Name: *A*R**T Act by Vid Smooke
Duration: 11 min
Description: *A*R**T Act, a setting of an erasure poem created by redacting elements from Article I of the PATRIOT Act, as performed by Volti Choir on March 8, 2014. Composed by Vid Smooke. Copyright © 2014 by Vid Smooke. All rights reserved.

*A*R**T Act, a setting of an erasure poem created by redacting elements from Article I of the PATRIOT Act, as performed by Volti Choir on March 8, 2014. Composed by Vid Smooke. Copyright © 2014 by Vid Smooke. All rights reserved.

*A*R**T Act

THIS IS WHY PEOPLE O.D. ON PILLS (2004)

Most poems go unread (2016)
performed by the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble conducted by Tim Weiss on June 29th, 2016 at the Aspen Music Festival and School

for septet: flute, clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, viola, cello

Tim Weiss, conductor
Raoul Cho, flute
Juan Gabriel Olivares, clarinet
Tengku Irfan, piano
Hannah Weaver, Percussion
Soohee Min, violin
Andrew Stock, viola
Richard Narroway, cello

Score: https://issuu.com/edmundscottmiller/docs/miller_-most_poems-_11x14_full_scor

Program Note:
Written for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble in 2016, Most poems is a concise work that employs rich sonorities and complex textures. As a short opening statement is repeated and extended, the listener is able to examine the idea ever more closely, like viewing a sculpture through numerous snapshots. The fractured glimpses grow longer as new musical layers appear, eventually disintegrating and giving way to a lush conclusion. The title of the work refers to the unfathomable amount of beauty that surrounds us every day, which most of us never notice, and none of us can appreciate in its entirety. But if we look and listen in earnest, perhaps we can embody some of that poetry and reflect it back into the world.

Most poems go unread (ACE, live 2016)

Strands (for four violas)

Soprano - Tony Arnold
Flute - Kenneth J. Cox
Viola - Adam Cordle
Guitar - Devin Sherman

New Music on the Point - June 16th, 2017 (live)

To the Two Fates

F. KÖKSAL In par _ en _ thesis (2016), Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, dir. Julien Masmondet

Performed by the Encore Wind Ensemble, directed by Jerry Luckhardt

Dream Machine (Encore Wind Ensemble)

So Percussion giving the world premiere of "Apart" at Dartmouth University, NH -April 20th, 2012.

Apart

Performed live on October 13, 2018 at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal

Transgenic fields, 10-13-18

Transgenic fields, dusk by David Smooke

A Velvet Underground inspired pile of guitar notes
for Dither Electric Guitar Quartet
off their eponymous album on Henceforth Records

Tongue of Thorns

A piece for bagpipe and electronics inspired by the shofar service in Jewish High Holidays.

Tekiah

ComposerVid Smooke (b. 1969) currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland, where they are Professor of Music Theory, and teach rock music history and music composition at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, and were the faculty advisor for Peabody’s new music ensemble Now Here This. The Washington Post claims that “Smooke has some of the most uninhibited brain cells around” and describes their music as “superb […] a kaleidoscopic sonic universe where anything could happen”; the Baltimore Sun adds that it is a “fascinating experience in sound and content […] exceedingly imaginative [and] complex.” Their portrait CD, Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death was released in 2016 by New Focus Recordings and praised by the San Francisco Chronicle as “cast[ing] an eerie, unsettling spell, with sounds as haunting and strange as they are beautiful.” Their honors include the 2016 Johns Hopkins Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award, and those from the Maryland State Arts Council, the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, BMI, the National Association of Composers USA, the MacDowell Colony, Yellow Barn, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Willapa Bay AIR, and the Ragdale Foundation. They earned an M.M. from the Peabody Conservatory, a B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where they received the Century Fellowship, the highest fellowship offered by the Humanities Division. Their composition teachers have included Shulamit Ran, David Rakowski, Robert Hall Lewis, and Richard Wernick. In addition to these composition activities, Vid performs on toy piano with the support of Schoenhut toy pianos, has written extensively for NewMusicBox, the online magazine of the New Music USA, and produces songs under the name Video Out. Previously they served on the faculties of Ohio University, the Chicago College of Performing Arts of Roosevelt University, the Merit School of Music, and the University of Chicago.

AR**T Act

Vid Smooke

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