Sweetly is a vocal work for four voices (SABB). The video is a live performance (2/17/14) by the vocal ensemble Ekmeles (ekmeles.com).
The work was originally an alt-folk song duet I wrote for Confidant(e). You may listen to the original on Spotify.open.spotify.com/track/5JrZMZaj7QIOz26thADzrG
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
Their latest album, Live! Empty House, is now on Spotify.
Created with Processing and printed on canvas. Contact to purchase. $750 price tag includes shipping within the lower 48 states.
Casting is a real-time composition for a single performer using the Microsoft Kinect and Kyma. The piece embodies both the programmatic and the magical use of the term. By giving form to gesture that conjures sound and visual elements, a body’s movement becomes intertwined with the visceral. The performer’s body ‘throws’ and controls sound, enabling the viewer to perceive sound as transfigured by motion. In this way, music becomes defined by the human mold of the performer and listener.
Get started on your own project! View and download simpleKinect, my open-source software for working with the Kinect and any OSC-enabled application.
Brad Garner of Harmonic Laboratory asked for a visual component to his choreography for the 2012 (sub)Urban Projections digital arts festival. Originally a single Processing sketch, I split the video between two projectors in order to fit the venue, the top of a parking lot in Eugene, OR. The work explores male stereotypes, especially in dance, and the text augments these portrayals, which are often quick to be placed upon the male body.
Zero Crossing is a collaborative work by Harmonic Laboratory. The piece explores the relationships between moving bodies, real and perceived, and the line that exists at the junction of action.
Music was composed by Jon Bellona. Choreography by Brad Garner. Digital Projections by John Park. The piece was created, in part, for (sub)Urban Projections, a digital arts festival sponsored by the University of Oregon and the City of Eugene. The video performance is the premiere. Please wear headphones to take advantage of the full audio spectrum.