Tape Drift Records has recently re-released Location Ensemble’s self-titled live recording as a digital download on Bandcamp. The recording is from a concert at the Saratoga Arts Center in 2012. Tracks include Eric Hardiman’s hocketing, krautrock burner Diversion #3, My Six Chords Every Rock Guitarist Should Know and Thomas Lail’s Sonic Youth-inspired Untitled (All the Times She Loves Me).
Download the score for Six Chords Every Rock Guitarist Should Know
Here’s a performance of Comes and Goes from the 2016 Birmingham New Music Festival featuring (L to R) Andrew Raffo Dewar, modular synth; Geni Skendo, flutes; Wendy Richman, viola; Holland Hopson, laptop.
The piece is for open instrumentation: four or more performers using electronic and/or acoustic instruments. We chose to perform the sections in the following order: Foothills, Unmatched set of revolving doors, Cirrus – lock of hair, I Send the Rockets Up, Constant Interference. Download the score
On Thursday I’ll be performing my work Comes and Goes with Andrew Dewar, Wendy Richman and Geni Skendo during the opening concert of the third Birmingham New Music Festival. Andrew and I will perform with electronics (modular synth and Max, respectively) while Wendy plays viola and Geni performs on various flutes. We worked up a wonderful blend of sounds during rehearsal last weekend; I think this is going to be a special performance.
Comes and Goes was written for Gates Ensemble and first performed in Austin, TX in 2007. My memory of the performance is a bit hazy. On the day of the show I was packing for a move from Austin to Albany, NY and gashed open the bottom of my foot. After stitches and pain meds, I somehow joined the other musicians on stage to perform with my foot elevated on a nearby chair. The piece is for four or more musicians performing on electronic and/or acoustic instruments. Each movement explores a specific set of sounds derived from the technique of amplitude modulation. Download the score for Comes and Goes.
I’ll also be performing on banjo and electronics with Geni Skendo for two of his compositions.
Thursday 9/22 7:30pm
Birmingham New Music Festival
UAB Hulsey Recital Hall
950 13th Street South
Birmingham, AL 35294
Free
Iron Giant Percussion will perform my work Quartet 60x88x120x208 for four metronomes at the Hoover Library Theatre tomorrow. The concert is part of a 20th anniversary celebration of the Birmingham Art Music Alliance. Quartet 60x88x120x208 was performed during BAMA’s first season of concerts (January 22, 1996). It’s one of my more widely performed compositions, but I don’t think it has been heard in Birmingham since then.
Thursday April 28 7:30pm
BAMA presents Iron Giant Percussion
Hoover Library Theater
200 Municipal Drive
Hoover AL 35216Free Admission
The program will also include music by Drew Pendergrass, Tom Reiner, Mark Lackey, Jody Landers, Monroe Golden and works by Iron Giant Percussion.
Download a .pdf score for Quartet 60x88x120x208
Here’s a recording of the premiere performance of Follows from Hummingbird for 3 or more sustaining instruments. The performers are Hillary Tidman, flute; Brad Whitfield, clarinet; and Laura Usiskin, cello.
I’m so happy with this first performance; the musicians nailed it. My scores often require a period of workshopping—work that reaches beyond typical rehearsal activity to include comparing alternate realizations, discussing timing, and lots of listening—so premiere performances can be risky. These performers, however, really embraced the spirit of the piece and pulled it off with elegance and aplomb.
The work is based on Hummingbirds (1997) a group of small Oil paintings on linen by the artist Enrique Martínez Celaya.
For the second time in a month I get to be a guest percussionist with the University of Alabama Percussion Ensemble directed by Tim Feeney. The concert is presented by Sonic Frontiers and features guest artist Greg Stuart. We’re performing Hearing Metal 3 by Michael Pisaro.
The work is for 16 suspended cymbals and electronics. The cymbals are bowed and activated by dropping beans, rice and millet on them. Such amazing sounds! Greg described one part of it in rehearsal as “listening to a radio tuned between stations.” If you know and love that sound (you know who you are), then you’ll understand why I’m so excited about tonight’s performance. If you’re bewildered or intrigued, you should come hear this. You’ll never listen to your radio (or look at beans, rice and millet) the same way again.
My piece …then carefully unfolded and placed in… receives its premiere performance tomorrow at 2:30 pm. It’s a big work: 6 movements that each function as a kind of canon, a dronal piece that moves from sunny lydian to spacey locrian. The work is scored for any 5 sustaining instruments and is being performed by
For readers keeping track, I posted about this piece in progress earlier.
Sunday April 10 2:30pm
BAMA presents An Afternoon of Music for Wind Quintet and Piano
Brock Recital Hall at Samford University
800 Lakeshore Dr
Homewood AL 35209
Follows From Hummingbird, my brand-new piece for three or more sustaining instruments, gets its premiere on Thursday at the Abroms-Engel Institute for Visual Arts in a concert of chamber music inspired by the visual art of Enrique Martínez Celaya. The piece will be performed by Hillary Tidman, flute; Laura Usiskin, cello; and Brad Whitfield, clarinet. The event begins at 5pm with a reception and time to take in the artwork, followed by the concert at 5:30pm.
Thursday March 10 5:00pm
BAMA presents Chamber Music at AEIVA
University of Alabama at Birmingham Abroms-Engel Institute for Visual Arts
1221 10th Avenue South
Birmingham AL 35205
5:00pm Reception and art viewing
5:30pm Concert
Follows From Hummingbird is one of a series of pieces I’ve completed recently that uses a circular structure to organize musical modules. The middle section of this piece employs a spirograph-style traversal of the points around the circle which generates a charming flower shape in the score; a welcome side-effect of the process.
Making progress on a piece for Aron Kallay‘s “Beyond 12” program.
Here’s the score for Having Told the Hive the News. The piece will be premiered next week by the Huntsville Master Chorale directed by Patricia Ramirez-Hacker. I was invited to introduce the piece to the group in February and had such fun working with the singers. I can’t wait to hear how the work has developed. I will attend the concerts and participate in pre-concert discussions.
Huntsville Master Chorale presents
Spring is Bach
Friday May 2, 7:00pm
Faith Presbyterian Church
5003 Whitesburg Dr Huntsville AL
& Sunday May 4, 3:00pm
Monte Sano United Methodist Church
601 Monte Sano Blvd Huntsville AL