Thankfully the academic year has drawn to a close, and, since that close, I’ve finally had a chance to return to getting some notes down on paper. Primarily I’ve been working on two pieces, Chaji for orchestra and Doppelgänger for Bassoon and electronics, which Aaron Pergram will premiere next fall.

In the meantime, I was thankful this spring for two wonderful performances of bioMechanics my new piece for sax, bassoon, and electronics by the Post-Haste Reed Duo. I hope to be able to share a recording soon.

I am still alive and active! Barely.

As I had two recitals last month to fulfill my academic obligations, it has taken me a while to get back to the real work of being a composer, which is, as far as I can tell, composing and self-promotion.

While I get myself ready for composing, here is some self-promotion in the form of three videos from performances that I received at the Music Today Festival in February and March.

The first is the TaiHei Ensemble‘s performance of an aria from the opera that I’m working on (with the working title ONODA) in collaboration with librettist Katherine Hollander. Rebecca Stuhlbarg, mezzo-soprano guest artist, gave a wonderful performance of the quirky self-introduction of Suzuki.

When I was a babe
they put me in a box.
They said I was a key
and the whole world was a lock.
I tumbled in the lock,
a babe no more than two,
I opened up the door
and I went through.

La, la, la,
la, la, la!
I’m looking for a yeti
and a panda.
La, la, la,
la, la, la!
A yeti, a panda,
and Hiroo Onoda.
A yeti, a panda,
and Hiroo Onoda.

Next is ECCE‘s performance of the revised version of my piece, “tonbo,” originally written for Santa Cruz’s New Music Works in 2006, but considerably revised and improved for this new performance.

It’s been wonderful to have a chance to revisit a piece that I wrote five years ago, especially since I’ve realized that this is probably the earliest piece of my acoustic music that I don’t simply consider a “student work.” Over these five years, though, I have learned quite a bit more about notation and orchestration, so it’s been fun working to preserve the more youthful (naive?) “voice” of the piece, while also bringing up its technical level.

“tonbo” (from the Japanese for “dragonfly”), composed after I returned from my first three years in Japan, is one of my first attempts to blend Japanese folk music into the Western concert tradition. While writing the piece, my mind was filled with the image of a dragonfly, the ubiquitous symbol of late summer in Japan, and, in the opening melody, I try to capture the quick yet uneven flight of the insect.

Finally, the improvisation based group, Loaded Dice’s, performance of my piece Everybody on the one, with scores created in collaboration with visual artist Christopher Hoover.

I’ve been interested in George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic for many years, and I was deeply impressed recently when watching a documentary about the group by the fact that they worked hard to maintain a unified art concept with their music, live stage show, and album art. I was inspired to team up with my friend, visual artist / MD Christopher Hoover to create a tribute to the group that attempts to bring to bring the music and philosophy of P-Funk into the realm of aleatoric concert music.

Recently, my attention has been focused on my two upcoming recitals next month, so I have not been very good about posting updates here!

That said, I seem to have come to the eye of the storm, and I’m also getting some media from various recent performances, and I’m hoping to post them here over the coming weeks.

Here’s a short piece for video and stereo audio, formatted for portable devices:

This piece is the first in a series of short video pieces I’m writing constructed from images and video that I took during my time in Japan. My goal in these pieces, rather than trying to create something that is “Japanese,” is to create a kind of artistic scrapbook that explores my experiences on my travels.

Fushimi Inari Jinja (or Fushimi Inari-Taisha) is a mountain temple/shrine located in Kyoto, famous for its tunnel-like series of orange gates.

I’ve finally had the chance to put together the video of my piece Canned! performed last month at the Future Music Oregon Concert. This concert was the premiere of the OEDO (The Oregon Electronic Device Orchestra), and hopefully the first of many pieces the new ensemble will perform…

…Though someone else will need to write the piece for next time, as I’ve got to get working on my PhD recital.

Enjoy!

“Canned!” written for the Oregon Electronic Device Orchestra (OEDO), was inspired by the sounds one can make with a can of soda.

Although not necessarily pertinent to the piece, here three things I discovered in preparing these performance notes:
1. The average American drinks two cans of soda a day, for a total of 50 gallons a year.
2. There are 40.5 grams of sugar in a 12 oz can of Coke. The recommended sugar intake is no more than 40 grams per day for a 2000 calorie diet.
3. Soda is delicious.

There are a number of great composers these days that are rocker musicians who later turned to classical music (Lansing McLoskey, immediately springs to mind), and almost every new music performer interviewed on the My Ears Are Open Podcast says that they’re currently listening to Radiohead.

This really shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as there is so much that is immediately, viscerally appealing about rock and pop. The rhythms and harmonies are easy to follow, and its power to inspire strong emotional states with a minimum investment of knowledge and concentration (on the part of the listener) is rather amazing.

I guess for some people it’s kind of like a “gateway music” to harder stuff…

…like Ligeti.

I’m not sure that I can count myself in the number of rockstar-turned-maestros, but boy did I like playing with bands ten years ago. And, not surprisingly, my early compositional energy was focused in writing pop tunes for these bands. Some of this probably came from my interest in the music, but a lot of it came from the fact that THESE BANDS WOULD PERFORM MY MUSIC! …and I didn’t have to approach a bunch of string players on my hands and knees in order to get a string quartet read.

Anyway, I am excited that a band I used to be a member of, Mrs. Skannotto, still exists (as it existed before me), and they’re still playing some of my tunes! They’ve posted a video of a live performance of “Ordinary Girl” (in a much sweeter arrangement than the one that I wrote), and they’ve just released a new disc featuring this track, and another one of my old tunes, “My Girlfriend Doesn’t Understand That She’s Still My Girlfriend” (which, understandably, they shortened to just “Girlfriend.” They probably had to pay by the letter on the CD cover printing.)

If you’re into this kind of music, check out the disc. I think these guys really get what pop/punk/rock/ska is supposed to about:

Fun.

Last month the updated, revised, remixed, remastered version of my 2004 piece, “Towa: June 1st, 2004″ was featured at the Música Viva Festival 2010 – Sound Walk in Lisbon, Portugal.

Towa: June 1st, 2004 (revisited) (2010)

Their call for score was looking for short pieces, and all of the electronic fixed-media pieces that I’ve written recently have been seven minutes or more. I’ve always really liked this piece, but listening last June, I decided that, before sending it in, it was in need of an upgrade in both technology and technique. Since I’m fairly good at archiving all of my old compositions, it was easy to get back into the guts of the piece quickly, and I had a lot of fun making very simple changes that improved the overall quality of the sound greatly.

The sample is still all real frogs recorded outside my apartment in Japan.

For those interested, the original version, as well as it’s “part 2″ and a number of my old electronic compositions appear on “den gen” available through iTunes and CD Baby.

I’m excited to be a part of Erinn Ernst’s MFA recital in a performance coming up on October 9th. I’ve already posted briefly about this on my event calendar, but I just received the press release from Erinn and wanted to share that information with all who are interested.

Please come and enjoy this collaboration of music, dance and community!

Press release follows:

Erinn Ernst is a University of Oregon Graduate Teaching Fellow in the Department of Dance. Ernst began her academic study at Kansas State University. In 2000, her choreography was presented at the American College Dance Festival, and later she completed her degree in dance at the University of Colorado at Boulder. As a M.F.A. candidate at the U of O, Ernst teaches Modern, Jazz, Tap, and African dance.

MERGE is a collaborative, site-specific, community-based project between Ernst, movement artists, and musicians. The project focuses on building community between the involved artists and enhancing the public’s engagement with Alton Baker Park. Through the experience of art in the park, families, bikers, runners and general passersby will have a new connection to — and memory of — Alton Baker Park. The focus is on the immediacy and awareness of the moment happening in the now, as the participating artists are coming together to experience this momentary performance and sharing the gift of their art with the community. This project is being presented to the public for free as homage to the Eugene community.

Collaborating composers are David C. Horton, Simon Hutchinson, and Mark Knippel of the UO School of Music. Horton is an M.F.A. candidate in Music Composition, Hutchinson is a Ph.D. candidate in Intermedia Music Technology and Music Composition, and Knippel is a M.F.A. candidate in Music Composition. Knippel has composed a horn and percussion ensemble for the bridge section, Horton has composed a flute solo and cello-flute duet for under and around the bridge, and Hutchinson has composed a horn, percussion, and glockenspiel ensemble for the finale around the pond.

Before the performance begins, the audience is invited to gather near the pond at the north end of Alton Baker Park at the Department of Dance information table. You can obtain the performance calendar for the School of Music and Dance 2010-2011 school year. There will also be a Donation Box at the information table for those who would like to show their support for this project.

When the music and dance begins, the audience is invited to choose their own viewing perspectives and to move freely through the park during the performance. The dance and music will begin on the DeFazio Bridge, then will move down under and around the bridge, and will finish around the pond. Following the performance, a Question and Answer session will be held at the information table. Please join the artists in a discussion of the performance and the creation process of this project.