Paul Panhuysen, 1934-2015

From the Netherlands comes the sad news of the passing of Paul Panhuysen, visual artist, sound artist, composer, ornithologist, curator, writer, and so much more.  As well as doing his own work, Paul, together with his wife Helene, ran Het Apollohuis, an amazing venue for visual and sound arts, in their hometown of Eindhoven.  I remember a wonderful time staying with them in 2000, in which Paul and I made a piece together. We also walked across Eindhoven to a music shop to pick up 4 Alesis AirF/X units, a walk that took about an hour each way.  It was quite a lovely walk, and we talked about many interesting things that afternoon.  Paul was a wonderful gentleman and a phenomenal artist, very clear in his structuralist aims and realizations.  He will be much missed.  For more information on Paul and his work, go here.

Here's a picture of Paul and Helene:

As a small memorial to Paul, I wrote this piece, "Three Movements in Memoriam Paul Panhuysen."  Like much of Paul's work, there is a structural idea underlying the piece.  In this case, each movement consists of a playing through of a series of all 131 dyads which exist between the 12 members of a 12-note microtonal scale.  In the first movement, there is just one version of the scale playing.  The second movement has 2 simultaneous orderings of all the dyads, and the third movement has 3 orders of the dyads.   A different 12-note microtonal scale (from my Triangle Scales Catalog, based on Erv Wilson's Mt Meru scales) is used for each movement.  The structure is realized with John Dunn's ArtWonk, and the piano sounds are made with the Garritan Personal Orchestra Steinway Piano samples, tuned by files made in Manuel op de Coul's Scala.  Each of the three movements is approximately the same duration,and is played in the same tempo.  The thickening of the texture in each movement gives the work a feeling of slight acceleration.

Warren Burt: Three Movements in Memoriam Paul Panhuysen, Movement 1

Warren Burt: Three Movemens in Memoriam Paul Panhuysen, Movement 2

Warren Burt: Three Movements in Memoriam Paul Panhuysen, Movement 3