Petri Kuljuntausta

Petri Kuljuntausta

Petri Kuljuntausta is a composer, musician, sound artist and author of three books about electronic music and sound art. Since 1990's he has belonged to a new generation of composers in Finland interested in experimental and electronic music.

Kuljuntausta has composed digital music for experimental films, video art, visual art and dance projects, and made media and sound installations in museums, galleries and concert halls. His works has been performed in many European countries, Australia, Mexico and the USA, and he has made recordings for various labels in Australia, England, Finland, France, Germany and the USA. In 2004 Star's End and Inner Space radio shows selected Kuljuntausta's Momentum as one of the most significant CD releases of the year. In 2005 he won an award, The Finnish State Prize for Art, from the Finnish government as a distinguished national artist.

Kuljuntausta is famous for music composed of sounds both natural and extraordinary. In close collaboration with natural scientists, he has composed underwater installations from underwater materials and made music out of whale calls and the sounds of the northern lights. In many ways Kuljuntausta's art is based on good knowledge of tradition. Environmental sounds, live-electronics, improvisation and collaborations with media artists has influenced him as a composer.

His recent composition project Northern Lights Live, based on soundscapes of the northern lights and feedback sounds, was performed at the ISEA2004 (Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts) festival, 12th Symposium on Electronic Arts. The work was a vivid collaboration between art and science, recycling original field recordings of the phenomena as well as processing aurora borealis sounds. A forty-five minute long continuous audio-visual dialogue between nature's own soundscapes and their digitally altered, urban noise-art substitutes were created on stage.

In collaboration with visual artist and experimental film director Sami van Ingen he has created media installations, which reveal audible sounds from the energy of light waves (Wave Motion), or moving light patterns from the sound waves in water (Waves & Patterns). Kuljuntausta has collaborated with composers Morton Subotnick and Atau Tanaka, sound artist Richard Lerman, urban architecture group Ocean-North, and Juhani Liimatainen, professor of Sound Design in Theatre Academy. He has recorded or performed with musicians David Rothenberg, Richard Jürjendal, Markus Reuter, Pat Mastelotto, and VJ group Random Doctors.

Kuljuntausta is the author of an 800 page history of Finnish electronic music, On/Off. Eetteriäänistä sähkömusiikkiin (Engl. On/Off. From Ether Sounds To Electronic Music) (Kiasma and Like Publishing). Together with the book was released a CD compilation. The disc contained the first Finnish electronic compositions from the years 1958-1963, that Kuljuntausta compiled, restored and produced for the release.

In 2006 Kuljuntausta published his second book, Äänen eXtreme (Engl. eXtreme Sound) (Like Publishing), on his own approach to music and sound. Together with the book was released a DVD, which was simply entitled as Petri Kuljuntausta (also known as 1994-2005, referring to the composition period of the disc), which contained almost nine hours of electronic music and sound works (42 works) composed and/or performed by Kuljuntausta. His third book, First Wave (Like Publishing), on Finnish electronic music was published (in English) in 2008.

Kuljuntausta is the founder of Charm of Sound (Äänen Lumo) association, established in 1995 to support electronic music, experimental music and sound art , and the Finnish Society for Acoustic Ecology which was founded in 1999 . Kuljuntausta was the founder and main editor of "..." ezine (electronic magazine, 1997-2001) and he also founded Charmlist emailing-list in 2001, both focused on distributing information on the activities on electronic music and sound art.

For many years (1997-2005) Kuljuntausta produced a radio programme on electroacoustic music entitled Charmed Sounds (Lumottuja ääniä) for Yleisradio. In 2005 Kuljuntausta founded Aureobel internet publishing company, which produced internet (media) albums of Atau Tanaka, Richard Lerman, If, Bwana (Al Margolis) and Kuljuntausta. The label has worked as a distribution channel for experimental music since its opening. In 2008 Kuljuntausta worked as an artistic director and concert coordinator of the Nightingala festival, where invited composers and performers created music from the nightingale song. Inside the festival was held a symposium in zoomusicology, "The Nightingale Song Between Art And Research".

Concerts, Performances (selected)

ISEA 2004 festival
EXPO 2005 World Fair (Aiichi Japan)
Ars Electronica festival (‘Rivers & Bridges’, Linz)
Visiones Sonoras festival (Mexico)
Festival di Musica Acousmatica (Cagliari, Italy)
Jauna Muzika festival (Vilnius, Lithuania)
Futura festival (France)
Synthese festival (Bourges, France)
Electric Rainbow Coalition Festival (USA)
Eclectica festival (Tartu)
Insomnia Festival, Tromsø, Norway
8th Annual Santa Fe International Festival (USA)
Música electroacústica de Hoy (Argentina)
Festival Internacional de Musica de Cadiz (Cadiz Spain)
Musica Nova (Helsinki Finland)
Avanto festival (Finland)
Tampere Biennale (Finland)
Finnish National Gallery (Helsinki)
Kiasma Museum (Helsinki) Helsinki Sound 2001 (Finland)
View (Finland)

Sound Galleries, Exhibitions (selected)

Hearing Place (Melbourne)
Fondazione Nicola Trussardi (Milan, Italy)
Three Rivers Arts Festival / SoundscapePGH (USA)
Collage Jukebox (touring sound exhibition)
Festival le Bruit de la Neige (Annecy France)
Video Positive (Liverpool)
Helsinki Kunsthalle (Helsinki)
Helsinki City Art Museum
Art Fair Suomi 09 (Cable Factory Finland)
Korjaamo gallery (Helsinki) MuuTen (MUU festival)
Pipe Hall gallery (Finland)
Lusto Museum
Tampere Hall (Winter Garden)
Forum Box gallery (Helsinki)
Galleri Leena Kuumola (Helsinki)

Radio: Broadcasts / Profiles / Projects (selected)

Folio (The Netherlands)
Electric Storm (Canada)
Quiet Space / ABC (Australia)
Fieldwork 2SER 107FM (Australia)
Crossover: Sound HR2 (Germany)
Foldover WOBC 91.5FM (USA)
Resonance 104.4 FM (London)
Star’s End (USA)
Inner Space (Zagreb)
Borderline Freien Radio Kassel (Germany)
Difficult Listening (Australia)
NPS-4FM/Muzikale Delicatessen (The Netherlands)
Acoustic Frontiers (Canada)
Springel & Zabrinsky (Brazil)
Feedback Monitor (Canada)
Kalvos & Damian (USA)
Ström / SR (Sweden)
Estonian Radio (Estonia)
Yleisradio (Finland)

Net projects / Netcasts (selected)

Sound Box 1.0 (Kiasma Museum)
Sound Box 2.0 (Kiasma Museum)
Sound Calendar (Austria & Canada)
Le Train Fantôme (France)
ARS01 / Arsradio (Kiasma Museum)
Ääniradio 1 & 2 (Sibelius Academy, Finland)
Audio Autographs (Finland)
art@radio (USA)
Elektra (France)
Radio Internationale Stadt (Germany)

Selected works

• Mexican Cars (2009, 4:20)
• Irresistible District (2009, 28:00)
• Grooves (2009, 30:00)
• Water Cities (2009, film music)
• Heureka (2009, anniversary music for Heureka Science Centrum)
• Whistles, Trills & Clicks (2008, 13:00)
• Heavy Feather (2008, 4:30)
• Eight Rooms (2008)
• City Noise (2007, 30:00)
• Waves & Patterns (2006)
• Water City (2005, 55:10, altered versions)
• Noise City (2005, 41:26, altered versions)
• Wave Motion (2005)
• Nordic Prince (2005, 7:27)
• Zoomusicological 2 (2005, 16:06)
• 4'33" (2005, 4:33)
• Collaro 3RC-531 (2005, 5:45)
• Do Not Feed The Artists (2005, 34:24)
• Muu (Radio) (2005)
• Northern Lights Live (2004, 40:00)
• Navigator (2004, 5:31)
• Cosmic Jam (2004, 18:01)
• 15'00" (2003)
• Roaring Silence (2003, 5:18)
• Zoomusicological 1 (2003, 10:05)
• SoundHappens^TM (2003)
• Planetarium (2003, 9:23)
• Code-X (2003, 10:24)
• A Zoomusicological Essay (2003, 28:40)
• Aurora Borealis 1 (2002)
• Deep Blue (2002, 12:08)
• Drifting (Walking Music) (200224:46)
• Landing (2002, 5:18)
• Formations (2002, 10:00)
• The Mixer (2002)
• Music For Three Bazookas And 12 Steel Sheets (2002, 12:24)
• Soundscape Miniatures (2002, 6:07)
• Four Notes (2001, 7:33)
• In The Beginning (2001, 12:45)
• Voice Miniatures 2 (2001, 8:11)
• Departs/Arrivals (2001, 13:50)
• St. Virus City (2000, 7:46)
• Vroom!! (2000, 8:11)
• Days (2000, 16:00)
• Sonic Miniatures 1 (2000, 5:55)
• Canvas (1999, 10:18)
• Voice Miniatures 1 (1999, 7:23)
• Hysteria (Fatigue) (1999, 5:53)
• Hysteria (Saint Vitus Contemporary Dance) (1999, 6:47)
• The Words (Soundtrack Variations) (1998, 16:48)
• Free Zone (1998)
• Transitions (1998, 5:18)
• Video Surveillance (1998, 20:01)
• Freedom (1998, 8:58)
• Momentum (1998, 6:10)
• Charm Of Sound (1997)
• The Blow (1997, 21:00)
• Anchorage (1997, 7:32)
• April Fool (1997, 28:38)
• Helsinki Soundscapes 1997 (1997)
• Ex Post Facto (1997, 10:40)
• Still Life (1997, 5:50)
• Theremin Dream (1997, 4:40)
• Birdscape Music (1997, 8:45)
• Violin Tone Orchestra (1996, 4:33)
• La Mer (1996, 20:03)
• The Flow (1996, 5:20)
• Texas Scramble (1995, 21:00)
• Lux In Tenebris (1995, 12:56)
• Between Life And Death (1995, 8:48)
• In A Shadow Zone (1995, 13:18)
• The Good And The Evil (1995, 10:45)
• Soundscapes 1 (1994, 5:59)

External links

1. Petri Kuljuntausta: International Who's Who in Classical Music 2003
2. Petri Kuljuntausta: Aureobel's homepage
3. Petri Kuljuntausta: releases