a work for solo soprano saxophone and live electronics. The electronics are used to: (1) expand the timbral range of the instrument, (2) allow for the possibility of self accompaniment, providing additional "ensemble voices" in the musical structure, based on material played by the soloist. Almost al l of the electronically produced sounds are initiated and/or modified according to the material played by performer. Finally, an important underlying idea for this piece, "an ensemble controlled by one player", is inspired by John Cage's work in his Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (1946-48 ).