Written for and performed by Stacey Mastrian, soprano, and Scott Crowne, piano.

Portrait in Song: a song cycle for soprano and piano is both a commentary on and a participation in the tradition of art song.  From the French “mélodie” to the German “Lied,” art song has long been the cornerstone of vocal chamber music, and like anything with such longevity, its tradition is ripe with clichés and assumptions both with regard to musicality and performance – this is where I come in…

Portrait in Song (2007) a song cycle for soprano and piano

We are very pleased to release a live audio of our set at the Rock and Roll Hotel on July 24th, 2015.  Thanks to Stephen Lilly and Steve Wanna for the amazing audio recording.  Turn it up!

Savior

Low End String Quartet improvising live in studio

LESQ: Improvisation

E.B. a 4 is an attempt to compose an abstract structure that can then be realized by almost any ensemble of pitched instruments and/or vocalists.  The abstracted score details pitch class, pitch and rhythmic density, and spatial movement for four performers. Everything else (timbre, rhythm, etc.) is the subject of improvisation.  E.B. a 4 was inspired by the innovative work of the late Earle Brown, and like many of his scores, E.B. a 4 uses proportional notation.  However, instead of each system lasting a predetermined length of time, the temporal scope of the piece is controlled by the performers’ physical movements—durations are dependent upon how long it takes performers to walk between specified points in the hall. 

E.B. a 4 (2002) for any four instruments

Rodney Richardson, guitar
Will Rast, organ
Larry Ferguson, drums

Rodney Richardson Trio: "4 to 6"

statics is a non-standard sound synthesis program that uses functional iteration to both generate sound events and organize them temporally.  Since statics was designed by a composer with musical goals in mind, the program is itself is a collection of compositional decisions.  Furthermore, the unique timbres and structures created by statics are a direct result of these decisions.  

statics creates sonic events by working abstractly with the digital sample (the basic unit of computer sound)—generating and organizing individual samples algorithmically through the iteration of a nonlinear map, i.e. functional iteration.  All sonic events (which range from pitched material to percussive impulses), perceived gestures, and even the very structure of the piece emerge from the concatenation of samples as determined by functional iteration.  Composition is thus redefined as software design and the selection musically viable renderings from the program’s output.  

All of the compositions realized with statics are constructed from multiple layers.  Each layer is organized around a similar attractor consisting of twenty values.  Likewise, the seed values for each layer are close to, if not exactly, identical, making the resulting sonic output also similar.  The layers are made to vary slight by using a different constant value in the iterated map, thus creating a unique attractor for each layer.  In cyclian, the start times of the five layers are staggered and the durations are adjusted accordingly, so that each subsequent entry is a more compressed version of the previous layer.


Savior

These Quiet Colours

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