Bor Turel

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[edit] Slovene composer, sound artist and music editor

• 5 February 1954, Ljubljana

For thirty years now, Bor Turel has been the most prominent Slovene composer of electroacoustic and experimental music. After studying composition at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, he continued his studies at the Department of Electroacoustic Music of the Conservatoire Nationale Supérieure in Paris, as well as in master classes for electronic music of the Department for Electronic Music of the Montreal University in Orford, Canada; in Salzburg and Marly-le-Roy. In 1992 he worked as Composer in Residence at the Electronic Studio of the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Graz.

Turel's electroacoustic and other works received performances at important international festivals of contemporary music such as: the Festival universitaire du film underground, the Biennale des jeunes and Journées audiovisuelles internationals (between 1979 and 1981 in Paris), and later the Zagreb Music Biennale, International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music, ISMEAM Festival in Sárvár, Hungary, World Music Days in Copenhagen, Days of Contemporary Music in Vienna and European Month of Culture in Ljubljana.

Already while studying at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana, Bor Turel departed from the classicist models and composed his works in free polytonal and atonal musical media. Between 1973 and 1977 he also worked in the theatre group Nomenklatura, and under the influences of the European avant-garde, American experimental music and minimalism he finally broke all ties with tradition. He began to include recorded sound materials in his works, which later became an important part of his main area of expertise in electroacoustic music. In the years 1977 to 1981 Turel founded and led the ensemble for experimental music SAETA, which developed organised and free improvisation.

After his return from Paris in 1983, he ultimately switched to electroacoustic music and since then has created numerous works for various instruments in connection with electronics or for solo tape. In the electroacoustic works his creative poetics is founded in the world of sounds as a complex of sound objects and at the same time of the sound as substance, without any priorities. He forms compositional structures as sound scripts, with a special emphasis on the dramaturgy of a musical composition.

Bor Turel, a free-lance artist, has collaborated with numerous painters and video artists, creating intermedia works and has worked with an experimental theatre of animated forms. Besides his research in music and work in the field of electroacoustic music and its forms of presentation (concerts, ambiental installation, performances), he is a permanent collaborator of the Program Ars of Radio Slovenia where he began and developed series of electroacoustic and ars acustica music programmes.

Mr Turel has been active as Head of Electroacoustic Department of the Society of Slovene Composers where he iniciated the edition of the first anthology of Slovene electroacoustic music and also the creation of several new electroacoustic works. The CD Oscillations from the Atelier with electroacoustic music by seven Slovene composers was presented by him in 2005 at the prestigious festival of electroacoustic music Synthèse in Bourgesu, France.

With his recent pieces Bor Turel continues a series of electroacoustic works for solo instrument and tape. Among them is new piece Play-Spiel for Slowind Wind Quintet and electroacoustic recording that was premiered at the Contemporary Music Festival Klangspuren in Innsbruck, Austria, in 2004.

Mr Turel has devoted the last years to creating audio and radio art – mainly ars acustica projects and ambiental music works which are based on poetic texts. In the year 2004 the composer published a double CD, his second album, which represents segments from all areas of his musical creativity. In 2005 Bor Turel successfully took part at the international competition Prix Italia in Milan where his Suite of radiophonic images of the Pohorje soundscapes Voices of a landscape, in metamorphosis took place among three finalists in the Radio Music category.

Since the autum 2002 the composer has lived and worked in Maribor.

Areas of Musical Creativity:

Electroacoustic Music for Instrument and Tape or for Solo Tape

Ars Acustica Works

Radiophonic Music Works

Chamber Music

Audiovisual, Multimedia and Experimental Music

Conceptual or Indeterminate Works

Discography:

LP: Slovene Soloists: Vladimir Kovačič, Bor Turel, Helidon 1987-1988

CD: Brez hitrosti brez hrupa / Soundscapes Beyond Noise and Haste, published by the composer, 1995

Aedon - double CD, published by the composer, 2004

Compilation CD: Oscilacije v ateljeju / Oscillations from the Atelier - Anthology of Slovene Electroacoustic Music, Edicije DSS, 2005

Contact: bor.turel@guest.arnes.si