Biography

Influences

some composers my age I like

Jenny Olivia Johnson writes powerful, sometimes overwhelmingly expressive music; Nomi Epstein; Moon Young Ha; Sebastian Armoza brings great energy to the music that he writes; Jonathan Mitchell, who is a composer and radio producer - typically both at once; Timo Andres; Angelica Negron; Casey Hale knows something about rhythm; Samuel Andreyev; I didn't know that Nick Patterson was a composer while I worked for him at the Columia Music library, but we seem to have a tremendous amount in common; Jessica Feldman, more a sound artist than a composer; Monica Lynn; Nick Norton, the rare modernist; Ellen Lindquist; Doug Geers, blessed with the perfect name for computer music; Jessica Rudman; Darcy James Argue; Paula Matthusen writes jewelboxes; David Hernandez Ramos, Ronen Landa, in film and concert; Phil Schuessler; Lisa Coons

some organizations that I like

some performers I like, and others

blogs, music and otherwise, in no particular order, ever-growing

Strange Maps; The Rambler; therestisnoise; Soho the Dog; Megan V Williams; Nico Muhly; Daniel Stephen Johnson; coloursofbohemia; detritus reviewed; Iron Tongue (fellowstonybrookalum); about sidewalk culture in the Twin Cities, by my inverse (urban theorist by day, musician by night); Judd Greenstein; Tina Antolini; Deceptively Simple; Mark Adamo; Pierre de Brun, architect

me, elsewhere

myspace, American Composers Forum, American Music Center

some "masters" whom I've learned a lot from

  • As I look forward as a composer, I find that I return more and more often to Morton Feldman’s music. When I first heard, years ago, the stillness of The Viola in My Life, it completely reorganized the way I thought about music. It came in a rush that music can be stunning, yet slow and quiet, without surface features.
  • The French are kind of obsessed with what they call "Repetitive Music" (what Americans tend to call Minimalism) but insist on looking at it from the outside. I hear more than my share of statements like "your piece, it is certainly influenced by Repetitive Music." But the joke's on them - I got almost everything that sounds "repetitive" from Igor Stravinsky.
  • Which is not to say that I haven't taken from Steve Reich. Music for 18 Musicians is one of the few pieces that have nearly made me break down because of its combination of structural integrity and expressive power.
  • My favorite composer remains J. Brahms. The way he generates huge works out of tiny means, the way he integrates form and content - not to mention writes incredibly lyrical and emotional music - these boggle my mind. (His third symphony is another of those pieces that put me on the verge of a breakdown.)
  • Gyorgy Ligeti, who wasn't particularly an "innovator," but everything he did - be it 12-tone, postmodern, based on folk music, fluxus, etc - is better than what his more-revolutionary contemporaries did with the same techniques/forms/styles/what-have-you. Why is it better? His melodic ear. Most everything he wrote, but especially pre-1960 and post-mid-70s, contains something attractively hummable. To me, this why his work out-shines so many others of his aesthetic and generation.
  • I'll call them tonecolorists - to me particularly George Crumb, Berio, and Scelsi. Crumb's textures - and the way he uses them the same way some people use harmony - is also instructive. Scelsi takes it a step further and uses color and harmony as the same thing. Berio, I imagine, isn't everyone's idea of a tonecolorist, but his work feels to me particularly painterly.

 
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