Gregory Marcellus Schiemer (born 16 January 1949 in

Dunedoo Dunedoo ( ) is a village of 1,021 inhabitants situated within the Warrumbungle Shire of central western New South Wales, Australia. Dunedoo is well known to Australian travellers due to its distinctive name (''Dunny'' is a colloquial Australian ...

) is an Australian

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

composer, instrument builder and teacher. His artistic preoccupations include creative engagement with technology, music created for non-expert performance and intercultural-interfaith dialogue.

Background and training

Greg Schiemer was born on 16 January 1949 in

, New South Wales. He attended

Holy Cross College, Ryde Holy Cross College is an independent Roman Catholic secondary day school for boys, located in the Sydney suburb of Ryde, New South Wales, Australia. It is administered bCatholic Schools New South Wales with an enrolment of 736 students and a te ...

(1961 to 1963), and finished high school in the

Passionist The Passionists, officially named the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ (), abbreviated CP, are a Catholic clerical religious congregation of pontifical right for men, founded by Paul of the Cross in 1720, with a special emphasis on a ...

minor seminary (from 1964) at St Ives and at the

Sydney Technical College The Sydney Technical College, now part of TAFE NSW, is a technical school established in 1878, that superseded the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts. The college is one of Australia's oldest technical education institutions. History The Sydney M ...

, Ultimo in 1968. He completed a B.Mus at

Sydney University The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

in 1972 where he studied composition with

Peter Sculthorpe Peter Joshua Sculthorpe (29 April 1929 – 8 August 2014) was an Australian composer. Much of his music resulted from an interest in the music of countries neighbouring Australia as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of Aborigi ...

who introduced him to the music of Asia and the instruments of

Harry Partch Harry Partch (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974) was an American composer, music theorist, and creator of unique musical instruments. He composed using scales of unequal intervals in just intonation, and was one of the first 20th-century com ...

. Through David Ahern, he discovered experimental music and the work of

Cornelius Cardew Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental mu ...

and

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

. Schiemer first worked in electronic music as a musical collaborator of

Philippa Cullen Philippa Ann Cullen (24 March 1950 – 3 July 1975) was an Australian dancer, choreographer, teacher and performance artist. She was notable for her innovative dance performances incorporating the use of the theremin and the development of moveme ...

in her electronic dance ensemble. He gradually learned the craft of electronics guided by Cullen's technical collaborators Phil Connor and Arthur Spring. Between 1972 and 1975 together they built some of the earliest electronic music systems that respond to dance movement. Between 1976 and 1981 Schiemer worked for Digital Equipment Australia, a division of

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until ...

, initially in computer field service and later as senior design technician. In 1999 he completed a PhD in Electronics from

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a Public university, public research university in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the Sydney metropolitan area. ...

for his thesis "MIDI Tool Box: An interactive system for music composition".

Career

Schiemer taught electronic music composition at the

Canberra School of Music The ANU School of Music is a school in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts, which forms part of the College of Arts and Social Sciences of the Australian National University. It consists of four buildings, including the main School of ...

from 1983. In November of that year as part of the city's Sunday in the Park spring program, he created the first of several broadcast electronic music events called ”A Concert on Bicycles". Participants cycle en masse around

Lake Burley Griffin Lake Burley Griffin is an artificial lake in the centre of Canberra, the capital of Australia. It was created in 1963 by the damming of the Molonglo River, which formerly ran between the city centre and Parliamentary Triangle. The lake is na ...

with

transistor radio A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver that uses transistor-based circuitry. Previous portable radios used vacuum tubes, which were bulky, fragile, had a limited lifetime, consumed excessive power and required large heavy batteri ...

s attached to their bicycle frames and tuned to local community radio station 2XX. He relocated to the

Sydney Conservatorium The Sydney Conservatorium of Music (SCM) — formerly the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music, and known by the moniker "The Con" — is the music school of the University of Sydney. It is one of the oldest and most prestigious music ...

in 1986. There he mentored musicians working with new technology and participated in the activities of ''watt'', the electro-acoustic group co-founded by composers

Martin Wesley-Smith Martin Wesley-Smith (10 June 1945 – 26 September 2019) was an Australian composer with an eclectic output ranging from children's songs to environmental events. He worked in a range of musical styles, including choral music, operas, computer m ...

and Ian Fredericks. In 2003, he moved to the

University of Wollongong The University of Wollongong (UOW) is an Australian public university, public research university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, approximately south of Sydney. , the university had an enrolment of more than 33,000 s ...

where he was the lead chief investigator for

Australian Research Council The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than in grants each year. The Council was established by the ''Australian Research Council Act 2001'', ...

projects focused on mobile technology, haptic instruments and microtonal performance. He was Director of the Sonic Arts Research Network, coordinating interdisciplinary research involving sound across a variety of disciplines within Creative Arts, Informatics and Engineering. He supervised postgraduate composers and introduced undergraduate courses in Csound, Pure Data and circuit-bending. Schiemer's creative work has typically involved performance using bespoke electronic instrument hardware which he designed, built and programmed. His work has been performed at international new music festivals such as GAUNG (2009,

Bedugul Bedugul (Balinese script: ᬩᭂᬤᬸᬕᬸᬮ᭄) is a mountain lake resort area in Bali, Indonesia, located in the centre-north region of the island near Lake Bratan on the road between Denpasar and Singaraja. The area covers the villages of ...

), BIDAF 014, Bandung EUROMicroFest 2013 (Freiburg) and LA MicroFest (Los Angeles) and at concerts in conjunction with NIME (2006, Paris), and (2010, Sydney), ICMC (1993, Tokyo), (1996, Hong Kong), (2007, Belfast), DaFX (2007, Helsinki, ISEA (2008, Singapore and ICAD (2016, Canberra). In 2009 he was invited by the Sacred Bridge Foundation to present mobile music performances with Indonesian musicians at workshops directed by Franki Raden Notosudirdjo, Stomu Yamash'ta and Jean-Claude Éloy. A concert program of his music for mobile instruments was presented in the 2012 Aurora Festival of Living Music in Western Sydney. ''Transposed Dekany'', his entry in the 2012 International Space Time Concerto competition, hosted by the University of Newcastle in conjunction with

Ars Electronica Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in t ...

, was awarded Vice Chancellor's Prize. The work was realised by a consort of musicians located in multiple venues connected via the internet and performing with a purpose-built iPhone app, the Satellite Gamelan. Subsequent app revisions have been used in single venue concerts at EUROMicroFest, ICAD, LA MicroFest and Sydney MicroFest (2023).

Instruments

His electronic instruments include: TupperwareGamelan-UFO-1982

* Tupperware Gamelan (1977–1983) – a collection of instruments designed to be played by an ensemble of non-expert players. The instruments were invented by Schiemer, and named because electronics were mounted in plastic kitchenware while ''gamelan'' was a metaphor for collaborative musical engagement. They were easy to play and quick to learn and were used principally to accompany dance. They included battery-powered sound sources inspired by

Bill Fontana Bill Fontana (born April 25, 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio) is known internationally for his pioneering experiments in sound art. Life and career Fontana attended the New School for Social Research in New York and studied both music and philosophy. H ...

called ''UFOs'' that produce the

Doppler effect The Doppler effect (also Doppler shift) is the change in the frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the source of the wave. The ''Doppler effect'' is named after the physicist Christian Doppler, who described ...

as a sound source moves. The UFOs first appeared in a choreographic project by Yen Lu Wong entitled ''Between Silence and Light'' which culminated in a dance performance on the northern boardwalk of the

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue Performing arts center, performing arts centre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive b ...

. They were digitally sequenced in 1983 to accompany a choreographic work by Kai Tai Chan entitled “Moving Sound/Falling Light”. MIDIToolBox-1989

* MIDI Tool Box (1984–1996) – a microcontroller system for interactive composition. It grew from live algorithmic compositions ''Monophonic Variations'' and ''Polyphonic Variations'' which he created as firmware written for the Datum microcomputer and realised in collaboration with electro-percussionist Graeme Leak. The MIDI Tool Box system was used in an interactive broadcast event and in concert performances with remnants of the Tupperware Gamelan as well as performance and installation work created by other composers. The hardware eventually incorporated the A4 audio signal processor developed at

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency that is responsible for scientific research and its commercial and industrial applications. CSIRO works with leading organisations arou ...

Division of Radiophysics and this was used in live concerts in 1995 with Carnatic violinist Krishna Kumar, and in 1996 with

veena The ''veena'', also spelled ''vina'' ( IAST: vīṇā), is any of various chordophone instruments from the Indian subcontinent. Ancient musical instruments evolved into many variations, such as lutes, zithers and arched harps.

player Narayan Mani and Bharatnatyam-Kuchupudi choreographer Siri Rama. * Pocket Gamelan (2003–) – a set of microtonal instruments realised as software developed by Schiemer for mobile phones. Inspired by the legacy of Partch, represented in the work of contemporary tuning theorist and microtonal instrument builder

Erv Wilson Ervin Wilson (June 11, 1928 – December 8, 2016) was a Mexican/ American (dual citizen) music theorist. Early life Ervin Wilson was born iColonia Pacheco a small village in the remote mountains of northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, where he lived u ...

, the Pocket Gamelan was developed in the java language. It has been used in live performances at international venues for computer music and microtonal musicLeading researchers have acknowledged the role the Pocket Gamelan has played in the development of performance with mobile devices.

Compositions

* ''Body Sonata'' (1974) * ''Porcelain Dialogue'' (1983) * ''Monophonic Variations'' (1986) * ''Polyphonic Variations'' (1988) * ''Spectral Dance'' (1992) * ''Token Objects'' (1993) * ''Vedic Mass'' (1997) * ''Tempered Dekanies'' (2001) * ''Mandala 10'' (2011) * ''Transposed Dekany'' (2012) * ''Six Dekanies'' (2023)

Awards

* Australia Council Composers Fellowship 1994 * Vice Chancellor's Prize, Space Time Concerto Competition 2012

References

External links

An Extended Interview with Greg Schiemer
- *Xenhamonikôn*, September 13, 2024 * ABC Radio National Podcast: Stephen Adam
interviews Greg Schiemer
on the Pocket Gamelan
Greg Schiemer

Australian Music Centre The Australian Music Centre (AMC), founded as Australia Music Centre in 1974 and known as Sounds Australian in the 1990s, is a national organisation promoting and supporting art music in Australia. It operates mainly as a service organisation, a ...

''Mandala 5'' (48 second extract)

Official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Schiemer, Greg 1949 births Living people Australian electronic musicians