#Ferguson is a solo percussion work based upon Twitter feeds surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO on Aug. 9, 2014. The work has three characters: Michael Brown (tenor drum); Darren Wilson & the police (snare drum); the public response via Twitter (woodblocks). After Michael Brown was shot and killed by officer Darren Wilson, there were demonstrations and civil unrest. These demonstrations were met with police resistance and curfews. The shooting and following events underscore the racial disparities of the justice system.
In August and September 2014, #ferguson and other tweets pushed past 100,000 per day. By the time the piece premiered in February 2015, there were less than 10,000. Fading interest and mishandling of the situation by law enforcement and government officials leaves us not with resolution, but instead with questions. How can we construct positive changes after the shooting of Michael Brown? Has our political system (local, regional, state, and federal) opened any channels for dialogue surrounding racial profiling, or inequalities in the prison system? Or, have prejudices towards minorities, specifically towards African Americans, remained the status quo here in America?
I sincerely hope my last question is proven false.
Credits:
2.20.2015 concert performed by I-Jen Fang
For anyone wishing to perform #Ferguson, please contact me beforehand. All I ask is for an advance handshake, a performance recording, and a program. Here is the score.
On Feb. 10, 2015, I participated in Dartmouth’s Eyewash festival, a bi-weekly showcase of experimental film and music. I was able to present 45+ minutes of solo material, including live performances on the Wacom tablet using Kyma.
Set list: AUU (2010) – Wacom tablet & Kyma San Giovanni Elemosinario (2013) – film/music using Iannix & Kyma Smooch (2014) – Wacom tablet & Kyma Height of the War (2003) – from Sound Memorial for the Veterans of the Vietnam War HMW (2015) – Wacom tablet & Kyma #Carbonfeed (2014) – Twitter API, Max/MSP, Processing CDM (2015) – Gametrak, Wacom tablet & Kyma
Hope is the thing with feathers is based loosely on a poem by Emily Dickinson. The poem floated by at a timely moment, and the flute contains many of the sonic qualities expressed.
Surfaces uses the walls of the room as the score. Each surface is a movement, and every performance may be 1-6 movements in length. The objective is to play, and sonically reconstruct, the environment the performers are currently within.
The video is Null Set performing in the Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University on 10.04.2015 during their AfterSound exhibition, which featured works by John Cage, Paul DeMarinis, Caroline Record, Marina Rosenfeld, and others.
The image and recording below is the New Music Ensemble performing at The Bridge PAI in Charlottesville, VA, and thus the performance is a sonic construction of the surfaces of the venue. Here’s an image of the concert space (Mvt I is on left, Mvt II in back, Mvt III on right, Mvt IV up top, and Mvt V down below)
This is a performance video of AUU (for eMersion wireless sensing) at the 2014 Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, held at Georgia Tech. I performed as a finalist representing Chet Udell’s eMersion wireless sensing system (unleashemotion.com/). The eMersion system is now commercially available. In this performance, the eMersion wireless sensors control both the sound synthesis (Kyma) and DMX stage lights in real time. No foot switches or third party help.
Thank you to Chet Udell for allowing me the opportunity to represent eMotion Technologies, playing some of my own music using the eMersion wireless sensing technology.
Youngman / Overholt is a piece for piano and electronics, written in honor of my grandmother, Betty Jane Youngman Overholt, who passed away in early 2013. BJ performed the accordion and piano from a young age and had perfect pitch. Although she become completely deaf the last 20 years of her life, she taught herself to read lips, and she could still play classic tunes on the piano perfectly from muscle memory. Sadly, because of her hearing, my grandmother never could listen to the music I wrote for her, even while alive. The electronics for Youngman / Overholt are based on a 2011 voice recording of BJ talking about her husband (my grandfather), David Overholt, while he was in the ICU several weeks before his death at age 90. They had been married for 68 years.
Dictation of BJ’s voice
“You know, the older you get I notice, you don’t have as many either. Uh, highs or lows. You don’t feel all that bad, but you don’t feel all that good…it…it… e..ev..everything it just, you know it used to be, “Oh my god—aahh”, and then, but now it’s just all kind of comes… I find that with me too.”
San Giovanni Elemosinario is a music for film work that attempts to recreate a Venetian church through sound. Collaborating with architecture students studying in Venice, Italy, I received sketches of axonometric views, floor plans, column details, entrances, and other structural perspectives. Placing these sketches inside Iannix allowed cursors to trace the architectural renderings in real time. These cursors output data to Kyma, where mappings of data control oscillators, harmonic resonators, noise filters, as well as other acoustic treatments (panning, reverb, EQ, frequency shifts, etc.). While no impulse response was recorded, listening tests inside the church determined a ~3 second decay time, and helped influence the creation of spatial reverberation.
A huge thank you to Matthew Burtner and Anselmo Canfora, both of whom made the collaboration possible. Video/Music: Jon Bellona Drawing: Olivia Morgan, Alex Picciano
Great Speeches is a computer music composition for any laptop ensemble (10+ performers). The work may be used with any bank of audio samples, but these samples should be generated from a famous/great speech. The work was intended to be used with speech material from famous speeches and to be performed on the anniversary of the greet speech or commemorative occasion of that individual or event.
Great Speeches is based upon pseudo-random number recall. The many witnesses of a famous speech have various perspectives and vantage points of that event. The work attempts to magnetize these seemingly random perspectives into a new viewpoint through which we can hear. New words, ideas, and rhythms are generated through the synthesis of multiplicity.
The recording documents a Oct. 30, 2013 performance of the UVa MICE ensemble with 100 players using only their laptops and laptop speakers.
Confidant is a collaborative project between Jon Bellona and Samira Potts. Based on their diverse love of music (ranging from Townes Van Zandt to Adele), the duo began writing and performing kitschy, alternative folk, embellished with country twang and vocal harmonies. All sessions are engineered, mixed, and produced by Jon Bellona. Confidant’s music is available at: confidant.bandcamp.com
