Steve Reich refers to Caleb Burhans as "a unique, unusual, and distinctive voice" — all of which the young composer and multi-instrumentalist brings to bear on his Cantaloupe Music debut EVENSONG (July 30). Order now at iTunes and you'll get two exclusive bonus tracks: “In Time of Desperation” (with Caleb on piano) and “As Desperation Sets In” (Bill Kalinkos, clarinet and John Orfe, piano).

Featuring ALARM WILL SOUND, the TRINITY WALL STREET CHOIR and the TARAB CELLO ENSEMBLE, the recording is a testament to Burhans' versatility as a composer and the defining statement of his complex connection to the church — an “emo-classical” epic where sacred meets secular in a pure, dynamic expression of musical influences that range from classical to ambient to post-rock. While the album presents motifs from the Christian church service (book-ended with the opening “Magnificat” and the closing “Nunc Dimittis,” recorded with the Trinity Wall Street Choir), it refracts them through the modern lens of new music and the avant garde.

Order the CD, with liner notes by Grey Mcmurray, here: http://bangonacan.org/store/music/evensong

Oh Ye Of Little Faith … (Do You Know Where Your Children Are )

Music by Patrick Harlin
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 28, 2012

Shadow Dancer

Composed by Boards of Canada
Arranged by Jason Price
Performed live at Sacrum+Profanum September 20, 2013

roygbiv

Celka Ojakangas, composer
Performed Alarm Will Sound

Live at the 2021 Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 29, 2021

Sploopy is inspired by the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Messiaen, Frank Zappa, Fausto Romitelli, Charles Mingus, and more. I wanted to create a swampy piece with campy horror film references. (“Sploopy” sounded like a sticky word, so it eventually stuck.) Knowing how well Alarm Will Sound can execute both avant garde and groovy pieces, my intention was to go from a lumbering, thick set of textures found in 40s horror films (and elsewhere) to a fast-paced groove reminiscent of cartoons, jazz tunes, screwed-up wind band marches, and more!

This being said, the piece is supposed to be darkly ironic. The title intends the listener to not take it too seriously, sounding akin to the Boogie Man. (I can imagine people shouting “Beware the Sploopy Monster!”) But just like how a cheesy movie like Invasion of the Body Snatchers can keep me up at night (darned overactive imagination), the music itself should still enter, scream, and horrify, all within the parameters of that delightful horror movie campiness. (And it should be groovy, too.)
— Celka Ojakangas

Sploopy

Yu Kuwabara, composer
Performed by Alarm Will Sound

Live at the 2021 Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 29, 2021
From the composer:
I have always been trying to find an answer which intermediates in-between some things or some contexts; sometimes in-between the past and the present, in-between Japan and the rest of the world, or in-between language, sound, and music. Besides, the decades of my research and collaborations on traditional Japanese arts and music brought me a great question: what time and space mean for me. Therefore, over the last years, I mainly focus on investigating how to create form or time in my personal way. Nested time is a specific time field that I have defined. Through repeated ritardandi—slowing down from a constant tempo to twice the tempo—time is structured in a nested manner.

Nested Time

Ana Paola Santillán Alcocer, composer
Performed by Alarm Will Sound

Live at the 2021 Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 29, 2021

Notes from the composer:
The expression “spiraling down the rabbit hole’’ originates from the 1865 classic "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll. In the opening chapter: “Down the Rabbit Hole,” Alice chases the White Rabbit into his hideaway, transporting her into this bizarre and ludicrous place called Wonderland. 

Carroll’s rabbit hole has proved a popular allusion to label bizarre and irrational experiences such as a journey that transports someone into an amazingly or disturbingly surreal condition or state. On the internet, a rabbit hole commonly denotes an enormously appealing and time-consuming topic search, where one suddenly spirals down the abyss and connects countless similar topics for hours… 

"Spiraling down the Rabbit Hole," for 16 instruments and electronics, is the second piece of what will become a series of works of different instrumentations and mediums, all connected, directly or indirectly, with characters of Carroll’s "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland." This piece describes musically the journey of getting to bizarre and irrational places or states through spiraling down an abyss. This piece will connect with the first piece of the series, entitled "Chronic of Mad Hatter" for Pierrot Ensemble, by the repetitive use of a small six-note motif from the theme of the 1951 film "Alice in Wonderland." 

The sound world is made up of a 10-pitch source scale, which progressively transforms in each section of the piece through a rotational array. The same scale will be colored by the use of few quarter tones within a few instances of surreal states. The harmonic structure of the piece contains 6 main sections in which each note of the main small six-note motive will be dispersed in each section to become the main harmonic center. In the same manner, the Fibonacci series was used for rhythmic and intervallic code parameters at certain parts of the piece. 

In order to portray the metaphor of the recurrence abyss, the piece embeds structures through the main structure through a recursion technique, similar to the Droste effect found in art (Mise en Abyme), where an image repeatedly appears within itself. This was achieved through the electronic media, where previous sections of the piece were recorded and then embeds structures within synthesized to be used at strategic points throughout the piece.

Finally, each section in the piece employs two or three different Temporal Semiotic Units or Time Icons. These are defined as “sound forms that carry meaning through their dynamic pattern over time” (Hautbois). There are 19 Time Icons classified, falling into the categories of delimited and nondelimited segments of sound according to their morphological and semiotic type. Moreover, the piece will use the Time Icon “Rotation,” as well as the small six-note motive all throughout the piece, to denote the abyss, but mainly to connect all the sections and hence create unity. 

The perception between the dichotomy of which one is the real world or which one is Wonderland will be decided then by the listener… A matter of focus... 

“Alice started to her feet...[and] ran across the field after [the White Rabbit]...just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.” — Lewis Carroll, "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland"

Spiraling Down The Rabbit Hole

Nina Shekhar, composer
Performed by Alarm Will Sound 

Notes from the composer:
During the COVID-19 pandemic – a highly unusual yet new normal, surreal, and yet painfully real time – artists have been challenged to think about what community means. In an artform in which physicality is essential, how is this affected during a pandemic in which our bodies are at risk? Our connection to our physical bodies has deepened, becoming hyper-aware of every breath, every ache, and every anxiety. Furthermore, due to social distancing we haven’t been able to physically connect with each other in the same ways as before, simultaneously craving and fearing each other’s human contact. As society reopens, we’re all itching to get up and dance after sitting on our couches for an entire year. Turn Your Feet Around brings the nightclub to the concert hall. Using deconstructed and warped fragments of the ever fabulous Gloria Estefan’s “Get On Your Feet,” performers have a chance to reconnect with their own physicality by dancing to wild reimagined grooves and 80s-style drum beats. Whether socially distanced or not, it’s time to get on our feet and find the rhythms and movements that have been waiting to unleash this entire year! Because as Gloria says, “Find it, I know it will pull you through.”

Turn Your Feet Around

DM R, composer
Performed Alarm Will Sound

Live at the 2021 Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 29, 2021

My piece is driven by one sound on what Totó la Momposina describes as the music of the old days. The unintended sliding sound in “La Candela Viva” is the relentless perpetual center. This “mistake” sounds like an airy marimba, which interplays and moves around between the tape and instrumental funk sharp attacks while the synth serves as an evolving mysterious drone.
— DM R

I watched them burying me

Shuying Li, composer
Performed by Alarm Will Sound

Live at the 2021 Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 29, 2021

Note from the composer:
"Sweeping and Weeping" was written in April 2020, when the pandemic hit and everything was canceled, postponed, or shut down. In an effort to find something positive, I initially thought of “sweeping” as a representation of the virus storm that took over our lives in the most unexpected ways. “Weeping” represents my reaction to the devastating loss that so many experienced. Like most of my pieces, "Sweeping and Weeping" began from these initial impressions, but the music itself navigated a way out with its own logic. The work explores rhythmic drive, lyrical tension, and release, with different timbres and colors. The music alternates between fast and slow passages that ultimately mingle into one.

Sweeping And Weeping

AI-generated version of a conversation between Alan Pierson, Alarm Will Sound Artistic Director, and composer Mary Kouyoumdjian, and director Nigel Maister about "Paper Pianos," an evening-length music and documentary-theater hybrid that explores refugees' dislocation, longing, and optimism and the experiences of those who provide services to them. Read it here: https://www.alarmwillsound.com/paper-pianos-conversation/

Paper Pianos: Alan Pierson, Mary Kouyoumdjian, and Nigel Maister in Conversation

Ken Ueno, composer
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live April 11, 2011 - Le Poisson Rouge

(X)igágái - Excerpt

Piyawat Louilarpprasert, composer 
Performed by Alarm Will Sound (http://alarmwillsound.com)

Live at the 2022 Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 30, 2022 http://composersfestival.missouri.edu

Program note:
The piece focuses on the expansion of the piano’s scraping sounds and their behaviors, including the speed of the scraping motions, overtone resonation, and vibration of physical/sonic gestures. These specific behaviors are expanded and elaborated through the ensemble’s instrumental characters and articulations. Performers express an aggression of sounds and their energy to portray a scene of “lunatic” throughout the piece. — Piyawat Louilapprasert

Lunatic

Cassie Wieland, composer 
Performed by Alarm Will Sound (http://alarmwillsound.com)

Live at the 2022 Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 30, 2022 http://composersfestival.missouri.edu

Consolation Prize

Ali Can Puskulcu, composer
Performed by Alarm Will Sound (alarmwillsound.com)

Live at the 2023 Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 29, 2023 
composersfestival.missouri.edu

From Within

Music by Ryan Chase
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 27, 2013


Flea Circus

Music by Holly Harrison
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 26, 2014

Radishes and Strings

Music by Michael Schachter
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 26, 2014

Five - Six - Seven - Eight

Music by Nicholas Omiccioli
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 26, 2014

[fuse]

Music by Conrad Winslow
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 25, 2015

Virgin Soil

OUT APRIL 29 on Cantaloupe Music

From the liner notes: "Modernism scares people. Is it because it’s new? That can’t be the whole explanation, because everybody likes to discover new things, right? Maybe it's the amount of newness. While discovery always involves a degree of unfamiliarity, modernism can drive really far into unfamiliar territory, becoming distant from any known landmarks. So much unfamiliarity can be scary.

It can even be alienating. The unpopularity of Revolution 9 (by one of the world’s most popular bands) is the evidence that the Beatles' experimentation with found sound, tape loops, and studio technology pushed their fans away. Revolution 9 is modernist because it is a song that’s not a song, something so unfamiliar that it not only breaks with the past, but also breaks its own category.

Varèse’s Poème électronique must have also seemed like a categorical contradiction: poetry created on machines?! The piece—no less than its title—expresses his modernist zeal through never-had-a-past electronic sounds. 'The world is changing, and we change with it. The more we allow our minds the romantic luxury of treasuring the past in memory, the less able we become to face the future and determine the new values in it.'"

Purchase

Revolution 9 (The Beatles)

Original track from "Alarm Will Sound Presents Modernists" available from Cantaloupe Records. 

https://alarmwillsound.bandcamp.com/album/alarm-will-sound-presents-modernists
https://matthuxley.wordpress.com/
https://soundcloud.com/matthuxleymusic

Varèse - Poème électronique (Matt Huxley Remix)

Written by Steve Snowden
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, July 16, 2011

For So Long It's Not True

Written by Amy Beth Kirsten
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, July 18, 2010

Drink Me

Written by Kari Besharse
Performed by Alarm Will Sound 
Live at the Mizzou New Music Summer Festival, July 16, 2011

Rails

Composed by Michael Gordon
Performed by Alarm Will Sound

Yo Shakespeare

Music by Kate Moore
Performed by Alarm Will Sound (live)

Commissioned by Carnegie Hall for Alarm Will Sound

The Art Of Levitation

Charles Peck, composer
Performed by Alarm Will Sound

Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 29, 2017

All recorded music is altered by the medium of its delivery. Most cassette tapes restrict high frequencies and digital mp3 files compress the original audio to its bare essentials. This piece is built around the peculiar alterations associated with vinyl records. The opening music jumps quickly between a variety of sounds, imitating the skipping that occurs when a needle is knocked out of a groove. Much of this material also includes small pitch fluctuations that imitate the sound of a warped vinyl. Later in the piece, the tempo and pitch both steadily increase during a long build as if the speed dial were being slowly changed from the setting for a 33 rpm vinyl to a 45 rpm. And finally, at the climax of the piece, the strings and woodwinds resonate strongly with a few fluctuations in energy, while the brass play at extreme volumes to represent the artifacts and distortion associated with a worn record or dull stylus.

Vinyl

Aphex Twin
      arr. Jessica Johnson and Payton MacDonald

Four

Blue Calx

Cock - Ver 10

Igor Santos, composer
Performed by Alarm Will Sound

Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 28, 2018

"...what does it mean when some tune follows you, occurs to you [...] in the middle of thoughts of a quite different kind?" - Theodor Reik (1960)

through thoughts of a different kind

Viet Cuong, composer
performed by Alarm Will Sound

Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 28, 2018

Electric Aroma (a disagreeable noise)

Jenny Beck, composer
Performed by Alarm Will Sound

Live at Princeton University, September 17, 2019

Accidentally Witnessing Rain

Music by Stylianos Dimous
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 28, 2012

Les fragments d'un souffle

Music by Asha Srinivasan
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 28, 2012

Svara-lila

Music by Charlie Piper
Performed by Alarm Will Sound
Live at the Mizzou International Composers Festival, July 28, 2012

Zoetrope

"The very model of a modern music chamber band." - The NYTimes

Alarm Will Sound

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks