For 'Internet Musicians: Postminimal, Totalist, etc.'

Unavoidable Intrusions

 
"I'm not like the avant-garde artist who is always concerned about being new and original," he said. "I have a lot of fun with cliches and archetypal musical elements, no matter where they come from, whether it's Rock-and-Roll or Jazz or a Beethoven String Quartet.
I mean, I'm not afraid to go back and use that material in a way that is somewhat unexpected and new. But my credo is not to be original in everything I do. I like dipping back and taking things we've heard before and putting them in a new set of clothes, or maybe placing them in a new room."
- Interview in the Orange County Register (1989)

Steve Moshier is a composer and performer whose work encompasses theatre, dance, the concert stage, and the internet. From its inception in 1979 until its demise in 1991 he was co-founder, performer, and composer of over 30 compositions for the chamber music ensemble Cartesian Reunion Memorial Orchestra. In 1989 he was named honorary “Artistic Associate – Composer” at the Los Angeles Theater Center under the direction of producers Bill Bushnell and Diane White. Awards for music composition include the L.A. Weekly Theater Critics’ Award, the late Drama-Logue Awards and, having been nominated six times, the Lester Horton Dance Award in 1996. Besides composing award-winning music for productions at the Los Angeles Theater Center, Berkeley Repertory Theater, and the Laguna Playhouse, he has collaborated with performance artists John Fleck, Anna Homler, Keith Antar Mason and the Hittite Empire, as well as, choreographers Karen Goodman, Rudy Perez, Hae Kyung Lee, Winifred R. Harris and, most recently, Heidi Duckler . His work has been performed in international festivals that included the Soho Arts Festival in New York, the Belluard Bollwerk International (BBI) Festival in Fribourg, Switzerland, University of Mainz, Germany, Festspielhaus Hellerau, the Tanzwoche Festival in Dresden, Germany, and the ChangMu International Dance Festival.

“It is rich, always beautiful, intelligent, “humane” , sometimes sweet, sometimes aggressive, expresses a whole lot of emotions but always in a “contained” way in one word it reflects the totality of life.”
- Composer Adam Kondor, the late ‘NetNewMusic’ discussion (2009) “The Music of Steve Moshier”

“Moshier often builds minimalist tension with a melody of about four notes, taking its variations into seductively intense territory”
– Jennifer Fisher, LA Times

“Moshier’s score veered towards melody – Bach-like inventions”
- Victoria Looseleaf, LA Times

“Bold and Intuitive”
- Lewis Segal, LA Times