Conlon Nancarrow's STUDIES FOR PLAYER PIANO: Towards a Critical Edition


Project Description |  Identification of Documents |  Acoustic Documentation of the Player Pianos  | Nancarrow Sampler |  MIDI Files of the Rolls | Music Engraving and Technical Tools | Critical Edition of Selected Works |  Online Resources |  Research Team and Contact


Research Team and Contact

Research Team

Dr. Felix Meyer Project Direction
Dr. Helena Bugallo Research and Edition Direction
Cedric Spindler Audio Design and Sound Documentation
Alexander Plötz Programming and Engraving
Omri Abram Research Assistance
Carlos Chanfón Librarian, Conlon Nancarrow Collection (PSS)

External Collaborations and Consulting

James Opstad Software Development (University of Birmingham, UK)

Carolina Short and Tomás García Ferrari

Typography and Design (University of Otago, New Zealand)

Website

Helena Bugallo Texts and documentation
Matthias Kassel Editing

Contact

Project information Helena Bugallo Mail
General information Paul Sacher Foundation Contact & Info

Biographies

Felix Meyer has been the Director of the Paul Sacher Foundation since 1999. He has (co-)edited, among other things, books on Edgard Varèse and Elliott Carter, on the interactions of American and European music, and on Beethoven reception in contemporary music, and published facsimile editions of works by Bartók and Stravinsky. He studied at the University of Zurich, where he obtained his Ph.D. with a dissertation on Charles Ives. Before joining the staff of the Paul Sacher Foundation in 1985, he worked briefly as administrator for the Swiss Youth Music Competition.

Helena Bugallo is a musicologist and pianist specialized in twentieth-century and contemporary music. She studied in Argentina and in the USA and has taught at the University of Birmingham (UK) and the Academy of Music in Basel (Switzerland). Her research has been published by Schott, Ricordi, Music Theory Online, Boosey & Hawkes, and the Paul Sacher Foundation. Her recordings are available on Wergo, Albany Records, Musiques Suisses, Neos, and Coviello. Her expertise on the music of Conlon Nancarrow dates back to her doctoral dissertation (State University of New York in Buffalo, 2004) and her interpretations with the Bugallo-Williams Piano Duo. She acted as main researcher in the project and is the editor of the resulting critical edition.

Cedric Spindler is a sound artist and developer in the field of electronic music instruments. He combines acousmatic aesthetics and electronic music with control elements based on intuitive interaction design. His wide experience with sound and video installations developed through years of work at the Theater Basel, as well as thorough research in the ambit of sensor technology and physical computing. He studied Audio Design and Free Improvisation at the Academy of Music in Basel. He teaches at high education institutions of art and music in Basel, Bern, and Zurich. He carried out the acoustic documentation of Nancarrow’s original player pianos and constructed the “Nancarrow Sampler” for the project.

Alexander Plötz is a music editor and engraver specializing in twentieth- and twenty-first-century notation in general, and complex multi-temporal scoring in particular. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden, Germany. In addition to preparing the core documents of the Nancarrow critical edition for publication, he developed the project's underlying scripting framework for facilitating digital scoring.

Omri Abram is a composer and researcher currently based in Basel, Switzerland. His compositions include acoustic and electroacoustic works, a frequent focus of which is the examination of perceptual ambiguity. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the Institute for Music Informatics and Musicology in Karlsruhe and at the Academy of Music in Basel. He holds degrees in composition, piano, and musicology from institutions in Israel and in Switzerland. He assisted the project’s research in the ambit of notation and digital engraving. www.omriabram.com

Carlos Chanfón is a cellist and librarian born in Mexico City. He holds degrees from the University of the Arts in Zurich and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where he studied baroque cello. After receiving a Bachelor in Librarianship from the Association of Swiss Librarians and Libraries, he worked at the Music Department of the Zurich Central Library, editing the catalogues of the René Armbruster, Robert Blum, Walter Lang, Czeslaw and Claire Marek, Peter Wettstein, and Meinrad Schütter collections. Since 1999 he works at the Paul Sacher Foundation, where he is in charge of numerous collections, including Bruno Maderna, Arditti Quartet, Conlon Nancarrow, Paul Sacher, and Igor Stravinsky.