Composer
I recently found this file and forgot that I ever composed it! Done in a San Diego hotel room in…2013 maybe?…this work draws on a set of piano samples used for the 60×60 Piano Mix project. Inspired by Henry Cowell’s use of the piano in The Banshee, I thought it would be fun to explore …
I am an avid reader of comic books and one of my all-time favorite series is Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday. One of the main characters in the series is The Drummer, a man who can control the flow of energy and information with drumsticks. By drumming on computers, televisions, or electrical panels …
This piece is part of a collaborative music/dance project which I did with dancer/choreographer Heather Trommer-Beardslee. Heather interviewed three vets who had recently transitioned from military careers to being students at CMU. These compelling stories became the motivation for our piece. Heather and I worked independently on choreography and music and only lined up the …
I was waking up one morning and the title for this piece was stuck in my head. I wasn’t sure why, I didn’t necessarily know what it sounded like, but I knew it was a good title. When Andrew Allen asked me to write a piece for him, I threw this title at him and …
This piece is the second in a series of collaborations with Bruce Bonnell for natural horn and live electronics (the whole project has been dubbed Supernatural). To contrast with the hectic and spastic counterpart movement Silhouettes, Receding, this movement is a single melody set against a gradually evolving drone. The title is taken from the …
Composed for Katherine Crawford and given its premiere performance at Electronic Music Midwest in 2013. The poetry is by Robert Fanning and is included in the score. Special thanks to the Freesound.org users ethang, laureci, ephemeral-rift, and sandyrb for their sonic contributions and to Laura Patterson whose live performance of my piece All My Dreams are Silent …
I have a file full of potential titles and one summer this file grew quite a bit as I re-read William Gibson’s classic Neuromancer. When Tammy Evans Yonce asked for a piece for glissando flute (flute with a glissando head joint) and electronics I proposed the title “Dreams Grow Like Slow Ice,” which I’m pretty …
I have this collection of poetry from Pitt Press that I’ve been reading and reading since about 1992. A few poems by Ted Kooser caught my mind and I filed them away for a future text setting. When Katherine Crawford asked me to write a piece for her and electronics, I decided to finally act …
This piece is the first in a series of collaborations with Bruce Bonnell for natural horn and live electronics (the whole project has been dubbed Supernatural). Originally performed under the title Golfballs the Size of Hail, the title Silhouettes, Receding seems to be a better fit for the mood and tone of the piece. Hectic, …
This composition grew out of five short samples of note production on a harpsichord. These samples were then strung together to mimic the trajectory of a sounding note on that instrument: attack/articulation, sustain, and then the abrupt cut off release. Purchase the CD.