Last Saturday I performed with AM/PM at Metro Gallery in Baltimore. We played a really fun program focused on pieces that use prerecorded electronics:
Program:
Thom Limbert: Numbers/Dates
Kati Agócs: Hymn
Jacob Ter Veldhuis: Heartbreakers
Matthew Burtner: Incantation S4=X
Paul Leary: “I Have A Past Life Memory From The War That Blew The Fifth Planet Into The Asteroid Belt” and other stories from AM Radio
Check out Megan Ihnen’s blog post about the event.
Last Wednesday I gave a masterclass in Duxbury, MA as part of my Emerging Voices Project kick-off week. Elisabeth Halliday was supposed to join me, but she was very sick that day and had to miss out on the fun. I met with students from Duxbury High School’s Wind Ensemble at the Performing Arts Center across the street from their school. I’m a graduate from DHS and it was great to be back supporting the amazing music program there!
I spent the class period talking about my experiences working with composers, contemporary techniques, using electronics and processing, and improvisation. For examples, I performed snippets from pieces by Kati Agócs, Kevin Clark, Paul Leary, John Anthony Lennon and had several students perform Ryan Krause’s separate piece(s. At the end I answered questions about life as a musician. It was a fun time!
Project site: http://emergingvoicesproject.blogspot.com/
Support the project: http://kck.st/iel2KP
I’ve worked with Paul Leary several times over the last few years and finally got around to interviewing him. My group AM/PM has performed his sax quartet “I Have a Past Life Memory of the War that Blew the Fifth Planet into the Asteroid Belt”, and other stories from AM Radio several times and I commissioned him to write Number Stations which I premiered earlier this year at The Stone.
Paul Leary (b. 1974) is currently a PhD candidate at Duke University. His compositions involve pop and hip-hop influences, choral music, computer generated tape parts, found sound, and a healthy interest in the occult. Paul’s music has been selected as a finalist at the International Computer Music Conference (Copenhagen, Denmark 2007), winner of the Look & Listen call for scores (NYC, 2008), and has been performed in Munich, Prague, Dresden, the Florida State New Music Festival, the Ball State New Music Festival, the Army Band International Saxophone Symposium, the Denison New Music Festival, and at the Mather Dance Center in Cleveland, Oh. Currently, he is collaborating with Salt Lake City artist Amy Caron on a art installation at Duke University. You learn/hear more at his website.
Zach – What composers or musicians have inspired you?
Paul – The music that affects me most is popular music. I love genres that use lots of electronics like drum and bass, techno, and trip hop. My favorite artist right now would probably have to be Imogen Heap. Classical influences include Arvo Pärt, Gorecki, Stravinsky, Bartok, Adams, and Britten to name a few.
O Nata Lux by Paul Leary
Zach – You’ve written Concerto for Trumpet and Turntables and O Nata Lux, a choir piece with Latin text. What draws you do these very different styles? Do you always use non-classical styles with electronics and classical styles with acoustic pieces?
Paul – So far that’s been the case. But it’s partly just out of the opportunities that have presented themselves to me. I can’t ever imagine writing a piece for chorus that is inspired by hip-hop, but I could definitely write an instrumental piece that is more pensive and quite like O Nata Lux. I’d love to write a choral piece with electronics, but it would be more in the early music/Arvo Pärt style like my choral music.