Intuition and Rationality: Spatial Composition with Voices, Instruments and Live Electronics after Baruch Spinoza by Daniel Peter Biro

Baruch Spinoza Dániel Péter Biró Ensemble Mixtura Kai Wessel Neue Vocalsolisten Norwegian Artistic Research Program SWR Experimentalstudio

From 2021-2025, I completed a series of compositions at the SWR Experimentalstudio as part of the artistic research project Sounding Philosophy, supported by the Norwegian Artistic Research Program. These compositions incorporate a new way of presenting timbre in space. In my talk, I will describe this ongoing research and how it relates to larger questions of spatial perception, musical meaning and its connection to the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677).

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From 2021-2025, I worked on the compositions De Natura et Origine, written for Kai Wessel, the Ensemble Mixtura and the SWR Experimentalstudio, and Asher Hotseti Etkhem (Who Brought You Out Of The Land), written for the Neue Vocalsolisten and the SWR Experimentalstudio. These compositions, based on texts from the Ethics of Baruch Spinoza, incorporate a new way of presenting vocal music in space, incorporating research into the combination of pitch-tracking, timbre-tracking and spatialization with convolution in a live-electronic setup.

A description of this research, done in conjunction with team members of the SWR Experimentalstudio, and resulting compositions can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnxWMFwDF88

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coeC31Xas-A

https://youtu.be/y-dqSzDs--s

In my talk, I will describe this ongoing research and how it connects to larger questions of spatial perception and musical meaning, the compositions presenting musical analogies to Spinoza’s theories of cognition, intuition and rationality. I will also show how the compositions, which integrate elements of Jewish, Muslim and Christian recitation practices, have been informed by computational ethnomusicology frameworks, done in conjunction with Peter van Kranenburg at Utrecht University. In addition, I will give a glimpse into a new work Katuv Basefer (Inscribed in the Book), a new composition written for Les Métaboles and the SWR Experimentalstudio, supported by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.