This sound cue opens the solo show "Psycho B*tch" - written and performed by Tamara Lynn Robert (PK Pinup Productions).  The performer mimes watching television, and begins to realise that the strange sounds she is hearing are not from the TV, but in her head.

Info about the show!  http://pkpinup.com/Site/Welcome.html

"Psycho B*tch" toured the Canadian Fringe festival circuit in 2010 and 2013.  

The "cartoon" music is not mine - it's a public domain track from Logic Studio.  Some of the sound effects are from there as well.  

Voice on this track is by the marvelous Nile Seguin.

Psycho B*tch - TV/Horror sequence (2010)

Performed by Russell Whitehead at the University of Alberta, 2005

The Move is a "perpetuum-ish mobile, with key clicks and sucking".

Score available for purchase and perusal: https://www.alexeddington.com/works-and-store/eight-dudes-trumpet-solo

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Eight Dudes (2005, revised 2006)
 
For solo trumpet player
 
(B-flat trumpet, B-flat cornet, B-flat flugelhorn and B-flat piccolo trumpet, E-flat trumpet)

As with so many of my pieces, the title came first.  Eight Dudes is a play on “études”, suggesting a collection of short pieces that engage the virtuosity of both the performer and the composer.  I already knew that eight movements were required – and up sprang eight further puns on my initial play-on-words, eight evocative movement titles from which the music grew.  These “dudes” are études and also character pieces, a lineup of exaggerated moods and personalities that sprang from the same source.  The movements are unified by closely related four-note pitch sets, but the main impetus for the work was dramatic and conceptual.  Throughout is an exploration of duality and binary conflict on many levels, from the duet for soloist and themself in A Tune to the quick-draw showdown in High Noon to the contrast of a movement with no notes (Point Moot) to one with as many notes as possible (The Move).  
 
This set of pieces is intended to be performed as a whole, with the movements in the specified order, but certain movements may stand up well on their own.  
 
Eight Dudes is not specifically a theatre piece, but it may be performed with as much theatrical staging and imagination as the performer desires.  At the premiere, for example, the soloist wore the fedora used as a hat mute in Dark Moon when it was not in use.  I have found that the use of five different instruments in the course of eight short movements is theatrical in and of itself!  
 
Performers may substitute different trumpets for the ones specified if necessary, as long as the original keys are respected and the work retains a wide variation in tone colour.
 
Eight Dudes was composed in Edmonton during my degree at the University of Alberta, and was included in my Master’s defence portfolio.  It was premiered by Russell Whitehead at Studio 2-7 in Edmonton, April 2005.

1. A Tune (Bb cornet with cup mute)
2. The Mood (Bb trumpet with plunger)
3. High Noon (Bb flugelhorn)
4. Fork/Spoon (Bb trumpet with plunger ad lib.)
5. Point Moot (Bb piccolo trumpet)
6. Dark Moon (Bb flugelhorn with hat)
7. The Move (Eb trumpet)
8. Last Toot (Bb cornet with cup mute)

"The Move" from Eight Dudes - solo trumpet (2005)

Performed by Russell Whitehead at the University of Alberta, 2005

Point Moot is "A set of variations on the stifled tone".

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Eight Dudes (2005, revised 2006)
 
For solo trumpet player
 
(B-flat trumpet, B-flat cornet, B-flat flugelhorn and B-flat piccolo trumpet, E-flat trumpet)

Score available for purchase and perusal: https://www.alexeddington.com/works-and-store/eight-dudes-trumpet-solo

---

As with so many of my pieces, the title came first.  Eight Dudes is a play on “études”, suggesting a collection of short pieces that engage the virtuosity of both the performer and the composer.  I already knew that eight movements were required – and up sprang eight further puns on my initial play-on-words, eight evocative movement titles from which the music grew.  These “dudes” are études and also character pieces, a lineup of exaggerated moods and personalities that sprang from the same source.  The movements are unified by closely related four-note pitch sets, but the main impetus for the work was dramatic and conceptual.  Throughout is an exploration of duality and binary conflict on many levels, from the duet for soloist and themself in A Tune to the quick-draw showdown in High Noon to the contrast of a movement with no notes (Point Moot) to one with as many notes as possible (The Move).  
 
This set of pieces is intended to be performed as a whole, with the movements in the specified order, but certain movements may stand up well on their own.  
 
Eight Dudes is not specifically a theatre piece, but it may be performed with as much theatrical staging and imagination as the performer desires.  At the premiere, for example, the soloist wore the fedora used as a hat mute in Dark Moon when it was not in use.  I have found that the use of five different instruments in the course of eight short movements is theatrical in and of itself!  
 
Performers may substitute different trumpets for the ones specified if necessary, as long as the original keys are respected and the work retains a wide variation in tone colour.
 
Eight Dudes was composed in Edmonton during my degree at the University of Alberta, and was included in my Master’s defence portfolio.  It was premiered by Russell Whitehead at Studio 2-7 in Edmonton, April 2005.

1. A Tune (Bb cornet with cup mute)
2. The Mood (Bb trumpet with plunger)
3. High Noon (Bb flugelhorn)
4. Fork/Spoon (Bb trumpet with plunger ad lib.)
5. Point Moot (Bb piccolo trumpet)
6. Dark Moon (Bb flugelhorn with hat)
7. The Move (Eb trumpet)
8. Last Toot (Bb cornet with cup mute)

"Point Moot" from Eight Dudes - solo trumpet (2005)

Music by Alex Eddington
Libretto by Kristin Mueller-Heaslip

Premiered by Kristin Mueller-Heaslip at Walter Hall, Toronto, with the composer conducting: December 4, 2003.

Soprano; b-flat clar./bass clar./alto sax (one player), trumpet/flugel., trombone, tuba, violin, viola, 'cello, percussion; conductor (theatrical part)

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COMPOSER'S NOTES (from 2007)

"Death to the Butterfly Dictator!" is truly a monodrama: its reason for being is to tell the complete story of one character, played by one singer.  The ensemble is almost always subordinate to this aim in that they listen to the singer/actor, and respond with music that is usually not precisely notated.  The result is music that floats forward at its own pace, eight musicians trailing the soprano like butterflies chasing a wandering flower.  But an exploration of dichotomy is also at play: notational looseness is held up against rhythmic precision; musical homage against musical parody; past memory against present action; abstraction against blunt reality; concert music against theatre piece; liberty against servitude; beauty against anger; life against death.  This is a garden with many scents and colours.

Death to the Butterfly Dictator! - monodrama for soprano and ensemble (2003)

"Bubblegum Delicious" by Alex Eddington
Texts by Dennis Lee, used with permission

Released on the album "I Remember" (Cambria CD-1247): Released November 2017.

Excerpts used with permission from Cambria Master Recordings.

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/i-remember/1306223018

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/I-Remember-Annie-Zhou/dp/B076M7SK41/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1511234209&sr=8-1&keywords=cd+%22I+Remember%22+eddington

University of Toronto Schools: www.utschools/shop

----------------------

Cynthia Smithers, soprano
David Fallis, narrator
Rebecca Moranis, flute
Conrad Chow, violin
Donna Oh, cello
Aaron Dou, piano
Alex Eddington, conductor (and horking/burping)




COMPOSER'S NOTES:

I first found my musical voice when I composed "Eight Poems of Dennis Lee" in 2002. This piece, which used nonsense poems from Mr. Lee’s three classic children’s books (Alligator Pie, Garbage Delight and Jelly Belly) has been performed in many places, including Texas and Shanghai. But I was a young composer then, and I have wanted to revisit Dennis Lee’s extraordinary writing with more experience behind me. It made sense to work with Bubblegum Delicious (his 2000 collection), whose poems are both innocent and experienced, as though someone is remembering their childhood many years later. In my setting, the narrator takes on the role of an adult recalling his long-ago friend (“I remember, I remember / How we used to play outside, / Running through the green grass / Finding where to hide.”) The soprano sings absurdly logical rhyming couplets, evoking the unbounded imaginative play that is shared by children across cultures. We were all children once, and I believe that child – our long-ago friend – is still somewhere within all of us. 

"Bubblegum Delicious" is dedicated to the exceptional musicians of the University of Toronto Schools: past, present and future.

Notes by Alex Eddington – June 2017

I Remember

"The King of Calabogie" (excerpt) from BUBBLEGUM DELICIOUS (2017)

World premiere
Live recording - Feb 15, 2014
St. Paul's L'amoreaux Centre
Scarborough, Ontario
Concert presented by the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra

Red Brass Quintet
St. Paul's L'Amoreaux Steel Band (Elton Jones, leader)
Alex Eddington, conductor

------------------

On August 28, 1963, American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his most famous speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington: I Have a Dream. Today, the speech still resonates. Comparing America's treatment of its citizens of colour to a promise unkept, or a cheque uncashed, he paints the civil rights movement as an essential step in America becoming what it set out to be: a land of equality. Hearing these words today, I'm struck by the way this speech balances heavy memories of the past with a vision of a future that contains hope, but also further struggles. Fifty years later, America (and Canada, and much of the world) has come a long way in terms of equal rights for all people, but discrimination lives on.
 
When I was asked to write a piece for a concert taking place during Black History Month, just over fifty years after the Dream speech, my point of inspiration was clear. Hearing it again, I was intrigued by the musicality of Dr. King's rhetorical style. He also evokes specific music. Of the songs that he quotes, two leant me their tunes as core material in March for MLK. The first is the gospel hymn “Free At Last”. In my piece, it is heard in the opening fanfare in a heavy setting that is meant to evoke the sombre recollections of past struggles. In the faster section, the hymn tranforms as the civil rights movement begins to march. At the end of the piece, the hymn returns as a fanfare fading into a hopeful future. The other song I found in the Dream speech is “Our Country 'Tis of Thee” - which Dr. King sees as a promise yet to be fulfilled. The tune is heavily disguised, but it floats on top of the march in a more reflective section of my piece.
 
March for MLK was commissioned by the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra with the generous support of the Toronto Arts Council, and was premiered by the St. Paul's L'amoreaux steel orchestra and the SPO's resident Red Brass quintet on February 15, 2014.

March For MLK - steel band and brass quintet (2014)

FLIGHT OF THE HAWKS
for Concert Band (Grade 2)

Score and parts available for purchase from the composer.

Flute
Oboe
Clarinet in Bb 1 + 2
Bass Clarinet
Alto Saxophone
Tenor Saxophone
Baritone Saxophone
Trumpet in Bb 1 + 2
Horn in F
Trombone 
Baritone / Euphonium
Tuba
String Bass / Electric Bass

Mallets: bells, xylophone

Percussion 1: wind chimes, vibra slap,
drum kit (snare drum, 3 tom-toms, bass drum)

Percussion 2: wind chimes, vibra slap, 
suspended or ride cymbal, anvil or brake drum 

---

Performers: University Wind Ensemble, U of Windsor - April 2018 
Conducted by Dr. Nicholas Papador

---

Commissioned by the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (Canada) in partnership with the University of Ottawa. 
Premiered by the Heritage Public School Band, Ottawa (Navan) Ontario, conducted by Jennifer Stewart.

---

Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast. 
Published under Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Flight of the Hawks - concert band (Grade 2) - (2015)

A soldier in WWI trenches has a nightmare about all war, everywhere, ever.

**CAUTION - the end of this track is loud!**

Created for the production WHY WE FIGHT by Crux Encounter

www.cruxencounter.com/

November 17 and 18, 2018 - Toronto

War Nightmare - from WHY WE FIGHT

Music for a hero's epic battle with an ancient goddess. Gaming style.

Created for the production WHY WE FIGHT by Crux Encounter

www.cruxencounter.com/

November 17 and 18, 2018 - Toronto

Gatekeeper - from WHY WE FIGHT

Premiere performance of "gibbons vs. Gibbons" by the Odin String Quartet: March 1, 2019. Array Space, Toronto.

A fantasy for 2 viols by English Renaissance composer Orlando Gibbons. A pair of singing gibbon apes. 
Hijinx ensue.

If you have never heard gibbons singing... it's wonderful. Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJUhpu5c5R8

gibbons vs. Gibbons - string quartet (2019)

Created for Jumblies Theatre's TILESCAPES project, for the ceramics show opening on March 7, 2019.

All sounds in this ambient soundscape were created by striking and scraping ceramic tile "landscapes" created by the Jumblies community, performed by members of the Gather Round Singers.

The sounds are triggered and processed in VCV Rack software.

Alex Eddington created this soundscape to accompany vocal music, which he also created collaboratively with the choir. 

For more information about the Tilescapes creation process with guest ceramic artist Parker Dirks: http://www.jumbliestheatre.org/jumblies/current-projects/tilescapes

Tilescapes excerpt (2019)

"Kyrie" from a 3-movement Missa Brevis

Music derived from Jesous Ahatonia, also known as The Huron Carol.

Live recording by Voices Choir, Toronto. 
Ron Cheung, conductor. 
December 15, 2018.

----

Photo by Adrian Lang from Pexels

Kyrie on Jesous Ahatonhia - from "Missa Brevis on Francophone Carols"

The final music track from the play "Destiny USA" by Laura Anne Harris. 

Canadian Fringe festival tour, summer 2019.

Created in Logic entirely using sample instruments (East-West, Aspire) and drum loops (Loop Loft).

End Music from "Destiny USA"

Excerpt from "A Christmas Carol"

Music by Alex Eddington 
Text by Charles Dickens

Dan Lessard, narrator
Silver Birch String Quartet

Recorded December 2005 in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

"The Cratchits" from A Christmas Carol

World Premiere recording of "A Present From a Small Distant World" by KC VITAs choir, Kansas City Missouri USA. Music director: Jackson Thomas. Recorded August 2019. 

SATB version. Also available in SSAA and TTBB. 

To purchase or download a perusal score, please visit: https://www.alexeddington.com/works-and-store/a-present-from-a-small-distant-world-choir-a-cappella

Music by Alex Eddington (2019)

Text by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. This speech was included on the "Golden Record" launched on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, 1977.

----
Text:

We cast this message into the cosmos. It is likely to survive a billion years into our future, when our civilization is profoundly altered and the surface of the Earth may be vastly changed. Of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, some -- perhaps many -- may have inhabited planets and spacefaring civilizations. If one such civilization intercepts Voyager and can understand these recorded contents, here is our message:

This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.

A Present From A Small Distant World (SATB choir)

The tune of Dusty Miller March is borrowed from a traditional Scottish tune - the same one Robert Burns used for his song "The Dusty Miller". 
A recording of this song used to play in the hotel I once worked in on the Isle of Mull in Scotland's Hebridean islands, and the tune reminds me of that summer. 

With our wedding being held at one of Ontario's old mills, and our honeymoon planned for the Scottish isles, it was only natural that the "Dusty Miller" tune made its way into the wedding music I composed.

The original scoring was uncommon, based on the professional musicians who would be attending: clarinet, alto sax, bassoon, trumpet, tuba, and percussion. 

This transcription for brass quintet and optional percussion was created for members of the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra for a concert in December, 2012.

The score and parts are available for purchase at www.AlexEddington.com

Dusty Miller March - Brass Quintet (2012)

The tune of Dusty Miller March is borrowed from a traditional Scottish tune - the same one Robert Burns used for his song "The Dusty Miller". 

To view a perusal score and purchase score/parts (instant download): https://bit.ly/dustymiller-flex

Also exists in a brass quintet version.

A recording of this song used to play in the hotel I once worked in on the Isle of Mull in Scotland's Hebridean islands, and the tune reminds me of that summer. With our wedding being held at one of Ontario's old mills, and our honeymoon planned for the Scottish isles, it was only natural that the "Dusty Miller" tune made its way into the wedding music I composed.

The original scoring was uncommon, based on the professional musicians who would be attending: clarinet, alto sax, bassoon, trumpet, tuba, and percussion. 

A transcription for brass quintet and optional percussion was created for members of the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra for a concert in December, 2012.

This version for flex ensemble, with expanded percussion, was arranged in 2020.

Dusty Miller March - Flex Ensemble (computer mockup)

I'm taking a course on Microtonal music with Jacob Adler. This was my piece for the week on 5-limit Just Intonation. I was at a loss for how to shape my two-dimensional lattice, so I made it in the shape of a giraffe. It was natural to keep going with this idea.

Here's my surprisingly "tonal" 5-limit toccata dedicated to the pride of the Toronto Zoo, Amani Innis Dagg. This giant baby giraffe has done a lot to get me through the pandemic, simply by being herself. I didn't plan this music, just felt it out in the piano roll view of my DAW, so I'm not sure which intervals I was drawn to.

There are plenty of photos of Amani on Instagram. Here's a cute one: https://www.instagram.com/p/CHGY9A9Bk9t/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

h-Pi Flash synthesizer, with granular haze from Mutable Instruments Clouds module.

Toccata for Amani Innis Dagg (5-limit just intonation)

Alex Eddington is a composer of experimental and not-as-experimental music for concert stage, electronic media, theatre and dance.  

He is also a writer, theatre performer, music/drama teacher and professional opera surtitlist.

Find out more at www.AlexEddington.com
 
Alex's compositions have been performed by professional ensembles like the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Continuum Contemporary Music, and student musicians at organizations like the Suzuki String School of Guelph.

Alex has performed his own original theatre across Canada on the Fringe Festival circuit, and created music/sound for more than 20 theatre and dance productions across the country.

Alex’s music has been recorded by the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra and
released worldwide on their album Canadian Panorama.
His piece "Bubblegum Delicious" was released on the Cambria label in November 2017.

Recent/upcoming commissions: Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Chronos Vocal Ensemble, Toronto Brass Quintet, Jumblies Theatre, Toronto Consort.

Created music for the play "Dark Heart" (Thought For Food Productions) in January 2018.

Alex Eddington | composer

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