Bio

Patricia Alessandrini is a composer/sound artist, educator and researcher actively engaging with notions of canonicity, representation, interpretation, perception and memory, often in a social and political context, through work which is for the most part interactive and/or intermedial. She performs research on embodied interaction - including instrument design for inclusive performance - as well as on digitally-mediated performance and computer-assisted composition.
Her works have been presented in numerous festivals, in the Americas, Asia, Australia, and over 15 European countries. She has also toured extensively as a performer of live electronics.
She studied composition with electronics at the Conservatorio di Bologna and Ircam, holds a diploma in composition from the Conservatoire de Strasbourg, a PhD from Princeton University, and a second PhD from the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), Queens University, Belfast.
She previously taught Computer-Assisted Composition in the alto perfezionamento programme of the Accademia Musicale Pescarese, and served as a Lecturer in Composition with Technology at the University of Bangor and in Sonic Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is currently teaching in the areas of composition, sonic arts and computer music in the Department of Music/CCRMA.

Academic Appointments

  • Assistant Professor, Music

Honors & Awards

  • Förderpreis in Composition, Internationale Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik, Darmstadt (2012)
  • First prize, 2nd Sond’Ar-te Composition Competition for Chamber Music with Electronics (2009)
  • Prix de composition de la ville de Fontainebleau, The American Academy at Fontainebleau (2000)

Professional Education

  • PhD, Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC), Queens University, Belfast, Sonic Arts (2013)
  • PhD, Princeton University, Composition (2008)
  • Diplôme, Conservatoire National de Région de Strasbourg, Composition (2003)

Contact

  • Academic
    alessan@stanford.edu
    University - Faculty Department: Music Position: Assistant Professor

Additional Info

  • Mail Code: 3076

Links

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

Computer-assisted analysis, composition
Physical computing and robotics
Multimedia interactive performance, aesthetics and paradigms of multimedia interaction
Feminist perspectives on electronic music practices
Use of technology in inclusive music, interfaces for the disabled
Music Information Retrieval (MIR), concatenative synthesis, and physical modelling
Motion capture, gestural control of electronics, and kinetics in electronics
Music and sound design for film, video and installation art

Projects

  • Life Rewired, Barbican Centre

    Location

    Barbican Centre, Silk St, London EC2Y 8DS, UK

  • Mondgewächse - Inclusive Interactive Intermedia Performance, Share Music - Sweden/Gothenburg Art Sounds/Gothenburg Concert Hall- Göteborgs Symfoniker (2/15/2013 - 10/19/2014)

    Inclusive intermedia project with Share Music - Sweden, to create digital musical instruments and interactive situations transforming the relationship between a musician and her instrument, or an artist and her medium. The design of the digital musical instruments was personalised through a series of creative workshops, in order to be suitable for performers with differing physical and intellectual abilities. Outputs of the project included conference presentations and performances, and culminated in the presentation of an inclusive intermedia composition for ten musician-performers, both amateur and professional, using instruments, electronic interfaces, and video tracking at the Gothenburg Concert Hall- Göteborgs Symfoniker, presented by the Gothenburg Art Sounds festival. Interactive video projection for the project was created in collaboration with Freida Abtan, and the evening-length programme also featured an interactive performance in collaboration with Nicolas Collins. New digital music instruments were created as part of the project, with funding from an Act Digitally Grant, in collaboration with Goldsmiths Digital and the Interactive Institute Swedish ICT, while large mounted paper sheets functioned both as a canvas for live painting by a visual artist and as a resource for shadow -play and video detection and projection.

    Location

    Gothenburg Concert Hall- Göteborgs Symfoniker

    Collaborators

    • Freida Abtan, Lecturer, Goldsmiths, University of London
    • Nicolas Collins, Professor, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
    • Peter Ljungstrand, Studio Director, Interactive Institute Swedish ICT
    • Gunnar Oledal, PhD student - member, RISE Interactive Göteborg, Interactive Institute Swedish ICT

    For More Information:

2023-24 Courses

Stanford Advisees

All Publications

  • FIVE SUGGESTIONS FOR AN ASPIRING COMPOSITION TEACHER: TOWARDS AN INCLUSIVE COMPOSITIONAL PEDAGOGY TEMPO Alessandrini, P. 2022; 76 (302): 42-51

    View details for DOI 10.1017/S004029822200033X

    View details for Web of Science ID 000861458000005

  • Special Edition of Array, the annual publication of the International Computer Music Association Alessandrini, P., Knotts, S. International Computer Music Association ICMA. online and hard copy distribution. 2017 ; Array (2017-8): 48
  • Nachtgewächse Alessandrini, P. Babel Scores. 2014
  • Pastorale (Hommage à Alfred Schnittke) Alessandrini, P. Babel Scores. 2014
  • menus morceaux par un autre moi réunis Alessandrini, P. Babel Scores. 2009
  • “A Dress or a Straightjacket? Facing the Questions of Structure and Rhythm Posed by the Notation and Re-notation of Berio’s Sequenza VII for Oboe Berio's Sequenzas : essays on performance, composition and analysis edited by Halfyard, J. K. Ashgate. 2007
  • De profundis clamavi (hommage à Alban Berg) Alessandrini, P. Babel Scores. 2007
  • ZScore: A Distributed System For Integrated Mixed Music Composition and Performance 4th International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation Zagorac, S., Alessandrini, P. 2018: 9
  • A Computer-Assisted Analysis of Rhythmic Periodicity Applied to Two Metric Versions of Luciano Berio’s Sequenza VII Sound and Music Computing (SMC) 2006 Alessandrini, P. 2006: 5