[S06E05] December 2024 - Jake Rothman


In this December 2024 edition of the Theremin 30 Podcast, host Rick Reid plays theremin music from Russia, the Netherlands, and the USA. Rick visits with theremin designer Jake Rothman about the new Dubreq Stylophone Theremin. 

FEATURED MUSIC*

*The full-length recordings featured in this show were used with the knowledge and permission of the artists and composers. Please support the artists by visiting their websites, purchasing their recordings, and attending their performances. 

ADDITIONAL MUSIC

INTERVIEW GUEST

CALENDAR OF THEREMIN EVENTS

MEDIA LINKS

CONTACT

CREDITS 

Copyright 2024 Rick Reid 


--------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT

Please note: This transcript was created with the help of speech-to-text AI.  It may contain some errors.

David Brower  0:00  
Rick, this is Theremin 3030, minutes of Theremin music, news, events and interviews with a new episode about every 30 days. Now. Here's your host, Rick Reid, 

Rick Reid  0:17  
hey. Happy holidays. Welcome to the December 2024, edition of the theremin 30 podcast, with Christmas just a few days away, I hope Santa Claus brings you the theremin or Theremin album you've been wanting. That is, of course, if you are good this year, or at least nice in tune with the season, I've got a lovely traditional Christmas song from Armin ra later in the show, also for the first time on this podcast series, I have music from social media sensation Caroline Scruggs. My special guest this month is Jake Rothman. Jake designed the prototype of the fun new stylophone theremin. Before all of that, though, I'm going to spin excerpts from two extended tracks that feature the more experimental side of Theremin music. First up is a tune from the new album called Night by Russian recording artists, singing stones featuring Chilean thereminist Agnes Paz. After that, a live improvisation featuring Dutch thereminist Miss Terry. I'll tell you more about both performances on the other side.

We started the show with an excerpt from an experimental recording called since evening by singing stones, a collaboration between Russian musicians, Constantine and Mila Souza and Chilean thereminist Agnes Paz. It's on a brand new album called night, and you can download it for free from band camp just click on the artist's name in this month's show notes at Theremin thirty.com after that, we heard a portion of an improvisation by Miss Terry and CO that was performed for a live audience this past September in afta, Netherlands. Miss Terry plays a Gaudi labs open Theremin v4 and CO plays a UFO controller. Each of them also wore a different type of Arduino powered MIDI glove that allowed them to further shape their sounds with hand gestures.

It's time now for the theremin 30 calendar of Theremin events. On december 28 Thierry Frenkel will present a Hanukkah concert in Freiburg, Germany. On January 5, torwald Jorgenson performs at Bach Fest in Tallinn, Estonia, also on January 5, via marteau has a show in Los Angeles, California. For details about these events and more. Check out the full calendar at Theremin three zero.com up next, I have music from Caroline Scruggs, a multi talented musician from Hampton Roads, Virginia. Her Theremin infused songs and videos have been streamed millions of times on social media, but this is her debut on the theremin 30 podcast from her current album, space. This track is called holographic real estate.

That was holographic real estate, a song by Caroline Scruggs from her space album released this past summer and available for streaming on Spotify, SoundCloud and YouTube. To find out more about Caroline, click on her name in this month's show notes at Theremin30.com.

what you're hearing right now is a track made by my London, UK based friend, Simon Beck. It's one of the very first songs published online that features the brand new stylophone theremin. Simon was able to connect me with his friend Jake Rothman, a theremin designer who built a prototype instrument that eventually became the stylophone Theremin recently shipped by my friends at dubrec. Jake spoke with me by telephone from his home in Wales. Jake Rothman, thank you so much for being on the theremin 30 podcast. 

Jake Rothman  14:48  
Hello. How are you? I'm doing fine here. It's the shortest day of the year, but we're hanging on in here. 

Rick Reid  14:55  
I haven't talked to you before this week, but I think I've known of you for several years. Is because of the theremin world message board and hearing about your projects that you've been doing over the years involving Theremin and other electronic gadgets, I was looking for someone to talk to me about the new stylo phone. Theremin and our mutual friend Simon Beck told me about you and that you were involved in the design. So I want to talk to you about that in a minute, but first of all, give our listeners a little introduction of your musical electronics career.

Jake Rothman  15:30  
Well, he probably started when I was about 12 years old. I used to prefer looking down the back of the telly, looking at all the valves rather than the front. First things I made were simple radios and things. And eventually you get bored at listening to other people's music. So eventually you start thinking, Oh, how can I fiddle with the sound a bit? And then you do something like make a spring reverb. I had a loud speaker on one end glued to this spring, and then a old record player pick up on the other end, and that was my first reverb. I eventually studied it at the only course in the country at the time, which was at the London College of furniture, where we were taught by the simp designer called Tim ord used to work re ms, and so that's where we got started, and Simon Beck was on the course with me.

Rick Reid  16:23  
How did you go from your electronics courses to actually making instruments and products that were available for sale? 

Jake Rothman  16:32  
I started off working in recording studios. It would be first proper job in the top notch North London recording studio. And then here's the funny thing, I couldn't do the job because I couldn't stop talking. So I suddenly realized that job I wanted wasn't right. Went back to the college and moaned about it bit. And then there's a bloke saying, Oh, I can't stand teaching you. And you know, do you want to take my class? So I ended up teaching electronics for guitars. It was the first course I did. 

Rick Reid  17:02  
How do you get to the theremin then?

Jake Rothman  17:04  
Ah, that was through teaching. There was this student said, just said he wanted to make one. And thought, Oh, that looks interesting. You showed me this little book. He showed me the theremin. It was soon, like 1976 this design, and we built it, and it didn't work very well at all. That was horrible to drift it all over the place and have a horrible buzzy sound. And I just kept on fiddling about with it, and learned little tricks to make it work, like putting the oscillated coils at right angles to each other so they didn't lock together, and things like that. And then I came up with my own design, which I made into a thing called pocket for women. It was basically just a little plastic box with a little rubber area, or it looked like a little mobile phone. And that was a hit. I and then I got it, got that published in practical electronics about 1994 or something like that. And it from there, sold kits, you know, just kept on playing with this circuit make it better. Then I made a big one called the Elysian. Did that with a guy who would brilliant so digital PCB circuit, because it reached the point where I couldn't design the PCB with sticky tape anymore. That rusted for about 20 years of making us about 2014 or something like that, is a limit to what you can do with making things by hand. So this is where John Simpson and stylophone come in. And it was Simon Dec who introduced me to stylophone people. He's always been obsessed with stylo folks. So yes, definitely. Simon told John about me that, oh, I know this crazy guy who does analog circuits, blah, blah, blah. And then we designed the original stylophone from them. There was this digital model that been digitized. I had to make it analog again. So I must have been one of the first to convert a digital thing back to analog again. And then John wanted me to make this funny synth, you know, he wanted to make sure that competed with those very cheap Japanese synths like the gakkan. It was a little analog synthesizer with a Stylophone-type keyboard. And he wanted to make a better one. So that's what the Gen x1 was.

Rick Reid  19:17  
Yeah. And it's really fun to play. I enjoy mine. 

Jake Rothman  19:20  
And then the theremin. This one day, I was chatting to John, and I wanted him to make a foramen, but because he had his own ideas, like joining it up with the slider thing, I wanted to make myself the slider base, like an old T chess base, but an electronic version. I don't know who it was. It might have been Simon ord Johnson said, well, that slide of it, why don't you combine it with a fellow min? And I thought, well, that's crazy. Let's do it as two separate products. Let's do a theremin and do a slider bass. And John insisted on joining the two together, which turned out to be a really good idea, because. Yes, if you can't play the param in, which is very difficult, you can at least play the slider Theremin, which sounds like a theremin. And he just kept on going. And then I joined things together, and one side modulates the other, and that's where it does the crazy noises that sound like nothing else. It's the modulation. 

Rick Reid  20:19  
So I guess we should explain to people who haven't seen the stylo phone. Theremin, it's actually two instruments in one cabinet. On the left side you have a single antenna. Theremin, so no volume control, but you have pitch and on the right side, or on the base of it, you have something like what has been referred to as a tannerine or an electro Theremin, yeah,

Jake Rothman  20:41  
I call it slider Theremin because it's a slider pot. It's a fader pot, basically. 

Rick Reid  20:46  
So a lot of people think that that there's a theremin in the song Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys, but it's actually an instrument more similar to what you have built into the stylo phone, Theremin, that's right, yeah, I bought one, and I've been playing around with it for a week or two, and I wouldn't imagine anyone using it to solo with an orchestra. It's not that kind of a theremin.

Jake Rothman  21:10  
It's a funny noise machine. It's not a concert itch, accurate, smooth. I mean, we could make one like that, but it would cost 500 quid,

Rick Reid  21:19  
but you can play, you can play a melody on it. I get about, oh, octave and a half range. But really, what you're talking about is it's, it's more fun and more effective creating sci fi noises and eerie drones. And the combination of the two sides of the instrument is really interesting, because you can have a continuous tone coming from the slider part of it, while you vary the sound of the theremin and the two actually work kind of like a ring modulator. 

Jake Rothman  21:53  
Yeah, it's a frequency modulation which sounds like ring mod when you do it fast enough, you know, it's wobbling the pitch so, like the slider, it can modulate the pitch of the firming, and then the firming can modulate slider, and then on the last position of the switch, they both modulate each other. And it sounds so horrendous. It sounds interesting. It's so chaotic. 

Rick Reid  22:18  
The shape of the cabinet really intrigues me, because it looks like something from the late 60s, early 70s. I assume that you didn't design the cabinet, but your circuit design affected how the cabinet came about. 

Jake Rothman  22:31  
Yeah, because it was speaking too. So the original prototype I made was two lumps, a flat thing with slider on it, and then a vertical thing with all the knobs on and then the aerial on it. And it's come out really well because it looks like a sort of version of the VCS3. 

Rick Reid  22:48  
One of the other features of the cabinet is it's got a metal face plate, and you can touch the metal, yeah, and make the pitch shift. 

Jake Rothman  22:56  
You're earthing yourself on the metal plate. The metal plate is connected to the earth in the circuit. When you touch it, it earth your body. And probably, if you re tune it all while touching the plate, you can get a wider range out of it. Oh, I have to try that. The thing is, with with the theremin, it's best to Earth it. If you can give it a good Earth, you'll get much more range out of it.

Rick Reid  23:21  
What's it like for you to finally, after having worked on this project for years, to see some of the demo videos that players are posting online, or the recordings that our friend Simon has made?

Jake Rothman  23:35  
Yeah, I love it. You know, could you all do different stuff to what I would do? I mean, because my 27 year old son still is home, I used his young years, because what old fogeys, Age 62 like myself like is quite different from what young musicians like. 

Rick Reid  23:54  
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to visit with me today and to learn a little bit about your history with electronics, and also this new stylo phone Theremin, which is really excited to see it finally out on the market. You know, that was announced last January, and how people can actually bring it home and not touch it. 

Jake Rothman  24:13  
Yeah, brilliant. 

Rick Reid  24:16  
Many. Thanks to Jake Rothman for visiting with me about the stylophone Theremin, and thanks to Simon Beck for letting me play some of his music featuring the stylofoam theremin. I have a link to the instrument's official website in this month's show notes. Now to wrap up the show and the month and the year, here's a lovely holiday hymn from the theremin Christmas album by Armen Ra This is Oh Come All Ye Faithful. 

Thank you so much to singing stones. Miss Terry and CO Caroline Scruggs, Simon Beck and Armin Roth for sharing their music. Please support these artists with your clicks, your ears and your money if you can also. Thank you to my interview guest, Jake Rothman for visiting with me about the stylophone Theremin and as always, a special thanks to the listeners who support this show with small one time or monthly donations. I hope you have a safe and joyous time in what's left of this holiday season, and we'll see you again in the year 2025.

David Brower  29:49  
You've been listening to the theremin 30 podcast. Visit Theremin 30 on the web at Theremin30.com.
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[S06E04] November 2024 - Thorwald Jorgensen



In this November 2024 edition of the Theremin 30 Podcast, host Rick Reid plays theremin music from the USA, Finland, France, and the Netherlands, and visits with Thorwald Jorgensen about his new classical album Nuit Exotique. 

FEATURED MUSIC*

*The full-length recordings featured in this show were used with the knowledge and permission of the artists and composers. Please support the artists by visiting their websites, purchasing their recordings, and attending their performances. 

ADDITIONAL MUSIC

INTERVIEW GUEST

CALENDAR OF THEREMIN EVENTS

MEDIA LINKS

CONTACT

CREDITS 

Copyright 2024 Rick Reid 


--------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT

Please note: This transcript was created with the help of speech-to-text AI.  It may contain some errors.

David Brower  0:04  
Rick, this is Theremin 3030. Minutes of Theremin, music, news, events and interviews with a new episode about every 30 days. Now. Here's your host from Chicago, Illinois, Rick Reid, welcome

Rick Reid  0:19  
to the November 2024, episode of the theremin 30 podcast. I hope you had a happy Halloween last month with lots of opportunities to play spooky Theremin music for your friends and neighbors. This month, I've got no tricks, just treats with new music from Anna glyph, Charlotte Dubois and kepalatinen. And my interview guest is torwald Jorgenson. He'll be discussing his brand new classical music album, and we'll get to preview one of the tracks. Let's get started now with new music from Northern California. Anna glyph is music project of Anne wary. She's a singer songwriter, thereminist, guitarist and modular synthesist, and with any time left over. She's also an artist and animator on this brand new recording she just sent me. Steve bird joins her on string bass. Here is the world premiere of the Annaglyph single called Oleander leaves.

We started the show With a track called Oleander leaves by Annaglyph. That song will be available on band camp this month. Click on the artist name in this month's show notes at Theremin thirty.com and a bit of trivia on that track, Anne is playing a Moog ether wave, plus that she bought from me. Somehow it sounds better when she plays it. After that, we heard a song called lost opportunities. It's the new single from Finnish recording artist keppa lathannon, featuring Theremin piano, double bass and a vintage Mellotron. You can hear this track and more of Kepa is music on Spotify, and check out his soundtrack work on the TV series made in Finland, mobile 101 available on Disney plus.

it's time now for the theremin 30 calendar of Theremin events on November 19 and 20th, Spanish thereminist Javier Diaz Ena will share the stage with thereminist Ernesto Mendoza and pan drummer Arturo Fernandez in Mexico City on Saturday, November 30, Stephen Hamm Theremin man performs with his new space family band In Vancouver, BC, Canada on December 7, the Georgia Salzburg society presents its annual Christmas tea at the Ebenezer Museum, featuring the theremin music of Philip niedlinger. Also on December 7, Miss Terry will present an Advent music recital for Theremin and church organ in a house Germany. For details about these events and more. Check out the full calendar at Theremin thirty.com up next, I have a recent track from French recording artist Charlotte DuBois. She makes wonderful use of loopers and synthesizers to accompany Her Theremin melodies. This is called through the looking glass.

That was through the looking glass by Charlotte Dubois, featuring a Moog ether wave pro Theremin and an Arturia Mini freak synthesizer. You can find Charlotte's wonderful music video for through the looking glass on the theremin 30 YouTube playlist.

Professional classical thereminist Thorwald Jorgensen has a new album set for release later this month. He spoke with me about it a few days ago from his home in the Netherlands. Thank you so much for being on the theremin 30 Podcast. I'm happy to be there. Yeah, it's great to have you back. It's been a couple of years, but we did see each other in June in Denmark at the International Theremin camp. 

Thorwald Jørgensen  13:00  
Yes. Wasn't that a blast? It was amazing, wasn't it? 

Rick Reid  13:03  
It was so much fun. And I was just fascinated how you could come in and learn a new piece in a matter of four days and then perform it live. 

Thorwald Jørgensen  13:15  
Yeah, yeah. We got the score like, a few days before, and just play and do it. It's uh, that's the job, of course. 

Rick Reid  13:22  
While we were there, you mentioned that you have a new album coming out soon, and that's why you're on the show this month. So tell me about Nui exotic. That's my very bad American accent of a French title.

Thorwald Jørgensen  13:36  
The title is Nui exotic. The album is coming out this month, or maybe early December, and it's a little bit different than the previous one, because with the previous one, we decided to go completely original Theremin music. So so everything was originally written for Theremin, and with this album, it's the opposite. We play pieces written for other instruments on Theremin, for instance, we play nui xotique by block, which is a tricky piece, but it works beautifully on theremin. And we just wanted to have an album with beautiful music played to the best of our abilities, and add some exotic touch. So the overall exotic touch, of course, is the theremin, because that in itself, is an exotic instrument, but we decided on new exotic was the first piece we decided on, and we found pieces which fitted that type of music, at least I'm happy with with the end result, we have a nice selection of pieces which suit the theremin very well. And some pieces are familiar because I played two pieces from Clara robmos repertoire, the ravel Habanera and casado Rick ebros, but for the rest, most of it is new and never played before on theremin. So I hope everybody will like it.

Rick Reid  14:53  
I'm curious about your process. Do you learn the songs and perform them live first and then go into the story? Studio, or are you kind of experimenting in the studio as you're recording?

Thorwald Jørgensen  15:04  
There's no time for experimenting because the studio is booked for two days, and it has to be done in that time set. So what we do with my pianist? Of course, we have a regular duo. We perform often, we decide on pieces and we try them if it works, we keep them if it doesn't work, or we should improve on it, or whatever, we work on it, and that's how we come to a program. And then, of course, we rehearse that, we practice it, and we make sure that we can do it to the best of our ability. And then you have two days in the studio just to record it. So it has to be done quick. Unfortunately,

Rick Reid  15:38  
you have the piano and Theremin, are you multi tracking that in the recording studio, or is it a live performance that you're recording? 

Thorwald Jørgensen  15:46  
We record live. We play in a concert hall, obviously. So we have the beautiful acoustics of the hall, and we have microphones everywhere, so everything is recorded. Then in the end, if there's a, for instance, imbalance problem, things can be adjusted in a mix. But in general, it's a live performance. What you place, what you hear 

Rick Reid  16:06  
when you're recording the theremin Are you recording the direct signal out and a microphone on a PA speaker, and then you mix the two together?

Thorwald Jørgensen  16:16  
I'm not that technical, but I know the recording engineer puts put a cable into my Theremin to have a direct output, and maybe it's mixed. Maybe it's not, I don't know. For me, what I think is important is that it sounds like the way we do in concert. It should be. It should have a live energy. Because if you record separately, you record different energies, and now we play together, so we record the same energy, and I think that is audible in what we present in the in the album. It really is concert music. So we play it as a concert.

Rick Reid  16:51  
So I was listening to another recording of the title track, nui exotic, done with violin and piano. And I, I was wondering, when you're learning a new piece that was not written for Theremin, are you listening to other recordings to get a feel for the the expressions and timing and so on, or is it something that you just work on on your own?

Thorwald Jørgensen  17:16  
I do listen to it, but I listen in the beginning. So so I listen if I like, if I see sheet music, if I like, if I find a piece which I think is interesting, I look it up, I listen to it, and I listen to one or three versions, but if I decide to play it myself, I don't listen to any recordings anymore, because I don't want to copy anything or anybody. And if I have some ideas of about phrasing, I can do this with my penis. Or also I have a coach, a violin coach, who sometimes helps me with phrasing or vibrato. So we work on it as as she would do on a on a regular instrument, and not copy what, what, a violinist is doing, because that will never work. You have to find your own way within the music. And if you, if you listen to the new exiting on the violin, you will hear that I don't, didn't make any arrangement. I play, literally, the violin score. I play anything as written as it was for violin. But then on Theremin,

Rick Reid  18:23  
the idea of having a violin coach help, because I definitely don't play at your level, as you know, but I have to learn a melody on piano before I can usually play it well on the theremin there's because piano was my first instrument, and so it makes more sense to me that way. So it's interesting that that you have somebody who's maybe doesn't even know how to play the theremin is helping you to play the theremin. 

Thorwald Jørgensen  18:47  
It doesn't matter, because it doesn't it's not about theremin. It's about music. Theremin is just secondary. In this case, we discuss phrasing and we discuss vibrato, and how you use vibrato, or where you don't use vibrato. So it's more of a musical coach. She could have also have been a trumpet player or a flute player. It doesn't matter. She happens to play the violin. And sometimes we just, it's not, not very often, but every now and then we come together, and I say, Oh, listen to this. And what do you think? And then she says, Well, if you would play it on a violin, it would sound like this. And then she shows me, and then it gives me new ideas. So that gives me, gives me more ideas than listen to any recording of any artist, because I can never copy them as they can ever copy me. It's personal. 

Rick Reid  19:37  
I think a lot of people, including myself, who aren't frequent listeners of classical music, we know the loud, pompous, familiar Premier, familiar tunes like the 1812 Overture and things like that. And this is this is very different and a very pleasant and surprising way for someone who's not as familiar with the repertoire of some of these composers.

Thorwald Jørgensen  20:03  
it's chamber music. First of all, it's not orchestral music, as you say with the 1812 Overture, which, of course, is this big piece with cannons and fireworks and trumpets, and I don't know what else is in there, this is your chamber music. So it in itself, is already much smaller because we're only two people, although piano is, of course, a very big instrument, yeah, but it's, it's just beautiful music. That's, I think, foremost, is what I think of this album is beautiful music. And if I played, well, that's up to you guys to decide and if you like the music. But in the compositions, in itself, are just beautiful and nice to listen to.

Rick Reid  20:43  
How do you and Kamilla, your pianist, decide when it's time to make a new album? 

Thorwald Jørgensen  20:49  
We have a contract with a recording studio where we can do four albums. Or at least I have the contract. So it's a matter of planning and schedules coming together. Because I have a busy schedule, she has a busy schedule. Recording Studio has a busy chat schedule, so it has to fit and yeah, so that's why this one took a little longer. But the next one, we will be recorded in March, so that the new one will be will not wait, will you don't have to wait as long as you did for this one.

Rick Reid  21:23  
So who do you find is your audience for your albums, as opposed to say, your live performances? Is it a different audience?

Thorwald Jørgensen  21:31  
I have no idea, because I don't know who listens to it on Spotify. They go also in music stores. But there are hardly any music stores, any left, so I don't know who picks it up there. I do know that after concerts, usually a lot of people still want to have an album. We sell them, but that's to the audience, so they already know who I am and what I play. And for the rest, I have no idea it's out there, and I hope some people like it, at least I'm very proud of it.

Rick Reid  22:02  
Well, thank you so much for being on Theremin 30. I wish you great luck with the release of the new album, and hopefully we'll get a chance to see you perform again sometime soon. Thank you so much to world. The organ says new album Nui exotic will be available in all the usual places beginning in late November. For more details, visit his website by following the link in this month's show notes at Theremin thirty.com I've also included a video performance of Claire de Lune from the new album on the Youtube playlist. And torworld and Camila bistrova have a concert scheduled for November 24 in Middleburg, Netherlands. There's a link to ticket information on this month's calendar of events. Let's finish the show with music from the new album. Here is Nui com or a quiet night by Dutch composer Henrietta Bosmans, performed by Thorwald Jorgensen and Kamilla Bystrova.

Thanks so much to Annaglyph, Kepa Lehtinen, Charlotte Dubois and Thorwald Jorgensen for sharing their wonderful Music with us. Please support all these artists by purchasing their recordings, attending their concerts and following them on social media. Also, thanks to Thorwald for visiting with me about his new album, nui exotique. And as always, a special thanks to the listeners who support this series with small, one time or monthly donations that help me cover my expenses. I'll be back soon with another 30 minutes of Theremin music and interviews. Until then, I'll see you somewhere in the ether.

David Brower  29:49  
You've been listening to the theremin 30 podcast. Visit Theremin 30 on the web at Theremin30.com.
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[S06E03] September 2024 - Kristoffer Rosing-Schow





In this September 2024 edition of Theremin 30, host Rick Reid plays new theremin music from Rob Schwimmer, Steve Bryson, and the International Theremin Camp Ensemble. Rick's guest is Danish music composer, teacher, and multi-instrumentalist Kristoffer Rosing-Schow.

FEATURED MUSIC*

  • Drei Gesänge Op.18 - #1 "In meine innige Nacht" [Korngold] - Rob Schwimmer (Brooklyn, NY, USA)
  • "Winter Voices" - Steve Bryson (San Rafael, CA, USA)
  • "Teenage Message 2" [Rosing-Schow] - International Theremin Camp Ensemble

*The full-length recordings featured in this show were used with the knowledge and permission of the artists and composers. Please support the artists by visiting their websites, purchasing their recordings, and attending their performances. 

ADDITIONAL MUSIC

INTERVIEW GUEST

CALENDAR OF THEREMIN EVENTS

MEDIA LINKS

CONTACT

CREDITS 

Copyright 2024 Rick Reid 


--------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT

Please note: This transcript was created with the help of speech-to-text AI.  It may contain some errors.

David Brower  0:00  
Rick, this is Theremin 30. 30 Minutes of Theremin music, news, events and interviews with a new episode about every 30 days now. Here's your host from Chicago, Illinois, Rick Reid.

Rick Reid  0:19  
Hey, welcome to the theremin 30 podcast for September 2024 a little bit late this month, but I'd rather be late or skip a month to make sure I always have an interesting interview and quality music tracks to share with you. And as it just so happens, I have an interesting interview and quality music tracks to share with you. My guest is multi instrumentalist and composer Kristoffer Rosing-Schow, and I have new music from Rob Schwimmer Steve Bryson and the International Theremin camp ensemble.

Let's get started with a lovely modern classical performance by Rob Schwimmer playing Theremin live along with his own recorded piano accompaniment. This is Eric Wolfgang Korngold 1924, composition in Myna iniga Nacht, which Google Translate interprets as in my intimate night. It's from Korngold dry gasanga Opus 18. And was performed by Rob at the 2022 Gilmore piano festival. You can watch the video of his performance anytime on the theremin 30 YouTube playlist. 

It's time now for the theremin 30 calendar of Theremin events. On September 27 Marla Goodman hosts a drop in Theremin art workshop at Montana State University's School of Art on September 28 Thea Munster plays the golden Tiki in Las Vegas on October 6, microtonal University begins a new season of online courses. On October 7, the bestiary, a theater production featuring music composed by Doric Chrysler, opens in Greenwich Village in New York City. And on Halloween night, Miles Brown performs solo and with the night terrors at the Melbourne Museum. For details about these events and more, check out the full calendar at Theremin thirty.com. Up next, I have a recent track from Steve Bryson of San Rafael, California. Steve has been creating experimental and ambient music for the past 50 years, and his music has been used in planetariums and immersive exhibits. Lately, he's been studying the theremin with Carolina Eyck, and this is one of His first Theremin-centric recordings. It's called Winter Voices. 

That was winter voices by Steve Bryson from his music for Theremin album on band camp. He plans to add a couple more tracks to the album soon. Steve also has a new album with. San Francisco based electronic artist Carolyn Fok called Space Time canvas. You can find that album on band camp as well.

In June of this year, I attended international Theremin camp in a town called Rødovre in the suburbs of Copenhagen Denmark. It was a five day informal conference with about two dozen Theremin players from around Europe and North and South America. We all knew each other from participating in Lydia cavanagh's weekly online workshops, either as students or guest speakers, but most of us had never met in real life. We got together at the rowoa Music School for peer led music workshops and other creative activities, and on the last evening, we put on a theremin recital for the local community. The evening's program was mostly performed by professional level thereminist, including Lydia Kavanaugh, Torvald Jorgenson and Anna mogda de Hughes, but we all got to play a new composition called teenage message two by Christopher rosensko. I recently spoke with Christopher about his composition and how it went from an idea to a concert performance. Christopher, welcome to the theremin 30 podcast. Thank you. Thank you so much for our listeners who maybe aren't familiar with your work, tell us a little bit about your musical background. I understand you teach and you're a composer and you're in a jazz band. I'm

Kristoffer Rosing-Schow  11:33  
educated as a saxophone player. I finished my education a five year study in 98 and I have been working since then, playing with my bands, teaching and making music for theater and dance. So I think these three areas are both in economically terms and in time pretty equal, teaching, playing with my bands and making music for theater and dance performances.

Rick Reid  12:00  
Now we featured your band in a previous episode where you play saxophone and Theremin, 

Kristoffer Rosing-Schow  12:06  
yes, that's true. Also in this band, I play bass clarinet and all different kinds of stuff. I decided maybe 10 years ago that I wanted to focus mainly on being a composer. So now I play all the instrument I think is needed for the music I compose more than than working as a like a musician. 

Rick Reid  12:27  
Now, you had a really interesting and challenging composition project this summer. You and I both were at the International Theremin camp outside of Copenhagen, Denmark, and the highlight of the week, or the finale of the week, I should say, was a concert where the public was invited to attend. And then there was a piece that you composed.

Kristoffer Rosing-Schow  12:50  
I decided early on, when I knew that we were going to meet, that it would be a fun and nice thing to try to play together all of us. So I proposed, and it was accepted that I will try to make a composition for 25 Theremin, and later on, I added piano and guitar and percussion. And yeah, it was a fun challenge and a big challenge to compose this music. But I think we ended up doing well, and it was a lot of fun, and of course, also a big challenge to make these Theremin sound in the same room.

Rick Reid  13:20  
 Yeah, that was surprising to me. It was a rectangular Recital Hall. There were all of the thereminist around three of the walls, and we were all maybe 5, 6, 7 feet apart from each other, two meters from each other. We found out that for some reason, there were certain Theremins that would interfere with other theremin. So somebody 20 feet away could be playing their Theremin, and it would affect the pitch of my theremin. Yeah, it was just bizarre.

Kristoffer Rosing-Schow  13:53  
Sometimes it's just strange. I know there's something about the theremin being connected to the same clock units that can interfere. And of course, also we found out that it was especially some models of the theremin who had problems with specific other models of theremin. I anticipated that there could be some problems, so I had tried to compose a thing that would be robust to these kind of problems,

Rick Reid  14:18  
 the way the composition was set up as you had a core band that was at the stage end of the room, and then the rest of us were sort of a theremin choir, I think is what I would describe it. And with the choir, part of the richness is that everybody's not playing exactly the same pitch at the same moment, and so that kind of worked into what you were writing for us. 

Kristoffer Rosing-Schow  14:41  
I knew before starting writing that there will be all kinds of people at the camp, so I was pretty sure that there will probably be some who had difficulty reading music, also a lot of different levels of playing. So I took inspiration from one of my children. She. Is a guitar player, and when she was very young, she participated in a guitar camp, and I heard a concert there with 200 guitars playing the same competition. And I noticed that 180 of these children were playing the composition, and 20 of them were playing something else. And I kind of liked that sound. It is sort of human distortion that you could use to your advantage. As long as the main core of the of the sound is the notes that you want, then it's actually only fine. And can add to the music that there's a uncertainty. And of course, you, being a therian player, also know that uncertainty is a very big part of the theremin instrument. It is, it is the danger of the instrument that we also love.

Rick Reid  15:43  
So let's talk more about the composition. Tell me the title and explain what that means. 

Kristoffer Rosing-Schow  15:48  
The title of my composition was teenage message two, the second Theremin concert for extraterrestrials. And this is an inspiration I got from a real story. There was a teenage message one, which was performed in 2001 it was a live Theremin concert being broadcast to outer space. Lydia, my teacher, was a part of this project. As far as I understand it, teenagers from around Russia was chosen to choose something that they would like to show to the universe, and this was put into a three parts transmission, the first part being like a steady sound to make the extra results recognize, here's something. And the second part was, I think, a 30 minute live Theremin performance. And the third part was data pictures being sent up in different data formats. So I thought this was a wonderful story. Also, of course, the theremin, you know, has this double history of being a serious, of course, and wonderful instrument, but also it has this kitsch thing, the Sci Fi aspect of the theremin. So I wanted to tap into that as well. So my story is that this is the second transmission to the extraterrestrials.

Rick Reid  17:01  
I thought it was fascinating how your composition sort of was in surround sound, in where you wrote and conducted for the 3d space in the room. 

Kristoffer Rosing-Schow  17:12  
This was an idea that actually came out of the fact that I realized that we could not be on stage all of us, that we had to be at the walls. And so suddenly you have this situation where you have a given treaty situation. We had parts of the compositions where it was only the Theremins in the back who played, or only the therms in the front, or different movements around the room, which is an effect I heard at many concerts, but I really liked it, and also it, it is a thing that draw in the attention of the audience, also, maybe even if they do not know this kind of music before, but just the fact that the music is moving around makes it easier for the audience to be engaged. I think

Rick Reid  17:53  
now I was trying to think of a category for this composition. It seems like classical is the correct word, but it's modern at the same time.

Kristoffer Rosing-Schow  18:03  
Yeah, this is the area that I like to work in as a composer. I would not say that I know a lot about classical music, but I know some things, and I like to mix things up. We used for a big part of the composition a direct quote from Igor savinsky, sarkod de proton that was like a core thing in the composition, a specific rhythm and a specific chord that he uses. I use this as the backbone of the composition,

Rick Reid  18:29  
and for a live performance like this, I can't help but think there's sort of a sadness to it in that it will never exist again in the same way, even if you perform it again. 

Kristoffer Rosing-Schow  18:41  
I spoke with a friend yesterday, and we talked about, like 200 years ago, where the only possibility you had of listening to music would be to go to a live concert. This holds a certain beauty also. But of course, as you know, we recorded the track, but the only real way to experience this was, of course, to be there. 

Rick Reid  18:58  
Will there be a teenage message three, and will you be involved?

Kristoffer Rosing-Schow  19:02  
Probably, yes, we are talking now about doing another camp in in '26 if we meet again, I think we should play something again.

Rick Reid  19:11  
To learn more about Kristoffer Rosing-Schow and his other music projects, including his band to The Counterfictionals click on his name in this month's show notes at Theremin30.com. Now let's finish the show with the live recording of the world premiere performance of teenage message two.

Thank you so much to Rob Schwimmer, Steve Bryson, the International Theremin camp ensemble, and Kristoffer Rosing-Schow for helping me with this episode. And as always, a special thanks to the listeners who support this series with small one time or monthly donations. I'll be back soon with another half hour of Theremin music and interviews. Until then, I'll see you somewhere in the ether.

David Brower  29:49  
You've been listening to the theremin 30 podcast. Visit Theremin 30 on the web at Theremin30.com.
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[S06E02] July 2024 - Shueh-li Ong



In this July 2024 edition of Theremin 30, host Rick Reid plays new theremin music from Peru, the Netherlands, Finland, and Singapore. Rick's guest is Shueh-li Ong, who has a new album out called MissOriented Metaphor.

FEATURED MUSIC*

*The full-length recordings featured in this show were used with the knowledge and permission of the artists and composers. Please support the artists by visiting their websites, purchasing their recordings, and attending their performances. 

ADDITIONAL MUSIC

INTERVIEW GUEST

CALENDAR OF THEREMIN EVENTS

MEDIA LINKS

CONTACT

CREDITS 

Copyright 2024 Rick Reid 


--------------------------------------------

TRANSCRIPT

Please note: This transcript was created with the help of speech-to-text AI.  It may contain some errors.

David Brower  0:00  
Rick, this is Theremin 30. 30 Minutes of Theremin, music, news, events and interviews with a new episode about every 30 days. Now. Here's your host from Chicago, Illinois, Rick Reid.

Rick Reid  0:18  
Hey. Welcome to the July 2024, episode of the theremin 30 podcast. This time around, I've got new Theremin music from the Netherlands, Peru, Finland and Singapore. My special guest is Shelley Ong here to talk about her new album called Miss oriented metaphor. And if I sound a little spaced out today, I'm just having trouble getting back into a good sleep schedule. I recently traveled to Denmark to spend a week with a bunch of Theremin playing friends from I think, 11 different countries. And between jet lag exploring Copenhagen late into the evenings and the very short nights in the Scandinavian summertime, I didn't get much sleep, at least not at the right times. Even a week later, I'm still feeling it, but I think I can manage to stay awake for the next 30 minutes. I hope you can too. So let's get started.

In just a bit, I'll play a track featuring Wilco Botermans on Theremin first though, I have new music from veronik When I interviewed her for the october 2021 episode of the theremin 30 podcast, she told us about a new album she was working on at the time. She's released a couple of singles from the project since then, but now the full album, illusionist pelagrossas is out on her Bandcamp page, Spotify and other streaming outlets in my poorly pronounced Spanish, this track coming up is called concione para un regress, and according to Google Translate, that means song for a comeback. 

We started the show with the Peruvian recording artist Veronica with song for a comeback. It's a track from her new album, illusionist pellegrosis, or dangerous illusions. If you go to this month's show notes at Theremin thirty.com and click on her name, you'll go right to her band camp page where you can listen to and purchase the full album. And after that, I played a track called opti stool, or on this stool from the eclectic Dutch band overlanders, featuring guest musicians, vilko bodermans on Theremin and Joris Vermeulen on a double Reid instrument called tenora. To hear more music from overlanders, click on their name in this month's show notes. It's time now for the theremin 30 calendar of Theremin events. Lydia Cavanagh continues her online group Theremin classes on most Sundays on July 18, modulate featuring thereminist Chris Conway and sound artist Jez Creek, will perform at the Church of sound event in Nottingham, England. July 23 is the birthday of the late great Dr Samuel Hoffman. Commemorate the day by watching a movie featuring his Theremin in the score. On July 25 noritaka ubukata performs with his custom made there sin in Tokyo, and Stephen Hamm has a gig in Vancouver, BC, Canada. For details about these events and more, check out the full calendar at Theremin thirty.com and if you have an event you'd like me to place on the calendar, contact me through the website. Let's get back to the music now, with a single from Kepa Lehtinen that came out about three months ago, but I haven't had a chance to play it until now. This is called Unet in Finnish or dreams in English. 

That was Unet or dreams by Finnish composer and thereminist Kepa lechtinen. You can see the official music video for that song on the theremin 30 YouTube playlist. Just. Search for Theremin 30 on YouTube or follow the link in this month's show notes.

Shueh-Li Ong is a multi Continental, multi instrumentalist with not one, but two live streaming shows on YouTube, and she just released her fifth studio album, Miss oriented metaphor. I visited with Shelly recently to find out all about it. Shelley Ong, it's so good to see you again, actually hear you again on the theremin 30 podcast. 

Shueh-Li Ong  15:36  
Thanks, Rick. So good to see you and hear you too. It's been a few years, but always glad to see your smiling face.

Rick Reid  15:44  
It's been about three years since you've been on the show, and back then we talked about your musical history and how you got involved in the theremin. So I don't want to repeat that, but I do want to find out what you've been doing since then. 

Speaker 1  15:57  
Well, in the last few years, I've endeavoled to experiment with different ways in which I could articulate the voice of the theremin, and it was a slow kind of assembly, because there was a lot of playing around with until I got something that I went, Aha, I could use this. So it's been a while since I released an album. I thought, why not consolidate these experiments in new composition and then further develop them as I put them together as I went along? And I wanted to also create a repertoire of original music. You probably know this, I have a degree in piano performance, and I did study synth techniques during my post grad period. So I'm naturally inclined towards live performance. It's kind of like, you know, kids in the playground I like to play.

Rick Reid  16:53  
Yeah, I seen some videos on your YouTube channel where you collaborated with some of the musicians that I think are on the new album. Sort of the early development of some of these tracks. 

Speaker 1  17:03  
I was road testing these works for venue versatility and playability with live musicians again, because I wanted to make sure these could be executed live. And again, these pieces were really more for my live performance repertoire. But you know, people like to receive my fans and friends like to receive these finished works in a recorded version. So hence the album. That seems to be the way musicians do it. They write, they record it, and then they play it. So, but I wanted to play it and then record it a friend of mine, bassist Brian Mooney, who appears on the album, he had reached out to me to work with me in live performance. So he played the first gig with me on the New Jersey prop house music series in 2018 and I enjoyed working with him live and on my music video, so much. And I said to Brian, you know, these are new pieces. Would you like to play on the music video with me, as you know, version one? So I I had a, I had, like, a recording or a document of what I had done. And he said, Sure. And I enjoyed his working with him so much, he repeated his performance, so to speak, on the album. And guitarist Dean parks, he didn't appear on my music videos for this album, but he had worked with me before on my third album, which was written under my Monica zanovites. And when he record on my third album, Crossing Paths, I became such a fan of his excellence, and I'm not mad another musician like him, I plotted to have him appear on this fifth album, Miss oriented metaphor.

Rick Reid  18:50  
The album title is mis oriented metaphor. Yes. What does that mean? 

Speaker 1  18:57  
Miss oriented metaphor was nicknamed the concerto. So it began as a concerto because I had in mind it would be an instrumental with the soloists being the theremin the synthesizer, and I had a tin whistle in there as well, against luscious orchestration. You know, as you would imagine, a concerto would be the title plays on the words oriental, disoriented and the Cassandra metaphor, which in Greek mythology, Cassandra is the daughter of Troy, and she was given the gift of prophecy, but cursed With having her prophecies disbelieved. 

Rick Reid  19:41  
You play multiple instruments and you're playing with the band this time. Did you record together in the same room at the same time, or is this a multi track thing that was done remotely? 

Speaker 1  19:52  
I wanted this album to feature a few of my friends, and because of the nature of the genres. Yes, and the style in which the tracks, I call the movements, because it's supposed to be a concerto, they each movement has different sections to it and and they span several genres, so I wanted a real person's appearance to kind of tackle these changes, these transitions, but they would follow my written score, but in certain parts, they would imbue their lines with their own. What take on things for a drama it be feels for bass players, similarly, and of course, I had a guitarist, the one and only Dean parks, where lines were written for him, of certain guitar sounds that I was looking for, but others where I went, I said, Just do what you feel you hear in whatever genre it is that We're working in egy. I'd say this will be stadium rock in field, you know, but he's had six, almost seven decades of experience, so no big deal. And there was one part in the finale where I said, you know, this is your solo cadenza. I'd like you to be flamboyant dean. And I recorded remotely, but in real time. So he looked at me and he said, You asked for it. The other musicians recorded independently of me, but again, I had directions and I had my demo. So my method of writing is I write record straight into my door, and I play the instrumental lines the way I would want to hear it in my finished product. Bear in mind, these pieces must be playable live. All those things that you hear, those will be reproduced live.

Rick Reid  21:55  
Now, speaking of live performance, the way you're releasing this album is non conventional, non traditional, as well. 

Shueh-Li Ong  22:03  
Well, I've been running this live stream that features friends and friends of friends in the music and entertainment industry called music and chat. And Rick you and I talked about that previously, so I thought, well, you know, I have my viewership there already, and these are the people who've been supporting my work and supporting me in this live stream situation. So why not use the live stream and thank my friends and fans at the same time in the release of this album, end of June on the 29th and 30th of June, that's the weekend before Fourth of July. And I will release the album in two parts. The album is in digital form, so first part will be the first three tracks, and the second part will be the next three tracks, and I'll feel questions live as well. So, yeah, live stream. So anyone can put in questions in a live chat, and I will respond to them. The album, again, is in digital form. But if I have what I call YouTube chat, my youtube channel donors. It's a PayPal, you know, donation, little spot, if you donate 35 and above, I will actually hand assemble a physical CD, autograph it, and mail it to you, US residents only, because postage overseas is quite exorbitant.

Rick Reid  23:36  
Okay. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me about your new album. You have such an interesting and unique take on the theremin, especially, and really all the genres that you draw from. It's really fascinating to listen to. 

Speaker 1  23:51  
Thanks, Rick, thanks so much for having me. It's always a pleasure talking to you.

Rick Reid  23:56  
 If you missed the live streamed album release event on Shelley's YouTube page. It's still available to watch anytime there's a link to it in this month's show notes on Theremin thirty.com and you can stream and purchase the full misoriented metaphor album on her band camp page. I have the link for that too. Now let's finish the show with a track from Miss oriented metaphor. This is called calor, which is the Spanish word for heat. Shelly tells me this part of her concerto was inspired in part by flamenco music. 

It's time to thank Veronik, overlanders, Kepa Lehtinen, and Shueh-Li Ong for sharing their music with us this month. Please support these artists by following them on social media, streaming or downloading their music and attending their live performances. Also, thanks to Shueh-Li Ong for being my guest this month, and as always, a special thanks to the listeners who helped me cover my expenses with small one time or monthly donations. If you'd like to help out, go to the theremin 30 website and look for the tip jar while you're there. Check out the library of past episodes for more great Theremin music from around the world. I'll be back soon with another episode. Until then, I'll see you somewhere in the ether.

David Brower  29:50  
You've been listening to the theremin 30 podcast. Visit Theremin 30 on the web at Theremin three zero.com.
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