First Flight for Crow Chases Red-tailed Hawk

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invented instruments

I’m excited to premiere a new work for invented instruments and electronics on Saturday as part of the Birmingham New Music Festival. Crow Chases Red-tailed Hawk uses bullroarers and other instruments that make sound when swung overhead on the end of a string. I’ve been working on prototypes for these instruments–whistles, buzzers, hummers, swoopers–for the last few months and this will be their first public outing.

Birmingham New Music Festival
Mostly Improv Night
October 12, 2019 at 7PM
East Village Arts of Birmingham
7611 1st Ave N, Birmingham, AL 35206

I need help naming the instruments, so please come to the show, listen, and give me your best suggestions for names.

2019 Faculty Biennial Exhibition

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Still from Brush Mind: Second Hand

The University of Alabama’s Department of Art and Art History’s 2019 Faculty Biennial Exhibition opens today. I’m showing three works:

  • Brush Mind: Second Hand – a collaboration with Jane Cassidy and Hank Lazer (a still from the piece is above)
  • Pink Noise – a new piece of sound art
  • A Work of Art for Every Entry in Index—Subjects—Library of Congress – a new piece of generative computer art

Two other new faculty are exhibiting work:  Jonathan Cumberland and Wade MacDonald. Featured artists also include William Dooley, Allison Grant, Jason Guynes, Chris Jordan, Sarah Marshall, Giang Pham, Pete Schulte, Sky Shineman, Bryce Speed, and Craig Wedderspoon.

The exhibit runs through October 11, 2019. Hours are Monday through Friday 9:00am – 4:30pm. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, September 5 from 5-7pm.

Carrier Hotel Victoria

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Carrier Hotel Victoria Quartet score excerpt

My new string quartet will be premiered at Chamber Music @ AEIVA. Carrier Hotel Victoria was written in response to Irene Grau‘s exhibit. Her work and mine both reference Alphonse Allais’ collection of monochromes, Album Primo Avrilesque. The quartet unfolds with each musician proceeding independently, as if reading through Allais’ book of colors—the resulting mixtures generating subtle variations of the monochromes.

Chamber Music @ AEIVA
Thursday February 21
5:00 Reception
5:30 Concert
Free and open to the public

Performers:
Sarah Nordlund Dennis, violin
Pei-Ju Wu, violin
Zak Enikeev, viola
Laura Usiskin, cello
Christopher Steele, piano

…about the size of a… Birmingham New Music Festival

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I’ll be performing …about the size of a fist and located slightly to the left of… at the Birmingham New Music Festival electroacoustic concert.

Thursday October 18 7:00pm
Birmingham New Music Festival
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Hulsey Recital Hall
950 13th Street South
Birmingham AL

The piece is an improvisation (composed instrument?) using a custom mapping of an off-the-shelf MIDI fader box (the Korg nanokontrol2 pictured above). The typical position information of each fader/knob is ignored in favor of gestural information about how the control is manipulated over time. This transforms the controls into virtual bellows on a pump organ or springs in a wind-up toy.

I’ll also share the stage with Geni Skendo and LaDonna Smith for an improvisation.