13 VICES
(collaboration with Jennifer Walshe)

Jennifer Walshe (vocals) Red Note Ensemble - Jackie Shave (violin), Max Baillie (viola), Robert Irvine (cello) and improvisers - Paul Dunmall (sax), Paul Rogers (doublebass), Mark Sanders (perc), Brian Irvine (conductor)

"You" - 13 Vices (extract)

“João Alegria is an essential figure in the Portuguese underground music scene. With a prolific career spanning over a decade, the guitarist – as he prefers to be called – embodies artistic commitment, resilience, and a deep devotion to crafting dark, experimental soundscapes. The numerous albums the Lisbon-based musician has released testify to a sonic vision akin to its object of study: unhurried and unperturbable, yet continuous and tempestuous."

— João Morado (Beats for Peeps, Cosmofonia, Jazz.pt)

“You paint for fame & status, I paint for freedom & awareness”, reads one of the vertical graffiti that Mr.Paradox Paradise painted on some Berlin building. Likewise, there is nothing in João Alegria’s art that is done with the intention of fame or likes. He spent more than a decade editing with recognition limited to the “community” of sound nomads. “I’ve been doing this for some time and I don’t have a very wide audience”, he admits. However, who knows, knows. And who knows, like it. João Alegria’s music is for connoisseurs. Perhaps that will always be the case.
.
However, the unique contours of his art, combined with a stubborn aesthetic consistency and prolificacy, are the characteristics that simultaneously nest and vitalize it. The unconditional and obstinate way in which this “guitarist” – as he likes to be called – has created his work is a rare case of perseverance. His motivation? It’s not entirely explicit, but somewhere between the love of music and the physiological need to create lives the truth of João Alegria. If he lives because he breathes, he seems to make music because he has to live. One senses in his speech an inevitability of cathartic genesis that surreptitiously emerges between the lines like a figure wandering through the night.
João Alegria can also move through the shadows, but his music definitely points to the heavens, full of verticality” 

– João Morado (Beats for Peeps, Cosmofonia, Jazz.pt)

Brian was born in Belfast. His huge body of work reflects an obsessive love of music creation in all its forms. It includes operas, orchestral works, large-scale community oratorios, film and dance scores as well as numerous ensemble, solo, chamber pieces. 

His music has been performed all over the world and commissioned by many international artists and organisations including: Welsh National Opera, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Wexford Festival Opera, Northern Sinfonia, BBC Radio 3, BBC Concert Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Scottish Ballet, Opera Theatre Company, Bath International Music Festival, Glasgow International Music  Festival, Lyric Youth Opera, Music Network, London 2012 Olympics Festival, Roald Dahl Foundation, 4-mality percussion ensemble, Belfast Festival at Queens, Edinburgh Jazz Festival, Live Music Now, Sonorities Festival of New Music, Homecoming Music Festival (Moscow).
Together with his own 12 -piece ensemble (BBC Radio 3 music award winners) he has toured extensively throughout USA, Russia, France, Portugal, Germany, Scotland, Malta, Cyrus, Poland, Scotland, Ireland, England, Belgium, and the Netherlands and has appeared at some of the world’s leading international music festivals/venues including several appearances at the Bath International Music Festival (UK), Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank (London,UK), Gulbenkian Institute (Portugal) , Washington National Library of Congress (USA), Ouest Nord Ouest Festival, (France), Glasgow International Festival (UK), Kościół Św. Jana, Gdańsk (Poland), Festival d'été de Valence (France), Novgorod Municipal Theatre (Russia), Festival Sous les Pommiers, (France) Homecoming Festival (Russia), Dublin Festival (Ireland), Moving on Music Festival (UK), Sonorities Festival of New Music (UK) and The International House of Music (Moscow, Russia).

For the last four years he has been the Associate Composer with the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast and is currently Visiting Professor of Creative Arts at the University of Ulster. 
Brian has also collaborated with and written for some of the worlds most internationally established artists across many different genres including Seamus Heaney (poet), 4-mality percussion ensemble, Joanna MacGregor (piano), Billy Jenkins (guitar), Keith Tippet (piano), Paul Dunmall (saxophone/reeds), Roman Mints (violin), Matthew Bourne (piano), David Holmes, Snow Patrol, Duke Special, Keiji Haino (guitar), Joe Morris (guitar), LAU (BBC Folk award winners) as well as film makers, sculptors and animators including Eduard Bersudsky, Jari Neimenin, Joel Simon, John McCluskey and John Mcilduff.
He has won a number of awards for his work including a British Composers Award for Opera, BBC Radio 3 Jazz award for best new work, Major Individual Artist Award (Arts Council of Northern Ireland), First Trust/University of Ulster Distinquished Graduate Award, the MCPS Joyce Dixey Award for Composition and the Bass Ireland Award. Recently his opera Shelter Me form the Rain won the 2011 Irish Allianz Arts and Business Award for “best use of creativity in the community” and his large scale children’s oratorio Rain Falling Up was shortlisted for a 2011 British Composers Awards.  The junk opera Postcards from Dumbworld was also shortlisted for a 2011 Irish Times Theatre Award. 
Last year together with writer/director John Mcilduff he was awarded the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Artist Taking the Lead award for the enormous sonic installation Nest. Brian also recently completed the score to John McIlduff’s debut feature film Behold the Lamb as well as the short film opera: To Do List. 
His recent orchestral works have included:
Strange Attractors (40’) for orchestra and LAU commissioned by the Sage Gateshaed/ PRS foundation; My cow’s not pretty, but it’s pretty to me - recorded for BBC Radio 3 Hear and Now performed by the Ulster Orchestra and Praise aloud the trees for double orchestra and choir, a collaboration with Nobel laureate poet Seamus Heaney commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and premiered by the Ulster Orchestra/RTE Concert Orchestras and Horizon voices in Belfast 4 March 2012
He is currently working on Nest (60’): a multi media installation for symphony orchestra, chorus, sonic processing, 5000 objects and film (commissioned by London 2012 Festival); an opera with writer Owen McCafferty (commissioned by  Northern Ireland Opera) and a violin concerto for violinist Darragh Morgan (commissioned by the RTE National Symphony Orchestra). 

His latest 8 - piece ensemble Melonhead makes its debut appearance at the Moving on Music festival in March 2012.




Writing music I want to listen to. Drop a note or like 😊💕

Scott Allen Miller is a composer, educator, and bassist in New York, NY. His visceral music is concerned with memory, thought, and the passage of time, expressed through unconventional performance techniques, evocative microtonal harmonies, and a constantly-evolving approach to timbre and melody. Whether writing instrumental or vocal music for forces large or small, a primary concern is to establish a sound world unique to each composition. Miller has recently been commissioned by the Baltimore Classical Guitar Society, Western Connecticut Youth Orchestra, Occasional Symphony, Nebula Ensemble, and Omnibus Ensemble. 

Miller currently studies with Jason Eckardt as a Ph.D. student at The CUNY Graduate Center. He graduated from the Peabody Conservatory in 2015 where he studied with Kevin Puts, earning Master of Music degrees in composition and music theory pedagogy. Previously, Miller studied composition and double bass at SUNY Fredonia where he received a Bachelor of Music degree through his work with bassist Harry Jacobson and composers Robert Deemer, Karl Boelter, and Sean Doyle. As a Composition Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School in 2016, Miller had the privilege of studying with Christopher Theofanidis and Stephen Hartke, as well as participating in masterclasses and brief lessons with Kaija Saariaho, Ted Hearne, Sean Shepherd, Donald Crocket, and Timo Andres. Other summer programs include the Atlantic Music Festival (2018) and the Charlotte New Music Festival (2013). Additional teachers with whom Miller has taken lessons and participated in masterclasses include Nils Vigeland, Amy Beth Kirsten, David Ludwig, Christopher Dobrian, Pierre Jalbert, Richard Danielpour, Zhou Long, George Tsontakis, Christopher Rouse, Michael Hersch, Daron Hagon, Paul Colman, Marc Mellits, and Lansing McLoskey. Recent awards include the 2015 Macht Orchestral Composition Competition for Pillars, erased and the 2013 Ethos Laureate Prize for his chamber opera Randall’s Leaf. Miller was a Finalist in the 2016 BMI Student Composers Awards and received an Honorable Mention from the 2016 Minnesota Composer’s Institute. 

Miller has taught music theory, form and analysis, ear training, and composition at the Peabody Preparatory, Carroll Community College, and as a private tutor. He is currently an Adjunct Lecturer at CUNY College of Staten Island where he teaches musicianship, harmony, and counterpoint.

Myroslav Trofymuk – Junior aka AЙKTRONER, Master of Classical Philology (Lviv National University) and Digital Marketing (University of Information technology and Management / Rzeszow / Poland) photographer, designer, musician, writer, translator. Founder of the Zemla.Studio and the HOMEPLAYING music & social project.
Engaged in making music since 2004. Musical interests are to be described as combination of improvised electronic music, with some avantgarde academic experiments, sometimes with ambient neoclassical mood, abstract textures with plunderphonics from Ukrainian traditional music, with concrete IDM'ish or dub techno finish. The important component in his musical compositions is experimenting with ambient sounds and human voices.
In 2013, he debuted with the ZONA project, based on dark ambient and Oksana Zabuzhko’s texts.
In 2014, within the HOMEPLAYING project and in collaboration with the artist Yulia Bugaeva, he initiated the City’s Districts Lviv project, a music and visual presentation of the Lviv City. Curated by Myroslav Trofymuk impro meeting sessions ХАТНЄГРАННЯ were happening in Lviv between 2013 and 2018 and the last 99’ session from 2019 was published on Polish independent label Audiomat.
In 2015, Myroslav organized the First International Forum of Independent Initiatives HOMEPLAYING. KITCHEN for the exchange of experience between European (including Polish and Ukrainian) grassroots initiatives. Key figures of Warsaw, Kyiv, Ternopil, Luhansk, Dnipro and Lviv experimental music scenes took part at the event.
In 2017 took part in the Gaude Polonia scholarship program, where initiated his ongoing research and artistic project [IN]DEPENDENCE. Myroslav is working as a graphic designer / marketing consulting specialist with Lviv Philharmonic Hall, INSO-Lviv Orchestra and Lviv Unesco City of Literature Office. He is related to some NGOs in Lviv, such as NURT and FREDRA61. He was co-organising public events with Polish initiative TRZECIA FALA, polish cassette label PIONIERSKA REC., related to Krakow based Music Academy and Krakow Academy of Arts and AudioArt Festival.
Between 2017-2019 Myroslav is taking part at LWOWRO program - Cooperation for Cultural managers from Lviv and Wroclaw. He continued his research of grassroots initiatives in Poland and Ukraine, making interviews with independent publishers, culture managers and CEO of independent businesses.
During 2020-2021 shoots two documentaries PORTRETACIYA, about painter Borys Firtsak and HABITAT, about Vasyl Deresh, the first researcher of Stilsko hill-fort.
Starting 2022 author of CENTRUM MUNDI audio show at Polish Radio for Ukraine, show which is continuing researching the contemporary music scene in Ukraine and Poland.
His diptych album SON/BABYLON XII was being published between 2022-2023 on Zemla.Studio

DJ of Vocal Fry, a radio program focusing on offbeat vocal techniques of all kinds, from avant garde art music to beatboxing to eefin' to kecak to khoomei to konnakol to lilting to yodels. Currently on hiatus but binge past seasons at http://wfmu.org/playlists/VF

Also posting original recording from my bands and remixes I've made over the years.

Bassist, composer, improviser, experimenter