About Me
I am active as an experimental composer, scholar, and new music performer. I hold graduate degrees from the University of Maryland (DMA, composition) and SUNY Stony Brook (MA, music theory and history), and currently teach at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the Peabody Conservatory of Music.Compositionally, I am primarily concerned with (re)integrating performer creativity into the music making process through graphic scores that facilitate a rethinking of performance possibilities. Hand Leg Suit (2003) for mixed instrumental ensemble reflects this approach; Hi Red Center performs the version you can hear here. In this piece, players are provided with two general types of information that they interpret and amalgamate to generate the performance: simple graphic images, and charts that list actions, parts of the body, and parts of the instrument. Though each performer generally presents these interpretations without specific consideration for other members of the ensemble, the group periodically coordinates through the repetition of specific segments of the score. Ultimately, the players are required to continually rethink how their instrument and body are used in performance, creatively producing material that both represents their individuality and at times generates a unique sense of ensemble.I am also interested in the possibility to taking performance outside of traditional venues and integrating it into public spaces and life. Becoming...everything else (2004) is a performance installation I created for three or more performers from any discipline. In this work, sights, sounds and actions encountered randomly throughout a building in the course of a day, week, month, etc. trigger creative responses from the performers that are be heard and seen throughout the halls, stairwells, and other public spaces of the building. I created a blog to document performances of this piece by posting commentary, photos, and video from performers and "audience members." I have given talks about this composition at the Extensible Toy Piano Project , the 2006 McGill Music Graduate Student Symposium , and the 2007 SCI Region VI Conference . In March 2006 I also collaborated as performer and sound artist with three dancers on Bathroom 1900, a site specific multimedia piece in the University of Maryland Department of Dance.In a more recent work, Bit of nostalgia... (2005-06), I incorporated electro-acoustic technology into a concert piece using Cycling 74's MAX/MSP software for real-time synthesis and processing. This piece investigates the ways that objects with which performers interact (instruments) shape their actions. The percussionists take an active role in designing the stage set-up for each performance by utilizing various combinations of instrument-types (listed in the piece’s instructions including objects made of metal, wood, glass, paper, plastic, and stone) in different sectors of the performance space. Each group of instruments also contains three of eighteen relatively similar graphic score pages. The score page similarities require that performers frequently reinterpret some visual materials with greatly varying groups of instruments (and objects). While the performance proceeds, another performer interprets the same score using Cycling 74’s MAX/MSP (software that accomplishes real-time sound synthesis and processing) to process and playback sound segments from recordings of previous rehearsals and/or performances. The percussionists directly respond to these sounds as well as each other while interpreting certain pages of the score. These interactions bring a sense of self-history into the piece and create an interesting notion of depth which reflects a broader perspective of what constitutes a “work†by actively incorporating previous rehearsals and performances into the fundamental structure of the composition.I have several newer projects that I am working on including a series of shorter pieces for performers using everyday, found objects; a string quartet that explores instrument design (traditional Western string instruments are essentially the same, varying most obviously in size) and data flow within the quartet; an indeterminate piece for an electronic/computer studio performer whose performance creates a tape work/audible artifact; and another large-scale installation or perhaps environmental work for performers.All of my works are, or will be, published by Silent Editions .As a scholar I primarily work with recent composers such as Roger Reynolds and Luigi Nono, and popular music analysis and criticism. I helped organize Reynolds's archive at the Library of Congress, and recently presented a paper at the Region VII Society for Composers Inc. Conference (2006) and Society for American Music/Music Library Assoc. Joint Conference (2007) that analyzes The Palace (Voicespace IV) and discusses the archive. My article "The Roger Reynolds Collection at the Library of Congress" will appear in Notes in March 2008. I have reviews published in American Music, Computer Music Journal and Popular Music and Society, and my essay "Perception/Form: Thomas DeLio's Though for solo piano" will appear as a chapter in the forthcoming book from Mellen Press Thomas DeLio: Composer and Scholar (ed. T. Licata and J. Tabor).I periodically perform with The Bay Players , a collective of experimental composers, performers, and scholars dedicated to boundary-pushing music created during the second half of the twentieth-century and beyond - in this ensemble, I play trombone, electric bass, computer, and found objects. We have become very active in the Washington DC/Baltimore area during the past year, and are currently planning performances for late spring 2008.
