Dislike and Elvis
I led my first pandemic-era performances on Saturday night:
A live stream version of my 2013 piece Dislike as part of CultureHub LA’s Re-Re-Generation.
The next performance of my music will be on November 14, 2020.
REDCAT will present an online event featuring Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage and Count In.
Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage is a collaboration with Alexander Gedeon and the Now Hear Ensemble, and Count In is a video piece.
REDCAT Social Media Takeover 8/1
REDCAT’s social media accounts will feature my posts this Saturday! I’ll also do an Instagram Live, so tune in to see my crazy music boxes and some other sound-making toys.
Canon in Am
I was recently asked by pianist Lorenzo Marasso to write a short piano piece in response to Bach’s Invention #13 in Am. My piece is cleverly titled Canon in A Minor. It’s a strict canon at the octave, with the two voices one 16th note apart from each other.
Lorenzo will play Canon in A Minor along with pieces by 14 other composers this Sunday 7/26 at 6pm, live-streaming on YouTube and Facebook.
Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage, Oct. 18!
I’m collaborating with Alexander Gedeon and the Now Hear Ensemble on a piece I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time, titled Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage.
We will premiere CHFES on October 18 at Automata!
CHFES combines live music and theatrical performance to reframe the cultural significance of the “worst album in rock and roll history.”
“Having Fun with Elvis on Stage” is a 1973 album collaged entirely from Elvis speaking on stage between songs at live concerts – no music. AllMusic’s Mark Deming declared “hearing it is like witnessing a car wreck, leaving onlookers too horrified and too baffled to turn away.” Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage reimagines this vilified recording as the libretto for a sort of ghost opera, combining pop art nostalgia with new technology and classical instruments to create a memetic hologram of the endless purgatory of celebrity afterlife.
Members of the Now Hear Ensemble (Federico Llach, Brian Walsh, and Daniel Corral) will perform my original live musical score along with the original LP as if they were the pit orchestra for opera or musical theater – sometimes harmonizing with the words, painting emotions in the spaces between, or reacting theatrically. Meanwhile, Gedeon’s “Elvis” persona becomes a vehicle to explore all things banal and absurd in pop idolatry, as well as the performative aspects of ‘stage presence.’
The performance of CHFES will be preceded by a screening of Count In, a video piece by Daniel Corral that combines the voice of Poly Styrene (from 70s British punk band X-Ray Spex) with musical minimalism and colorful video. The result is a mix of Steve Reich, James Turrell, X-Ray Spex, LaMonte Young, and Sesame Street Pinball Number Counts.
October 18, 8:30pm
Automata
504 Chung King Ct, Los Angeles, CA 90012
$20 general
$15 students/seniors/Automata members
Stellate Hexany Earth Chimes
I have some cool shows this fall that I am excited to share info about soon!
In the meantime, I just recently installed a set of microtonal chimes at Djerassi in Woodside, CA, USA. Stellate Hexany Earth Chimes are 14 microtonal steel chimes, tuned in a 1-3-5-7 Stellate Hexany. They are hung in a straight line for visitors to play with a stick.
The fundamental frequency is an upper 2/1 (octave) partial of the Schumann resonance 7.83 Hz. This Schumann resonance is basically the resonant frequency of the Earth’s electromagnetic field, and this resonant frequency is activated (or at least implied) when its upper partials are played on these chimes.
Stellate Hexany Boxes at Automata
I’ve been making musical holograms inside of cigar boxes, and 2 of them will be on display at Automata on June 6, 2019 from 8 to 10pm.
Here is a quick video demo of one of the boxes:
Video from Summits premiere
If you missed the live performances of Summits thus far, you can see the premiere on the Santa Monica Public Library’s YouTube channel 🙂
This video playlist is from March 20 at the Sound Waves concert series at the Santa Monica Public Library.
Summits premiere at Soundwaves, March 20, 2019!
| I hope you can join me for the world premiere of Summits on March 20! |
Summits is a new song cycle using texts I have collected over the last decade while hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains. Each song is based on entries I have documented in various summit registers (notebooks often found at the top of mountain trails). These personal chronicles from regional pinnacles portray the wisdom, humility, and humor that can only be found on a mountain peak.
Summits is written for voice, string quartet, and guitar/accordion, and I am happy to be joined by singer Joanna Wallfisch and the Koan Quartet in bringing it to life.
We will premiere Summits at the Soundwaves Concert Series on March 20 in celebration of their 50th event!
7:30pm
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Martin Luther King Auditorium
Santa Monica Public Library
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
New Documentation Online
Happy 2019!
I have new performances videos online. Here is a live performance of Polytope from last October, a performance of Refractions from May, 2017, and a performance of Diamond Pulses from September, 2015.
