Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V0Jk6etzw8

soprano saxophone: Julian Velasco
alto saxophone: Joe Connor
tenor saxophone: Chris Forbes
baritone saxophone: David Schreck

written: 2019-2020
recorded May 20th, 2021 at Evanston SPACE

minus (2020, for saxophone quartet and electronics)

Episode 171 of ADJ•ective New Music's podcast, Lexical Tones. Robert McClure interviews composer, performer, and designer Douglas McCausland. https://www.douglas-mccausland.net

Visit www.adjectivenewmusic.com for more information about ADJ•ective New Music, the ADJ•ective Composers' Collective, and Lexical Tones.

171 - Douglas McCausland

rapid change, anxiety, and exhaustion. 

ScoreFollower video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMoZCoctIGU

cello - Seth Parker Woods
Recorded at Northwestern University in November of  2021.

STRIX (2021, for cello and electronics)

Written in 2019, ISOLATE was composed as the first piece written exclusively for performance with my handmade electronics performance interface Master Hand, also known as “Franky”.

In this work I am exploring compositional concepts such as performer agency in live electronic music, the use of harshly juxtaposed sonic elements, complex / nested gestural materials, and an investigation of density and texture in higher-order ambisonics. In regards to the sounds themselves, the materials used to create this composition are widely varied and range from closely recorded vocal samples (breath, vocal fry, and so on) to more intense methods of digital synthesis such as granular synthesis and Tom Mudd’s gutter synthesis. The result of all of these factors is a work which inhabits both periods of near stasis and the highly chaotic, in which musical materials and gestures continuously fracture and constellate. ISOLATE is presented in mixed-order ambisonics; many elements are generated in real- time, which are diffused and output natively in fifth-order ambisonics. Meanwhile, there are fixed-media cues which, using Master Hand are further manipulated and diffused in first-order ambisonics.

In regards to the interface itself, “Franky” is a real-time electronics performance interface developed for implementation with Max/MSP and Wekinator. Originally designed as a spin on the core design concepts of video game controllers, such as the failed Nintendo Power Glove, this interface makes use of a specially made glove and exoskeleton which places five small 2-axis control sticks at the user’s fingertips, alongside of a ribbon sensor and a 3-axis gyroscope. With some practice, this type of interface allows for nuanced control over various parameters in a performance system. Beyond the sensors and interface, this system is further augmented both by carefully tuned mappings, and by the implementation of Wekinator as a platform for building gesture recognition using machine learning. This build of the interface is the second iteration in what is currently planned as an ongoing project.

ISOLATE (2019) // Binaural Audio

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zeVTkOYe-E&t

a structured improvisation composed for the experimental duo: MOUTHS 
(Elliott Lupp and Kristopher Bendrick)

Commissioned by: ASCAP/SEAMUS

erase-repeat (2020, for E. Guitar, Viola, and Live/Fixed Electronics)

Out from Under (composition)

Vox and live processed electronics
Composed by Brian Riordan 
https://www.brianriordanmusic.com/
Commissioned and performed by Anna Elder

Succubus by Brian Riordan

commissioned by and written for Collective LoveMusic as part of their "Premieres in Private Places" series.

for video, tape, and flexible ensemble

for visual see this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVfJaQL5ohw&ab_channel=KelleySheehan


program notes:
What are brainzaps? You might also hear them referred to as “brain shocks,” “brain flips,” or “brain shivers.” Often described as feeling like brief electric jolts to the head that sometimes radiate to other body parts. Others describe it as feeling like the brain is briefly shivering. Not a painful sensation but certainly a jolt to the system. ​

BrainZaps (2020) for flexible ensemble, tape, and video

electric guitar, max msp, wekinator 

Improvising on electric guitar. All sounds come from max msp which has been trained using machine learning on open guitar strings and various pitches. Max Msp/wekinator is listening to e. gtr and responding as it was trained to do. This makes for an interesting improvisation enviroment.

Slightly more info here: https://www.kelleysheehan.com/othermachines

Other Machines

O nobilissima viriditas is a poem written by Hildegard of Bingen, and one of her most frequently set texts. The text exploits one of Hildegard's favorite pieces of imagery - connecting the fresh, green life of nature and the sun's warmth to the Holy Trinity in Christianity. This setting explores the phonemes, or the different sounds that set words apart from one another, of Barbara Newman's English translation. The different sounds of the text can be heard transitioning between the live vocal part and the germinal material of the electronics.

Most noble evergreen
with your roots in the sun:
you shine in the cloudless
sky of a sphere
no earthly eminence can grasp,
enfolded in the clasp
of ministries divine.
You blush like the dawn,
you burn like a flame of the sun.
(Hildegard of Bingen, trans. Barbara Newman)

O Nobilissima Viriditas

O nobilissima viriditas

Douglas McCausland is a composer / performer, sound designer, and digital artist whose visceral and often chaotic works explore the extremes of sound, technology, and the digital medium.

As an artist, he researches and leverages the intersections of numerous technologies and creative practices, such as real-time electronic music performance with purpose-built interfaces, spatial audio, interactive systems, intermedia art, musical applications of machine-learning, experimental sound design, and hardware-hacking.

Described as “Tremendously powerful, dark, and sometimes terrifying…” (SEAMUS) and “Ruthlessly visceral…” (The Wire), his works have been performed internationally, including features at Sonorities, SEAMUS, the San Francisco Tape Music Festival, MISE-EN Music Festival, Klingt Gut!, Sounds Like THIS!, NYCEMF, Sonicscape, and Ars Electronica.  Recent collaborations include artists such as bassist Aleksander Gabryś, cellist Seth Parker Woods, the Quasar Saxophone Quartet, the TAK Ensemble, and vocal ensemble Variant 6.  His work is available through various online platforms, and on SEAMUS, Plyta Z Audiomatu, and Jikken Records.

Recent honors include an award of distinction in the 2021 Prix Ars Electronica for his piece “Convergence”, winning 1st-Prize in the 2021 ASCAP/SEAMUS commission competition, the gold-prize award for “contemporary computer music” in the Verband Deutscher Tonmeister Student 3D Audio Production Competition, and being awarded the runner-up nomination for the International Confederation of Electroacoustic Music's 2019 CIME Prix. 

Douglas is currently the Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) Studio Manager at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.  He holds a DMA in music composition from Stanford University, where he studied with Chris Chafe, Patricia Alessandrini, Jaroslaw Kapuscinski, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, and Mark Applebaum.  He additionally holds a MSc in Digital Composition and Performance from the University of Edinburgh, a MM in Music Composition from Michigan State University, and a BM in Music Composition, Saxophone Performance, and Music Education from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.