Interview on Pro Audio Files Blog

An interview with Philip Mantione on the topic of my musical background and my patchpool endeavours in particular was published on Pro Audio Files.

Wintermärchen – Winter Tale

Here is another old piece of mine from 2002, Wintermärchen (Winter Tale), eletronic music, a requiem for a lost friend. Now available on Bandcamp.

I was tempted to remix it but then left it untouched as I didn't feel, it needed anything more.

POINT OF NO RETURN - 1993

I just uploaded another old work from 1993 to my Soundcloud (beware -> mind fuck):

POINT OF NO RETURN - 1993
for flute, string-quintet, bassoon, bass-clarinet, trumpet, trombone, piano/synthesizer, two drummers and 4-channel tape-music.

Live-recording of the premiere at the festival "Steirischer Herbst" in Graz/Austria 1993, performed by the Ensemble Modern, conducted by H.K. Gruber.
Live sound projection by Simon Stockhausen and Norbert Ommer.

Description:

The big bang sounds very subtle, a primeval sound slowly establishs within the empty space; together with the big-bang time evolves and increasingly brings together the smallest singular fragments into a musical structure. The main pitches of the primeval sound become independent and more and more relate to the developing and relative time-factor.Rhythms and colours make their way until eventually subatomic particles are born, musical fractals: Z,W and other particles as well as their antipodes.Now the journey through the hierarchy of matter begins, particles connect to quarks, quarks group themselves to protons, electrons and neutrons and those form atoms, molecules and finally chemical elements. The musicians, at first divided into five groups, increasingly play individually to set this algorythm into music.Closely related aspects of those illustrated quantum mechanical developments are treated in the second section of the piece. Magnetism (which basically also consists of subatomic particles), entropical processes, electrical charges, light waves in all their visible and invisible frequencies and x-radiation are musically illustrated by polyrhythmical and polyphonic algorhythms.Everything has been created but the end is predictable. The expanding musical universe now contracts again, galaxies turn into black holes swallowing everything around them; glowing suns turn into white dwarfs, every tone weighing a billion tons. The POINT OF NO RETURN has been surpassed, everything collapses but doesn´t end where it began, the "PROSOUND" lingers through space - a new starting point for yet another universe.

Stephen Hawking´s book A brief history of time inspired me to write this piece.

Berliner Geschichten

I had to transfer some recordings og older works to host them on my website, here is the recoding of the premiere of my composition Berliner Gschichten which I wrote in 1998/99, performed by the Ensemble Modern, conducted by Kasper de Roo with myself and Norbert Ommer doing the sound projection in the Grosse Sendesaal of the Hessische Rundfunk in Frankfurt.

Description:
In spring 1998 Mr. Bernd Leukert, head of the department for new music in the Hessische Rundfunk commissioned a work for a concert with the Ensemble Modern. During this time I was working in Berlin at the Berliner Ensemble (theatre) and very intensely experienced the power of this city.
I had a piece in mind which would permanently `morph´ - with parallel layers of morphing textures and dynamic, harmonic, rhythmical and timbral transitions distributed among different instrument groups - a floating music, hard to locate. I decided to move from Cologne to Berlin and started collecting the soundscapes of this city on my old NAGRA-recorder. Sounds from the different districts - Kreuzberg, Tempelhof, Mitte, Potsdamer Platz, subwaystations, urban people. These collected sounds, partially processed and modified soundbits are integrated into the piece by using a sampler and are dubbed by certain instruments or groups of instruments. This process takes away the profanity of those urban soundbits - sounds from a cigarette shop, turkish markets, chainsaws - everything turns into `music´.

This piece is dedicated to my wife Andrea.

Stockhausen – Stegner Part 2

Second part of a track in a series of improvisations, recorded live on hard-disk, performed by Martin Stegner on viola and Simon Stockhausen on live-electronics (transforming the viola sounds in real time), synths and soprano saxophone.
Recorded live on disk in my studio on August 11th - 2017, edited and mixed on August 12th.

Stockhausen – Stegner

Stockhausen - Stegner

First track in a series of improvisations recorded live on hard-disk, performed by Martin Stegner on viola and Simon Stockhausen on live-electronics (transforming the viola sounds in real time), synths and soprano saxophone.

Recorded live on disk in my studio on August 11th - 2017, edited and mixed on August 12th.

Next gallery tour on marybauermeister.org

I just published a new gallery tour/video featuring a pointillistic work my mother Mary Bauermeister created in 1961:

Felder und Zentren
fluorescent color on canvas
Provenance: Collection Mary Bauermeister

You can switch to full screen mode at the bottom right of your browser. The musical textures and sounds you hear in the soundtrack were mostly extracted/derived directly from the work itself (using various special techniques and software) which becomes more obvious towards the end of the tour. Laptop speakers won’t do the sound any justice but of course it sounds o.k., even on shabby speakers.

Here is the link.

And here is the overview page for all five tours we published so far.


Simon

New gallery tour on marybauermeister.org

Here comes the next gallery tour for our virtual gallery on marybauermeister.org - a monumental, very archaic work my mum created in 1962 named Sandhalme (Sandhaulms), made with/from all kinds of materials including a wasp nest. My music and sound design follows the deep impression it made on me, it's one of my favorite works I must say. Check it out here.

You will find all the credits at the end of the video. Use full screen mode please, good speakers or at least some decent headphones, laptop speakers or iPhones are not made for this kind of audio stuff.

Main page of the website.

Simon Jazz

I just re-released some jazz tracks I wrote at the beginning of the millennium, recorded with my band ROYCE at the time. Band members were Christian Weidner on alto sax, Kalle Kalima on electric guitar, Daniel Schroeteler on drums, Dane Alderson on electric bass, myself playing the piano on these tracks.