Interviews with Berg and Tazelaar

Indeed, this is a special event for sonologists, musicologists, composers and in general for lovers of electronic music. Two interviews with Paul Berg and Kees Tazelaar repectively have been published by the composer and musicologist Ángel Arranz. These interviews were realized during 2009 within the framework of the Institute of Sonology of The Hague.

The first interview covers one singular route of one of the pioneers on computer music. Paul Berg teaches at the Institute of Sonology computer music and algorithmic composition. This interview explores a personal path from the origin of computer programming applied to electronic music towards the most recent computational environments. This knowledge crystallized in AC Toolbox, a computer program on algorithmic composition designed by him. The text describes Paul Berg’s experience through his own words, which makes this document even more invaluable. A certain amount of synchronous subjects are unfolded step-to-step as a sort of algorithm, metaphorically speaking, from the seventies until now.

The second interview is not less interesting. Kees Tazelaar is head of the Institute of Sonology and one of the most interesting composers of electroacoustic music. The paper proposes some biographical aspects of the composer, but it also describes some interesting topics around Tazelaar’s musical practice at the Analog Studio in this institute, as for instance articulation within the framework of the electronic means, the subjective approach of time and the idea of spatialization in electronic music.