3 November 2024
Days of Electroacoustic Music | Greece
Multichannel performance of Elxes at the Days of Electroacoustic Music in the Athens School of Fine Arts.

19 October 2024
Athens Megaron | Greece
Multichannel performance of BitVox at Athens Megaron

4 October 2024
Marseille Conservatory | France
Multichannel performance of Toys

11 April 2024
Sonorities Festival | Northern Ireland
Multichannel performance of BitVox at Sonorities Festival in Belfast.

15 June 2023
Sound & Music Computing Conference | Stockholm, Sweden
Structuring Music for Any Sources presented at the 2023 SMC.

Bourges, France
Both Kardaş and Acqua Alta were finalists in different categories at the 36th International Electroacoustic Competition at Bourges.

How to Play: Place your palm on the paintings exploring the soundscapes.

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Karamanlis O. (forthcoming) Survival of the fittest. Composing sustainable mixed electronic works.

Karamanlis O. (2023) Structuring Music for Any Sources, Proceedings of the 2023 Sound & Music Computing Conference, Stockholm, Sweden. This article describes an interactive notation paradigm, which aids in structuring flexible performances for an arbitrary number of participants and any combination of acoustic or electronic sources. A simple system allows a ‘maestro’ to organise an ensemble and to communicate information to the members by means of an interactive window projected on a surface visible to all (performers and audience). The following text describes the motivation and design of the notation strategy, its implementation in the SuperCollider environment and discusses some compositional, performative and pedagogical issues with reference to a recent work; in this context the ‘system’ is considered to be the ‘piece’ itself.

Sound Synthesis & Processing with SuperCollider (2021) [book in Greek] Σύνθεση & Επεξεργασία Ήχου με το SuperCollider | εκδόσεις Φυλάτος. Το βιβλίο είναι μία εισαγωγή στη σύνθεση και την επεξεργασία του ήχου χρησιμοποιώντας το SuperCollider, μία γλώσσα προγραμματισμού που χρησιμοποιείται από μουσικούς και καλλιτέχνες σε όλο τον κόσμο και που μπορεί ο καθένας να κατεβάσει ελεύθερα από το διαδίκτυο. Τα κεφάλαια είναι γραμμένα σε απλή γλώσσα εστιάζοντας στο ηχητικό αποτέλεσμα κάθε τεχνικής. Απευθύνεται σε μουσικούς, τεχνικούς ήχου και καλλιτέχνες που προσεγγίζουν το θέμα με δημιουργική διάθεση και που ενδιαφέρονται να κατανοήσουν τις βασικές αρχές σύνθεσης και επεξεργασίας ώστε να φτιάξουν τη δική τους μουσική, ηχητικές δομές, εγκαταστάσεις κλπ. χωρίς να έχουν προηγούμενη εμπειρία στο αντικείμενο.

Karamanlis O., Athinaios D. (2017) “Composing & Performing Mixed Electronic Works”, Proceedings of the 4th International Conference in New Music Concepts, Trevisio, Italy. This paper explores common methodologies and practices for composing and performing mixed works, involving acoustic instruments and real-time electronics using a computer. We proceed to describe a strategy for creating and presenting such works and introduce the CuePlayer, a tool for the SuperCollider programming language which aids in the organisation of processes and musical material in bundles (cues). We discuss the implications from its use with reference to a musical work.

Karamanlis O., (2010) “How something is born, lives and dies: A composer’s approach for thematic evolution in electroacoustic music”, eContact! 12.4: Raisons d’être et perspectives sur l’œuvre électroacoustique. This article describes a compositional strategy that is applicable to tape, mixed or live electroacoustic pieces. It suggests that envelopes can function as musical motives similar to the old traditional fashion. A particular energy-shape can be viewed as the common denominator around which complex gestures can evolve and group together forming higher-level structural blocks. The transformation of these shapes and their merging into an architectural whole takes after the homogeneity of traditional musical forms, yet the thematic evolution using electroacoustic techniques provides an entirely different musical utterance for the composer. The strategy is exemplified by analysing a recent composition for Santur and live electronics running on SuperCollider.

Karamanlis O., (2010) “Imago Dixit: Painting, Sound and Gesture Capture“, Body, Space & Technology Journal, Brunel University. This short article describes Imago Dixit, an interactive installation that incorporates sound design, real-time gesture capture and painting. The text places the work in context considering some aspects of composition, interaction and perception. Any poietic analysis is primarily conducted from the auditory rather than the visual perspective.

Karamanlis O., (2010) “PhD Thesis: A Portfolio of Original Compositions“. The portfolio contains work that encompasses a wide spectrum of creative output and spans through different areas of computer music (mixed instrumental, acousmatic, live electronics, installation art). The compositions are accompanied by a collection of commentaries that echo the evolution of my thinking. They demonstrate an amalgam of thoughts and processes embodied in the creative act, providing an inside view to the compositions and placing the music in context. The written aspect complements the musical works by trying to reflect back on the mental schemas that gave rise to certain compositional decisions and investigate the reasons why an option might have been chosen instead of another.

Davis T., Karamanlis O., (2007) “Gestural Control of Sonic Swarms: Composing with Grouped Sound Objects“, Proceedings of the 4th Sound and Music Computing Conference, Lefkada, Greece. This paper outlines an alternative controller designed to diffuse and manipulate a swarm of sounds in 3-dimensional space and discusses the compositional issues that emerge from its use. The system uses an algorithm from a nature-derived model describing the spatial behavior of a swarm. The movement of the swarm is mapped in the 3-dimensional space and a series of sound transformation functions for the sonic agents are implemented. The notion of causal relationships is explored regarding the spatial movement of the swarm and sound trans-formation of the agents by employing the physical controller as a performance, compositional and diffusion tool.

Blochnunga Sensor Costume: This costume is a musical instrument designed and built back in 2006 at Anglia Ruskin University. As in the case of conventional instruments, considerable effort was required in order to learn the machine and understand its capabilities and limitations. Here you can find a rather old video.

Karamanlis O., Athinaios D. (2016) CuePlayer
This is a tool for composing and performing real-time and mixed electronic works using the SuperCollider language. It helps a composer to organise processes and musical material in bundles (cues) and execute them when needed during the course of a piece. It is particularly applicable to musical works incorporating real-time electronics and acoustic instruments; it may also be handy in any scenario where the composer wishes to organise, schedule and trigger bundles of processes. Install it as a quark from within SuperCollider via executing Quarks.install("CuePlayer"), or download it from GitHub, unzip & and place the folder inside "~/Library/Application Support/SuperCollider/Extensions/".
Here’s a link to a Tutorial.

At the moment I am an Assistant Professor at Athens University, Department of Digital Arts & Cinema, located on the island of Euboea. I'm also affiliated with a small Cambridge-based company for Music & Audio named FasmaTwist. If you are interested in a more thorough biography you may read below or scroll-down for Greek.

I’m mostly interested in electroacoustic composition, especially real-time computer music involving acoustic instruments and multi-speaker systems, but I’m also quite happy with various expressions of popular music. I’ve written music for instrumental ensembles, fixed & mixed media, live electronics, the network, for theatre and short films. My works have been performed throughout Europe, in the US and Latin America and some have received awards and distinctions at international competitions, amongst others at Giga-Hertz (ZKM, Germany), the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music (CIME), Metamorphoses (Belgium), Bourges (France), Città di Udine (Italy), Musica Nova (Czech Republic), MusicWorks (Canada), Weimar (Germany), Matera (Italy). In the past I’ve been lucky to receive the McLeod prize from Anglia Ruskin University and my PhD research to be funded by the Department for Employment & Learning in the U.K.

I have taught at Queen’s University Belfast (2007-2009, TA), at the Technological Institute of Crete (2010-2011), at Bournemouth University (2012-2014), and at the Ionian University of Corfu (2016-2018, 2021), having regularly given invited talks elsewhere. Since 2017 I teach units on composition, sound design and creative programming at the University of Athens where I have also run the Music Department’s Live Electronic Music Ensemble.

I like cats, sea, pasta, tango and a small village in the Aegean Sea.