Marc Sabat

Marc Sabat (born 22 September 1965) is a Canadian composer based in Berlin since 1999.
Works.
He has made concert music pieces, works with video, and installations with acoustic instruments and, in some recent pieces, computer-generated electronics, drawing inspiration from investigations of the sounding and perception of small number relations (Just Intonation), American folk and experimental musics, Minimal Art. His work is presented internationally in radio broadcasts and at festivals of new music including the Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, Donaueschinger Musiktage, MaerzMusik, Darmstadt and Carnegie Hall. His works do not fall into a single personal style, but they generally share a crystalline clarity of texture and a seek to focus listeners' perception of sounding structures into a process of musical 'thinking'. Sabat is a frequent collaborator, having worked often with visual artists and other composers, including brother painter and filmmaker Peter Sabat. Other collaborators include John Oswald (composer), Martin Arnold, Nicolas Fernandez, Matteo Fargion, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, and Stefan Bartling. Most recently, since 2006 he has been working on a series of works placing compositions in scenery with works of Düsseldorf-based artist Lorenzo Pompa. Sabat's music may be heard on the Plainsound Music Edition YouTube Channel.
Research.
Since the early 1990s, Sabat has been reinvestigating harmony by studying the theory and musical applications of Just Intonation. Together with Wolfgang von Schweinitz he conceived and developed a method of staff notation for JI ratios called The Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation. He has also studied JI intervals empirically on string and brass instruments, developing a list of so-called "tuneable intervals": ratios within a three-octave span which can readily be tuned by ear using electronic or acoustic sounds. These intervals have been used in a number of recent compositions and also are the basis of a self-tuning computer algorithm ("Micromaelodeon") which is currently under development. The most recent version was implemented in April 2009 on a Haken Audio Continuum Fingerboard and programmed in MaxMSP.
Current and Upcoming Projects.
Recent projects include a concerto for piano and 14 instruments, "Lying in the grass, river and clouds", premiered by Daan Vandewalle in Bludenz with Ensemble Contrechamps commissioned by Alexander Moosbrugger with funding from the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung and the Canada Council, premiered at the 2012 Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik, a songcycle and cantata on texts by Uljana Wolf, a trio for Magnus Andersson, Rohan de Saram and Pascal Gallois, a bass solo for Frank Reinecke.
Studies, Teaching, Residencies.
Sabat studied at the University of Toronto, at the Juilliard School in New York, as well as working privately with Malcolm Goldstein, James Tenney and Walter Zimmermann. He attended courses in electronic and computer music at McGill University. In 2008-9 he took part in a postgraduate pilot project initiated by the Berlin University of the Arts, the Graduiertenschule für die Künste und die Wissenschaften.
He teaches courses in composition, acoustics and experimental intonation at the Universität der Künste Berlin, and has been a guest artist at the California Institute of the Arts, at the Escola Superior in Barcelona, the Janáček Music Academy in Brno and the Paris Conservatoire.
In fall 2010, he was artist-in-residence of the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles, followed in 2011 by a one-year Stipendium at the German Academy in Rome, Villa Massimo. Previous residencies include Akademie Schloss Solitude (1997–98, music juror: Christian Wolff), Herrenhaus Edenkoben (1996, music juror: Peter Eötvös).
Career as Violinist.
Beginning in the 1980s, Sabat has also been active as a performer on violin and adapted viola, concentrating primarily on American Experimental Music of the 20th Century. He has recorded CDs of music by James Tenney, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, and Maria de Alvear, amongst others. In the 1990s, whilst living in Toronto, he formed a duo with pianist Stephen Clarke, as well as performing with the Modern Quartet and Arraymusic. Like the great American pianist and electronic musician David Tudor, in recent years Sabat has largely abandoned a concert career in favor of creating his own music.
List of works.
source: