BASIC GUIDELINES: (PLEASE READ!)
• We invite you to participate in our annual celebration of creativity.
Please regard this as an opportunity to meet with fellow composers and performers who are dedicated to exploring the edges of aesthetics, cognition and international culture through electro-acoustic music.
• Submission fee: There is a $15 upfront submission fee per work. This goes to support the festival in general. There are no other fees.
• Conference Fee: There is no conference fee. NWEAMO is a grassroots affair. In lieu of a conference fee we hope that selected composers and performers will get involved in some way with the presentation of their work and contribute their energy, enthusiasm and talents.
• Attendance 1: Selected composers must attend the cities in which their work is performed. (except Jukebox selections—see below)
• Attendance 2: Jukebox selections — Composers of selected 2 channel tape-only works, with no performance element, are not required to attend.
• Attendance 3: How Many Cities Must I Attend? (please see above) We want you to help out with the presentation of your music in each city where your music is on the program. This will vary from 1 city to 4 cities, depending on scheduling limitations of invitees and programming needs of the festival. We will work it out with you.
• Performers: Performers must be provided by applicant.
• Visual Element: Works with a visual element (live musicians/video/installations/dance/unusual lighting etc.) will be favored.
• 2 channel tape works: We welcome 2 channel tape works, and generally will present these in an ancillary Listening Booth, aka Jukebox — see above.
• Duration: In order to present 6-7 works per concert we are looking for works of approximately 10 minutes duration. This is not a firm restriction, but generally works at or under 10 minutes will be favored.
• File Type: All common compressed formats (audio and video) are acceptable. Please do not submit full-bandwidth pieces.
• Multi-channel Surround Formats: Please submit a 2 channel version for adjudication. NWEAMO will support 5.1 and 4 channel works.
• File Size: 20 MB maximum
• Travel Funds: Generally NWEAMO cannot provide funds for travel, accommodation, performance fees etc. Small honorariums may be available, depending on the overall costs of the festival, but these will not come close to covering the costs of attending.
• Submission fee: There is a $15 upfront submission fee per work. This goes to support the festival in general. There are no other fees.
• Apologies: Works cannot be considered until submission fee is paid. This helps to fund the festival and to prevent frivolous submissions. The online process makes it very easy to submit works, and consideration of your work sets into motion a multi-layered process that takes months. In past years the board has wasted many hours
considering the works of composers who had no serious intention of attending. The submission fee helps to assure serious submissions. Since we are all volunteers, and since our time, like yours, is valuable, we need protect ourselves as much as possible. We want to focus our attention on the works of those who are serious about joining our celebration.
Every year we get a few complaints about the submission fee. If you have never mounted a festival dedicated to supporting the work of the community of composers, I suggest you try it! Funding for these events is hard to come by. We raise as much money as we can, but we are all working artists, like you, and must divide our time between running a festival and pursuing our own careers. This means that our time for writing grants is limited. In truth we will help you as much as we can, with a bit of money if we have it, as well as a place to stay with NWEAMO volunteers when available. The great thing about running a festival like this is that if the funding dries up we can run it on good will and vapors. Truly a festival for our times!
Please submit your work using our online submission form.
Please read the Theme, Description and Guidelines.
At the end you will find the link for the online submission. We are looking forward to hearing from you!
Submission Deadline: April 1, 2008
Festival dates: NWEAMO takes place throughout October in America and July in Europe.
Precise dates will be posted soon!
Festival Cites (confirmed): San Diego, CA; New York City, NY; Stony Brook, NY; Venice, Italy; (several other cites pending)
Theme
NWEAMO 2008 theme:
-Can Art Be About Sex?-
SEX SELLS!! —is the cliche that is muttered sarcastically by "serious" artists, and is the time-honored sacred weapon of commercial marketeers. But can art be about sex, or the emotional swirl that surrounds it? Apparently Richard Strauss thought so, (Salome), and Wagner certainly steeped in it (Trisan & Isolde). So more recently did Robert Maplethorpe and Karen Finley. Susan McLary has written extensively about it, and in the vernacular world underground artists often tread there.
Sex is used to market everything (EXCEPT avant-garde classical music these days) so it is hard to say that it is overused — that would be a magnificent understatement! But the point is that it is used so often because we seem to be a species that is perpetually intrigued (fascinated, embarrassed, outraged, attracted etc.) by that subject.
For the 2008 Festival NWEAMO aims to wrestle (innuendo intended!) with the aesthetics, gender issues, politics, norms, history, rituals, taboos, propaganda, stereotypes, spirituality and physiology of this emotional and physical dance that preoccupies most of us for so much of our lives.
We want to offer a forum that covers the spectrum. We do not want to be preachy or didactic (though some works might take those angles). Instead we want to pose questions and stimulate (sorry) debate!
Is sex too private to be the subject of public spectacle? Can there be an avant-garde music festival that is steamy in 2008? We hope so!