Celestial in the Dusk premiere

cari apri 30

Under a grey sky, Celestial in the Dusk, my lumbering carillon piece, premiered on University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s McFarland Carillon as part of a concert Dong Ryul Lee organized today.Thanks Dong Ryul!

While I had imagined the last gasp of a sunlight as the setting of it (because we are not allowed to play carillon before 5 pm) this worked too.

Other composers on the concert were M.O. Abbott, Byungjin Kim, Ming-ching Chiu, Kyle Shaw, and Stephen Taylor. I really liked what I heard–some very clever solutions for dealing with this quirky, beautiful instrument. I hope we can do another one of these concerts in the Fall.

 

Great Times with ensemble mise-en!

About a week ago, I had the pleasure of getting to meet ensemble mise-en. What an exciting experience. In this photo, they were reading my new piece critical band-aid.

Working with ensemble mise-en was one of the highlights of the decade for me. Being in the room with them that Friday felt transcendent. Besides being prepared to engage with me as a composer and with the piece I had shared, they created this aerodynamic, frictionless feeling in the room as they played and discussed critical band-aid that suprised and delighted me. What a compelling working environment. Thank you ensemble mise-en!

I also want to give big thank yous to Steve Taylor and Kyle Shaw for curating this opportunity to work with this wonderful group and to my composition professor Erik Lund (seen in the background of the photo) for being a great sounding board at each step of the process of this piece.

All Score Urbana Kickstarter 100% Funded!

It’s an exciting week! All Score Urbana’s Kickstarter has been 100% funded with 18 days left to go! Thank to everyone who donated to the Kickstarter or shared about this program for this community.

With this money we will be able to run the workshop and provide a website with multi-media documentation so we can better explain and share the upcoming workshops this Fall with Urbana, Illinois residents.

I will post a link to the program’s website sometime in late May but for now check out the Kickstarter itself:  if we reach $320 before our campaign ends we will upgrade the planned website to a Squarespace-quality website. Any funds beyond $320 will go toward the Fall workshop budget.

Thank you for helping create a real platform we can use to share the program with the community. This is going to be such a special time!

Drive to the Edge Mvts. 2 and 3 Will Air This Thursday on WGXC 90.7-FM!

Drive to the Edge is back for its second installment on WGXC 90.7-FM’s The Cutty Strange this Thursday! Check out this amazing and unique station here: https://wavefarm.org/wgxc

For those of you who missed last month’s broadcast here is Drive to the Edge’s first movement!

Sound Seeker – World Premiere on WOBC!

I have a new work for radio premiering tomorrow at WOBC 91.5-FM during the 2 pm hour (2 pm EST) – the broadcast will be streaming from their website http://www.wobc.org
The Piece: Sound Seeker is an interactive radio work commissioned by WOBC 91.5 FM as original content for their Winter Term programming. Perhaps consider it a sort of meditative call to action, existing in along the boundary of concert music and sound art. Reconciling life’s conflicts can be difficult – so the piece aspires to not simply suggest thinking about building a bridge with another person, but an actual time to do so, if in a small way in this case.
Listeners like you are the performers of the work–as the music streams through your device, listen to it loudly and try to find someone else listening to it too. In all cases, the end goal is to initiate a caring, listening focused dialogue with someone else. If you can listen to the piece and freely move about (using headphones or car stereo) then roam, listen and look for ways to connect with others. If your sound source is stationary, then treat the speakers as sort of a place to pivot around – searching the area the sound reaches for a person. If you can’t find anyone to talk to, think about some way to connect with others and be a receptive person to them when the piece is over.
Similar instructions will be read before the performance.
I hope you enjoy! Special thanks to Sarah Klauer!
How to stream the broadcast: visit the page and click on the upper right corner’s “Listen Live to WOBC-FM” button. A small window will appear and press the play button a few times – sometimes it needs a little extra press to get it going.
Troubleshooting: if the player suddenly stops streaming and goes blank (no visible buttons to press) close it and open a new one from WOBC’s website.

Falling in Love with Radio

With the first installment of Drive to the Edge broadcast on WGXC and a project for WOBC under way, I am finding that rather than running out of ideas and inspiration for this medium, I keep finding more.

I am increasingly excited at how radio offers a channel to so many aspects of art-making and communication I care about: its a place where teleology is stretched along a broad spectrum, where site-specific issues can be examined in numerous ways, where serialized installments are idiomatic and where all sorts of listener and community involvement is possible.

What a great way to start the year!

Thanks From the Year’s Edge

As I wrap up a great year, I want to take the time to shout out to the different people who have helped make it so productive:

  • Daniel Steffey and Nick Wang at The Cutty Strange
  • Niko Yamamoto, for his sagely advice
  • Elliot Cobb and the rest of the Standard Rep Bassoon Quartet
  • Andrew Dolgon, Joseph Alvarez, Spencer Hile, and Bryce Conrad
  • The numerous people involved in Drive to the Edge: Zachary Bowers, Thomas Carroll, Ben Chew, Zoltan Csikos, David Cyzak, Liz Lewis, Jack Alexander Madden, Ion-Alexandru Malaimare, Alfred Shaw, and, of course, M.O. Abbott