Spring 2008

Premiere of Vivre

On March 27 my multichannel electroacoustic work Vivre was premiered on a concert at the Interfaith Chapel on the University of Rochester campus. This premiere performance employed eight loudspeakers positioned in the upper and lower (at foot level) corners surrounding the audience, an ideal reproduction format that enables sounds to be localized at arbitrary 360 degree (high/low, front/rear, left/right) "virtual" (perceived) locations within the performance space. Since this type of surround sound speaker format is still fairly rare, at least in the US, quad and stereo fold-down versions of the piece also are available.

Most of Vivre employs standard twelve tone equal temperament tuning (with microtonal inflections). In the final three minutes, however, the music moves into 31 tone equal temperament, which provides acoustically very pure melodic/harmonic intervals of thirds, fourths, fifths and sixths, but also many (!) intervals that initially can sound "stretched" or "compressed." A ninety second passage midway through the piece also incorporates numerous small, re-worked fragments from several of my earlier electroacoustic and multimedia works.

Current project: soundtrack for the animated film Off-line

Early this year director and animator Tom Gasek, owner of OOH (Out of Hand Animation) Productions and also known for his articles on aesthetic issues and the craft of filmaking, commissioned me to create the music and sound design for Off-line, a narrative experimental animated film he is producting that deals (with some clever twists) with microtechnology. I have begun working on this project, which also will be constructed in 31 tone equal temperament, but in ways quite different than I employed in Vivre. I also am experimenting with some new (to me) techniques for processing, abstracting and transforming naturalistic everyday sound sources made by household items such as curtains, switches and electrical appliances.

This eight and a half minute film is scheduled for completion during late summer and for premiere in the fall of 2008.

Screenings of passage

During May of 2008 passage will be exhibited at

Between February and April passage was presented at the Atlanta Film Festival; the Maryland Film Festival (Baltimore); the Johns Hopkins Film Festival (Baltimore); the Reynolda Film Festival (Wake Forest); the Big Muddy Film Festival (Carbondale, Illinois); the Oxford (Miss.) Film Festival; and the Park City Film Festival (Park City, Utah); HERE

Winter 2008

Fromm Music Foundation commission

In late November I received a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation, administered by Harvard University, to support the composition of a new work for solo marimba and eight channel elecroacoustic sounds and live processing to be premiered and performed on tour by virtuoso marimba soloist Nathaniel Bartlett. Copying costs for this work will be underwritten by the Hanson Institute for American Music.

Tentatively titled Take Flight in celebration of 100 years of aeronautical navigation, the work will employ ambisonic sound processing and eight loudspeakers arranged near the upper and lower corners of the performance hall to project sounds played live by the marimbist, sound fragments recorded and transformed during the performance, and computer-generated sound streams to virtual (perceived) three-dimensional locations throughout the performance space. For other performers who do not have access to a cubic eight-channel reproduction system I will be preparing quadraphonic and stereo versions of the work.

This composition will be a featured work on Nate Bartlett's next compact disc release on Albany Records, a hybrid multi-channel SACD entitled Powered Flight scheduled for recording in late summer 2008.

More information on this commission is available in this press release.

Fondazione William Walton residency and award

In December I was fortunate to receive an award from the Fondazione William Walton to support a one month composing residency during summer 2008 to work on the Fromm Commission piece at the Giardini La Mortella villa and gardens, located on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples, along with travel costs and a stipend.

I am very grateful to the Fromm Foundation, the Fondazione William Walton, the Hanson Institute and to Nathaniel Bartlett for their support of this compositional project.

January performances of Precipice

Nathaniel Bartlett also will be performing my 2004 composition Precipice, on an extensive tour during January 2008 including the following cities:

  • Jan. 5 Oklahoma City, OK : recital at IAO - Individual Artists of Oklahoma Gallery
  • Jan. 7 Houston, TX : recital at Super Happy Fun Land.
  • Jan. 11 Scottsdale, AZ : recital at Talieson West
  • Jan. 13 Los Angeles, CA : recital at Dangerous Curve
  • Jan. 14 Berkeley, CA :. recital at CNMAT (Center for New Music and Tchnology)
  • Jan. 18 Austin, TX: recital at AMODA (Austin Museum of Digital Art) Performance Series
  • Jan. 20 Manhattan, KS : recital at Kansas State University
  • and at recitals in New York, Denver, St. Paul, Atlanta and Las Cruces, NM for which I do not have specific performance dates and venues.

Nate has now performed Precipice on nearly 80 concerts. Performances during 2007 included East Lansing, MI (3); Chicago; Philadelphia(4); La Cruces, NM; El Paso; Fort Collins, CO; Denver; Media, PA; Cambridge, MA; Portland, ME; Providence; Milwaukee; St. Paul; Spring Green and Sturgeon Bay, WI; Madison WI (2); Durham, NH; Ann Arbor

Autumn 2007

New Music and Art Festival guest residency

On October 17 through October 20 Stephanie Maxwell and I and our friend Jean Detheux were guest artists at the 28th annual New Music and Art Festival sponsored by the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Stephanie and I gave a presentation on technical and aesthetic aspects of passe partout and some of our collaboratively conceived and realized film/musical compositions, and on recent works we have created separately, in collaboration with other artists, that also were screened at the festival.

Highlights from the Visual Music Marathon, produced in Boston last April by Dennis Miller and subsequently presented in abbreviated form on several international venues, also were presented at the Bowling Green festival. The selected works included included Stephanie's and my work Timestreams

Screenings of passage and other film/musical compositions

Since its premiere in April 2007 passage has been exhibited on the following film and multimedia festivals and concerts:

passe partout was presented at a special Dance on Film session of the New Jersey State Film Festival in Cape May on November 17 hosted by my friend Susannah Newman. Stephanie and I were scheduled to introduce this film and talk about our recent work with the ImageMovementSound festival, but we were unable to be present due to a last minute schedule conflict.

Diaspora receives a Bourges Citation

Diaspora was awarded a citation for excellence in the category of"electroacoustic works with voice or instruments" at the Concours de Bourges 2007 festival in June.

The Albany Records SACD album Precipice recently has been reviewed in the following print and online publications:

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