Video that I created for Kati Agócs' saxophone quartet work "Hymn" was performed by the PRISM Sax Quartet as part of their Breath Beneath concert series (more info. here). Other composers/video artists on the program include Bill Morrison, Dan Trueman, and Jacob TV.
You can watch the film (accompanied by PRISM performing Agocs' work) here.
This summer course explores the ways in which sound interacts with video. Students investigate this interaction by first discussing the history of electronic sound, video, and their relationship, establishing (or refreshing) basic audio and video editing skills, and then getting hands-on experience through creative projects. Projects include composing sound design for film, creating video art (that incorporates video-recorded and/or animated materials), and designing real-time interactive media projects. The target student of this course is a musician interested in expanding their relationship to video and multimedia. No experience with audio or video technologies is required, although it is welcome.
Questions discussed include: What is sound and image? How can we manipulate sound and image using computers (and other tools)? What is the relationship between sound and image? What are the semiotics of sound and image? What are future potentials of sound and image?
Resolutions, a short film by Mika Johnson I did foley work (designing sound effects) for won best experimental film at IndiefilmTO in Toronto.
Annealing is the process of applying alternating treatments of tension and relaxation to a material in order to better realize its potential. Annealing reorganizes a material from the inside out. For example, after a metal has been through a process of annealing, a process that tests and expands its material limits, it will inexplicably be more durable, flexible, and potentially useful.
Necessary Annealing uses as a jumping off point the exploration of the process of annealing musical materials. In this work musical materials are pushed to their limits of activity and stillness, ultimately revealing a hidden, embedded music at the end of the work.
Necessary Annealing was realized as part of an October 2016 residency with electroacoustic composer Natasha Barrett at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, FL. This work was composed for the 2017 Yarn/Wire residency at University of Virginia.
Performed and recorded by Yarn|Wire at the end of January, 2017 as part of their residency at University of Virginia.
As part of a listening party to Brian Eno's new generative album Reflection I created 5 interactive video art pieces that react in real-time to stereo audio signals and are tuned in particular to Eno's work. The programs were created in Processing.
I was invited to be a researcher at Virginia Tech as part of their 2nd annual Spatial Music Workshop, which preceded the CubeFest, a weekend long festival dedicated to utilizing The Cube, a massively multi-channel room in Virginia Tech (139 speakers). During the week that I had to work in The Cube I composed Flare, a 7 minute electroacoustic and video art piece. Below you can listen to a B-format ambisonics recording decoded to stereo.
Here is a schematic of the speaker layout I created during the workshop:
In collaboration with trumpet player and composer Sam Wells and as part of the SPLICE Institute hosted at Western Michigan University I composed Mach, for trumpet and electronics. You can listen to the piece here:
This work makes heavy use of extended technique graphic notation, for example (from the third page):
In collaboration with Fernando Rocha (with whom I also presented a paper at the conference) and Peter Bussigel (who is currently teaching at University of Virginia) I created an interactive video extension of Peter and Fernando's piece titled "Starboard".
User interface I used to control (really just to set and forget the settings) the video of the piece.
Video of the premiere coming shortly.
Over this past semester I worked with clarinetist and recent University of Virginia faculty hire Shawn Earle on a work for clarinet and live electronics.
Working in fairly heavy collaboration, we came up with Memory Sustained, a work that first explores the barrier between tone and noise on the clarinet, and secondly investigates some non-linear presentations of musical material.
Both of these elements of the work are enhanced through tracking, recording, and playing back the sound of the instrument. At the time of writing we are working together on a fixed version of this work.
This past year I composed a short orchestral work for the Rapidan Orchestra (a community orchestra based in Gordonsville, VA) titled "Rapidan Fantasy". It was great working with passionate amateur musicians under the baton of Kyle Ruempler. The piece was written up and commented on in the Orange County Review.
You can listen to the premiere of the piece (April 15th, Prince Michel Winery in Madison, VA) here: