"There
is weather in his compositions, as well as landscape: open, brooding,
sometimes ominous, often wintry....His compositions have a way of insinuating
themselves into your mind. Listen to them enough and you begin to think
and take in the world as he does. You hear a gust of wind or the far-off
sound of machinery and you think that sounds like something from a Burtner
composition."
- Dale Keiger, Johns Hopkins Magazine
The
work of Alaskan composer and sound artist, Matthew Burtner explores environmental
systems (ecoacoustics), technological embodiment, and extended polyrhythmic
and noise-based musical systems. His instrumental and computer music is
performed widely and he tours regularly with the metasaxophone, an augmented
computer instrument of his own creation. http://www.burtner.net http://www.metasax.com
Winner
2008 Howard Foundation Fellowship
Composition
fellowship for creation of a new multimedia opera "Unganaqtuq
(a profound attachment)"
DVD
release: "(dis)Connected" and sound design featured
in the Think Thank snowboard film Stack Footy
with performance by the CM-MC Crew (featuring BigO aka Gigantic
Romantic, The CM-MC, Julius, Corey and Robert) http://www.thinkthank.com
premiere: July 10, 2008, Mount Hood, Oregon
Snowboarder Mag calls it "mind shattering, world ending,
brain corroding... The soundtrack didn't fail to provide a different
point of view, either... the old creepster styling of the weird
instrumentals I've grown to love." read
the full snowboard magazine review on line
10-year Metasax
Retrospective Concert
featuring Michael Straus, Brian Osborne, MS9 Saxophone Ensemble,
Joint Chiefs of Sax saxophone quartet
The Red Room, Baltimore, MD, 435 E. 31st Street, $6
August 23, 2008
Ensemble Integrales
premiere of (dis)Sensus for violin, sax, piano, percussion and
computer interaction
2008 Integrales commission
Hamburg, Germany, April 16, 2008
some
New York concerts
Technosonics
Festival, NYC, October 31, 2008 Sxueak for squeaky toys and trajectory-based computer
interaction featuring music from the VCCM
Ear
to the Earth Festival, NYC, October 21, 2008
selected chamber music: Mists, Delta 3, Windsketches, Prismic
Generations, and new work Metasax & DRUMthings
Ear
to the Earth Festival, NYC, October 20, 2008 Snowprints Jessica
Schmitz, flute; Madeleine
Shapiro, cello; and
Steve Gosling, piano
Goodbye
Blue Monday, NYC, August 17, 2008 Endprint for tenor sax and 8 recorded tenor saxes
Michael Straus, saxophone
The
Stone , NYC, July 29, 2008 Aes/Aer for trombone and computer sound
William Lang, trombone
EMF
Festival, Flea Theater, NYC, May 20, 2008
selected chamber music: Kuik (aria), Fragments from Cold,
SXrAtch, Broken Drum, That which is bodiless is reflected in bodies
with Jaunelle Celaire, Morris Palter and Minna Chung
Sonic
Residues Festival, Stony Brook, NY, May 12, 2008
Fragments from Cold
Minna Chung, cello
Monkytown,
NYC, March 9, 2008
Matthew Burtner & Friends
selected chamber music: Prismic Generations, Mists, SXueAk,
Kuik (aria), Mind Cam, That which is bodiless is reflected in
bodies
and the premiere of Ted Coffey's new work, Swinge for
saxophones, voice, percussion and laptop
with Haleh Abghari, Ted Coffey, Morris Palter, Michael Straus
MICE
200-500 human-computer orchestra premiere
Digitalis under the stars 2008, 4/30/08, 8pm, UVA amphitheater
On
April 30, 2008, Digitalis Under the Stars, the annual computer
music festival at the University of Virginia, will feature the
premiere of the first large-scale mobile interactive computer
orchestra, an ensemble formed of 180 regular members and expandable
to include any number of audience members equipped with portable
computers.
Created and directed by Matthew Burtner, the MICE Computer Orchestra
employs MICEtro, a new hardware/software system created by Burtner’s
Interactive Media Research Group (IMRG). MICEtro uses techniques
of emergence, perturbation and LAN technology to create technosonic
music from massive data generation. This momentous first, full-scale
performance is optimized for 500 computers.
The performance will take place in the UVa Amphitheater, just
off of Jefferson’s Lawn, in front of Garrett Hall at 8pm
on 4/30/08. The event is being produced by UVA’s MUSI235
Technosonics class, the IMRG, the VCCM and the Department of Music
with support from the Teaching+Technology Initiative, ITC, Netops
and the 7-Society.
MICE (the Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble) was formed at
UVA in 2001 by Burtner to explore multi-performer interactive
music systems. In 2008, with support of T+TI Grant and Fellowship,
the group expanded into an orchestral scale in the context of
the Technosonics Digital Sound Art Composition class.
