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For the large ensemble Decisive Instant, I composed Zusammengehorigkeitsgefuhl (2013) and Get Groucho (2015),

two structured improvisations with notated portions beginning and ending the pieces.  The recordings here are Sibelius notation app playback.

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Conducting the Los Angeles-based ensemble Decisive Instant

in Zusammengehorigkeitsgefuhl     Electric Lodge, Venice, 2013

The group is directed by Jeff Schwartz and Charles Sharp

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Zusammengehorigkeitsfuhl: Finale
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Get Groucho: the Preludes
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Conceptual score for  Get Groucho,

composed for Decisive Instant

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Bandcamp Albums

The Granary is a four track, 2017 album featuring

duets with saxophonist Alexander Vogel

Six Circles is a structured improvisation for large ensemble,

composed for Surrealestate in 1998 and

performed here by Decisive Instant in 2012.

The piece was included in the 2000 album Contrafactum.

Graphic score of Six Circles (1998)

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Phantomwise,  an eleven track, 2012  album featuring  alternating trios with

Emily Hay (flute/voice)/Tom Steck (drums)  &  Gustavo Aguilar (drums)/ Cristian Amigo (guitar)

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 Select works of structured improvisation

Rain Station Diaries                     2017, solo guitar/effects

Get Groucho                                   2014 (for Decisive Instant)

Zusammengehorigkeitsgefuhl      2013 (for Decisive Instant)

Curfew                                             2006 (for Soundwalk/Long Beach)

13+7 plus one                                  2006 (for Edgemar/Santa Monica)

The Morton Feldman Kitchen      2006,  indeterminate

Music for Water, Tree, Stone        2003, digital soundscape

Like a Zebra Toward the Islands of Yesterday      

solo percussion          2001

Recorded & co-authored by Gustavo Aguilar

on his CD Looking for Aztlan (Acoustic Levitation , 2001)

Six Circles: In Memory of Alfred Schnittke     1999

                  Select Recordings

Phantomwise     (Acoustic Levitation Records, 2012)  

        with Emily Hay, Tom Steck, Gustavo Aguilar, Cristian Amigo

Aporias                (Surrealestate/ on Acoustic Levitation Records, 2011)

Lacunae               (Surrealestate/ on Acoustic Levitation Records, 2010)

Contrafactum     (Surrealestate/ on Acoustic Levitation Records, 2000).

Members of Surrealestate appearing on the CDs Aporias and Lacunae:

Jeff Schwartz (bass), Charles Sharp (winds), Ken Luey (winds), Bruce Friedman (trumpet),

David Martinelli, (drum/percussion), Jonathon Grasse (guitar)

Listen to the Lacunae track "I Still Dream of Nana," featuring David Martinelli (drums);

Bruce Friedman (trp);  Charles Sharp (perc); and myself on guitar

Read my and Jeff Schwartz' liner notes for Lacunae and Aporias CDs by Surrealestate

Themes of Literacy and Denial  for solo percussionist and digital soundscape (2003)

Themes of Literacy and Denial, part 3.mp
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In 2002-2003, percussionist Don Nichols and I worked on creating a set of approaches to structuring an improvisation map for him to duet with a digital soundscape I had created at UC Santa Cruz in 1995. These sounds were produced by capturing 'aliasing' phenomena from a Yamaha DX7. I was now faculty at UCLA, and Don was completing his studies at UC San Diego, where I visited him to go over fine details of the piece. He had come up with brilliant ideas, and I created a graphic score with the timings of the "tape" music's ebb and flow: the work is full of sonic points of arrival.

 

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