Electric Avenue

For three decades, IRCAM in Paris has been a place of pilgrimage for radical composers. Now, in a major coup, it's paying a visit to Glasgow.

IN THE technological superhighway of electro-acoustic music, the acronym IRCAM is as potent a symbol as Mecca is to Islam. Set up by Pierre Boulez in 1977, funded lavishly by the French Government and housed alongside Paris's iconic Pompidou Centre on the Place Igor Stravinsky, the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique – to give it its full title – remains the ultimate place of pilgrimage for those dedicated to front-line research in musical software and its application to composition.

Consider the composers who have graced its studios and influenced its reputation by creating ground-breaking work – the likes of Boulez himself, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, Harrison Birtwistle, Henri Pousseur, George Benjamin, American minimalist Terry Riley, Jonathan Harvey, Iannis Xenakis and countless other leading figures who have shaped irreversibly the direction of contemporary music during the past half century.

Then consider all of that in relation to IRCAM's decision to hold one of its prestigious Academies in Glasgow all this week until Saturday, centred on the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's home in the City Halls. More importantly, this is IRCAM's first ever Academy in the UK. Its presence on our doorstep is nothing less than a magnificent cultural coup for the city.

But for all that IRCAM is a household name among serious musicians, there is a mythical aura that surrounds it. Any wrongly held image of it as some sterile space-age laboratory populated by computer nerds and technological whizz-kids is something this week's workshops and concerts aims partly to redress. In reality it is one of the world's most creative centres of technology: on the one hand instigating some of the most progressive collaborative projects involving cinematic designers and composers, visual artists, and even major exhibition designers; on the other, engaged in sound design projects with car companies and other unlikely branches of private industry.

Frank Madlener, IRCAM's joint general and artistic director, was very keen to get that point across when I spoke to him last week. "Technology is not the be-all and end-all of IRCAM's work," he says. "Our prime activity is to find prospective composers who want to explore new areas of composition and want to use our tools to achieve that objective."

Indeed, that is essentially what will happen with the 20-plus composers – including Scots-based Sally Beamish – taking part in this week's Glasgow-based Academy. "One of our main aims is to take IRCAM's work out 'on tour' – to show that it has a connection with real artistic life," Madlener explains. "That was the specific view of Boulez when he set it up, and that remains our view today."

Sure enough, the ultimate focus of the week is built around performance, especially that which combines the live and electronic medium. While there will be lectures and workshops focusing on compositional techniques that use the latest computer technology, the ultimate high point will be the series of musical events crammed into Thursday and Saturday and performed by the SSO under its chief conductor Ilan Volkov, together with other musicians from Paris.

There's music by Stockhausen, Xenakis, Boulez and Harvey, as well as that the upcoming Korean composer Unsuk Chin. And in an associated concert on Friday, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra will feature, as part of its own Adventurer Series, works by Edinburgh-based Haflidi Hallgrimsson and Inverness-born Stuart MacRae.

Over at BBC Scotland's Pacific Quay headquarters today and tomorrow, in a specially created virtual classroom, the Scottish Ensemble, along with composers Pippa Murphy and Pete Stollery, will present Soundspace/Soundscape, an interactive introduction to electro-acoustic techniques.

So why did IRCAM choose Glasgow? The reason lies primarily in the recent extended Glasgow presence of Jonathan Harvey, one of IRCAM's foremost collaborators who, for the past three years, has also been composer-in-association with the BBC SSO. He has built an astonishing rapport with the SSO and its chief conductor Ilan Volkov, and his admiration of them is unreserved. "When I came to Scotland I thought I would be working with a great symphony orchestra; what I discovered was one of the world's leading contemporary music ensembles," he says.

His principal role with the SSO was to complete three major commissions, two of which – Towards a Pure Land and Body Mandela – were successfully premiered by the orchestra and duly recorded by NMC on a superb disc released (and reviewed) earlier this month. The third and final work – Speakings – will be given its first performance at this year's BBC Proms in London.

As with so many of his works, there's a vital connection between the forthcoming SSO Proms commission and IRCAM, which usefully underlines the artistic ideals of the institute. "Jonathan came to us with a strange idea – that of a 'speaking orchestra'," says Madlener. In response, IRCAM's researchers had to build the technological means of extracting such a language. "But the really tricky thing was to help Jonathan pursue his artistic aim – the idea of voices coming out of the instruments."

August's premiere will involve feeding the live sound of the SSO through computers, treating it instantaneously and emitting the transformed effects back into the Albert Hall. In other words, IRCAM's priority is to create technology that is crucial to the germination of ideas and enhancement of unique sonic possibilities, but which ultimately acts as a spontaneous component of the performance.

A prime example is Harvey's String Quartet No 4, which is performed by the Quatuor Diotima in Thursday's concert. The technology was researched and created at IRCAM to allow an electro-acoustic dimension to be added to the traditional quartet line-up. "The string quartet is the highest form of chamber music. What Jonathan has achieved by adding the real time electronic dimension is to create a fifth instrument in the ensemble," Madlener explains. "The software we help to create for such projects must not be seen as an end in itself, but part of the material of the composer."

It was a combination of Harvey's reputation and enthusiasm, Volkov's passion for contemporary music, and the pragmatic tenacity of former SSO director Hugh Macdonald (brought back as a consultant for the IRCAM Academy) that convinced IRCAM to come to Scotland.

"As well as Jonathan's influence, our decision had a lot to do with the personality of Ilan Volkov. He is a conductor who really cares about new music and finding creative ways to present it," says Madlener. On Saturday, Volkov will direct the UK premiere of excerpts from Harvey's opera Wagner Dream , featuring soprano Claire Booth.

One thing is strikingly clear, though. This week's event is a significant endorsement of the BBC SSO as one of the leading international exponents of contemporary music, and a ringing acknowledgement that the orchestra's magnificent home in Glasgow's City Halls measures up to the exacting standards of one of the world's foremost technological institutions. But it is also a sure sign that electronic medium in music has matured to an extent that it is here to stay.

• IRCAM runs until Saturday 12 April, with BBC SSO concerts on Thursday and Saturday, SCO on Friday. For tickets (free for SSO concerts) call the box office on 0141-353 8000.