This is something between an acousmatic piece and an audio essay, telling the story of my friend Bradley Young and my attempt to form a jazz duo.  The saxophone playing is all Bradley.  The oafish vocal noises are... ugh... hmm... yeah... all me.    

Whatever They Were First (September 2014 / January 2016)

some violins, some violas, some cellos, some washing machine

Domestic Instruments (2016) Stereo Mixdown

Sung by the amazing Dorothea Hayley!  This is a Kyrie about what the title says it's about: lordship.  Yeeess it's one of those dreaded pieces of 'political concert music' your elders, teachers and aesthetic gods warned you about.

Judgement: commence!

Kyrie

Recorded as part of the 2016 Toronto Creative Music Lab at 918 Bathurst, Toronto, June 2016.  Jacob Armstrong on soprano saxophone, Julia Lin on Fender Rhodes, Sara Constant on piccolo...

TCML Concert 19Jun2016

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Why--, words and music by me, performance by ensemble Erato as part of Vancouver's 2017 Sonic Boom festival.

Why--

Based on folk tunes and anthems.  Performed by Beatrice de Trenqualye at the Canadian Music Centre, Vancouver.

Assimilations

Five movements, one title taken from a line from each of Sarah Kane's plays.  Out of the ground grow daffodils.  They completely cover the stage.  Before I could adore all of you, I adored the parts of you that I could see.  It starts to rain, coming through the roof.  If only there had been more moments like this.  Can I stay?

100, 91, 84, 81, 72, 69, 58, 44, 37, 38, 42, 21, 28, 12, 7 [or "Flowers"]

For mechatronically-played marimba, piano and percussion.  Premiered at Simon Fraser University's Djavid Mowafaghian World Art Centre.

Feral Instruments

Premiered by the Ecstatic Waves ensemble in a warehouse in Vancouver in June 2017.  The score is a bunch of notes, hyperlinks and assorted miscellany used to guide the performers through the imagery of a post-apocalyptic world.  I walked around with title cards to signal the transitions between movements, and wrote notes live to the performers with sharpie and scrap paper.

Follow Turtle Chase Leaf (2017)

a style i've been chasing for a while, an acousmatic music that reaches out into the infinite world of audio and pulls in the words i want to mutter, a musical fanfiction, junction between worlds, place of remix passed through by Plexure and Wugazi, Montreal-school wooshbangery, “acousmatic expressionism,” urban soundscape-mancy, cinema for the ears winding toward the dreamland no vision will vision

taste / oh yeah, i guess

Instrumental and electroacoustic composer, improviser and enthusiastic maker of sounds.

Matt Horrigan

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