wonder vibes !!   I live Seattle .. land of Alan Hovhaness... with his permission was working on a documentary of his life and music

Many Blessings James .... James Budinick...so glad to hear your awesome music!

I live in Seattle ...land of Alan Hovhaness who gave permission to make a video documantary of his life and music..looking forward to listening to all that you have posted hear!!!

A movement from the piano trio Triptick. Recorded by Cristina Buciu, David LeDoux, and Steven Heyman for the Society for New Music. Released on Innova Records, 2010

Center (Stretch Steel)

This is the live version of "Pilot," performed by P. Lucy McVeigh, Alec Schumacker, Andrew Delclos, Paul Schwartz, and Jenny Olivia Johnson in March 2013. The studio version will be available soon on my upcoming solo album, "Don't Look Back"!

“Pilot” is an amplified micro-oratorio for soprano, tenor, bassoon, piano, electronics, and video. I became inspired to compose this piece after reading accounts of the Andes plane crash disaster of 1972. I was struck especially by the religious convictions of the young survivors, who attribute their salvation to divine intervention, and who recall the grisly actions they had to take in order to survive—feeding on the bodies of the deceased, some of whom were once beloved friends—as a mysterious form of holy communion.

While “Pilot” is not directly about the Andes event, it is an emotional response to its themes of sacrifice, loss, religious faith, matrimonial devotion, and—by some accounts—the strange euphoria that can sometimes accompany imminent death.

Pilot (2012) - live version

I first encountered the poetry of Ciara Shuttleworth in The New Yorker, in November 2010. Her poem “Sestina” made an immediate impression on me, with its simplicity and depth of feeling. Ciara reimagines the traditional form f­or which her poem is named, compressing it – and the entire life cycle of a relationship – into six words, variously rotated. “Sestina” is at once intimate and epic; I tried to reflect that sensibility in this spare musical setting for voice and orchestra.

I am immensely grateful to the American Composers Orchestra (especially Artistic Director Derek Bermel and Music Director & Conductor George Manahan) for making Sestina part of the 2015 SONiC Festival, and to my friend Caroline Shaw for singing it. Caroline and the ACO premiered Sestina in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall on October 23, 2015.

“The grand finale in Carnegie Hall with ACO, titled “Orchestra Underground: 21st Firsts,” also revealed another highly original composer, Judah Adashi. His “Sestina” for voice (sung affectingly by Caroline Shaw) and orchestra (conducted by George Manahan) intoned a six-word poem by Ciara Shuttleworth. The score’s expertly crafted minimal elements, including Shaw’s unforced, limpid singing, matched the sparseness of the poetry. By means of a repeated modal scale, chordal patterns in the strings and delicate flourishes from the wind instruments, Adashi conveyed a sublimely drawn fragility." -Alexandra Ivanoff, Today's Zaman, October 2015

Sestina (2011)

Conrad Tao - piano

"there is no sleep so deep" takes its title from Samuel Beckett’s play "Footfalls."  The play consists primarily of an old woman obsessively pacing up and down the stage.  M, the protagonist, stops occasionally to recount a monologue of her slow withdrawal from life, and of her anguished attempts at self-assertion.  As the work progresses, she becomes increasingly more bent and more obscured in darkness, finally disappearing in the end.

The script of "Footfalls" opens with M calling to her mother.  When a voice offstage responds, M inquires if she was asleep.  “Deep asleep.  I heard you in my deep sleep.  There is no sleep so deep I would not hear you there.” I found that exchange very beautiful and it resonated with me long afterwards. 

"there is no sleep so deep" for piano engages with the text, imagery, and stage directions of "Footfalls" on various levels.  The most evident parallels are in the textures:  the driving sixteenth-note passages echo M’s obsessive footsteps, and the resonant repeated-note figures recall her counting to herself as she walks to and fro “one, two, three…” Harmonic and rhythmic ciphers derived from Beckett’s text operate beneath the surface of "there is no sleep so deep," but essentially the motivation behind the music is my grief over the death of my grandmother, Constance Dubose Jones, who passed away at the age of ninety-five last year.  This work is a tombeau for her and a reflection on my own emotional struggles with death and loss. 

"there is no sleep so deep" was written for Conrad Tao's residency at Duke University in March of 2016.

Sound Engineering credit Rick Nelson.

Photo Credit Nate Carpenter

there is no sleep so deep

Premiered at the Norfolk New Music Workshop on June 30th, 2017. Dedicated to the memory of Kevin Scheidt.

as stars scrape the universe (for "pierrot plus" ensemble)

Tiled Fields, whose name stems from a misreading of Joan Miró’s painting Tilled Fields, creates successive sections that obsessively build on the same material.

While writing Tiled Fields, I drew inspiration from Miró’s combination of a freely composed background with sharp figures neatly superimposed upon it, seen in such paintings as The Birth of the World, The Hunter, and Bleu ii. My work blends freely composed material that floats in the background, seen primarily in the strings and woodwinds, with more rigorous motives in the piano and double bass, both sharply attacking alongside several other instruments in fluctuating rhythmic patterns.

My musical inspiration stems from the Danish New Simplicity movement of the 1960s and 70s. This movement found renewed inspiration in simple, repetitive musical material, resisting the more modernist trends emerging from Germany during this time. These Danish composers create rhythmic processes that form the basis of their work. In Tiled Fields, I borrowed this method of rhythmic invention for the piano and double bass’s structure, but juxtaposed that against the freer material found in the rest of the orchestra.


Image: detail from Joan Miró's The Birth of the World

Tiled Fields

James Budinich is a Croatian-American composer writing music inspired by minimalism, Croatian folk traditions, and American popular music. An artist who welcomes collaboration in his process, he composes for performances, films, and installations, using both acoustic instruments and electronic sound design. 

Recent collaborations include new works for Kate Dreyfuss (semiconcerto for violin and electronics, 2024; White Stone for violin and electronics, 2019), Pigeonwing Dance (sound design for The Choreography of CRISPR, 2022; 5x8, 2021; Plexus: a work in knots, 2020; and Tensible, 2018), movement artist Waeli Wang (sound design for her spine, the mountains, 2023, and sunder: before sky and earth, 2024), and visual artist Mao Wei (Manual City, an installation for music boxes and projected images, 2020). 

He has worked with ensembles such as Ensemble Illyrica, Yarn/Wire, the Momenta Quartet, Ensemble Mise-En, F-PLUS, and the Raleigh Civic Chamber Orchestra. Recent performances include the Ear Taxi Festival, Pulsar Festival, Festival Mise-En, and others across the United States and Europe. His work has been supported by Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, the American Scandinavian Foundation, the Lois Roth Endowment, and the Charles and Joan Gross Family Foundation. 

James received a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Duke University in 2022, and was in residence at Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Academy of Music as a Fulbright Scholar in 2020-21. He currently serves as Lecturer in Composition and Music Creation Technologies at Binghamton University.

Tiled Fields

James Budinich

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JaiMa James (for Fun)

JaiMa James (for Fun)

JaiMa James (for Fun)

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