Neuston & Mount San Antonio 1944
My bass quartet Neuston was recently premiered by the UCSD bass quartet. Also, Partch LA commissioned me to write a trio for their ensemble, titled Mount San Antonio 1944. That piece will be premiered in early June!
Hodad music and postcard!
Have you ever wondered what a duet for violin and ocean waves sounds like? Have you ever tried to listen to the electromagnetic field of the earth?
Music for Your Inbox presents my new piece Hodad – a collaboration with violinist Myra Hinrichs that explores these questions – as the March edition of their 2021 season!
(not what’s on the postcard)
Sign up by March 10 to receive an online video of Hodad and a limited-edition [physical] postcard.
The video is a 20 minute performance of Hodad by Hinrichs, playing at Trestles Beach at sunset and responding to the rhythms of the ocean waves. Music for your Inbox will also mail you a limited edition postcard featuring artwork by Janelle Iglesias.
If you’re Hodad–curious but unsure what it’s all about, please check out the Micro Moment video below, presented by MicroFest LA.
Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage @ Social Convention, Feb. 26, 2021
With a pre-performance with Alexander Gedeon, Allen Cordell, and myself.
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.
