Matthew Burtner in person

"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


full bio / 500-word bio / 250-word concert program bio / 100-word short bio

full biography

Matthew Burtner (www.burtner.net) is an Alaskan composer and sound artist specializing in concert music and interactive media. His work explores ecoacoustics, (dis)embodiment, and extended polymetric and noise-based systems. First prize winner of the Musica Nova International Electroacoustic Music Competition (Czech Republic) his music has also received honors and awards from Bourges (France), Gaudeamus (Netherlands), Darmstadt (Germany), Prix d’Ete (USA), Meet the Composer (USA), ASCAP (USA), Luigi Russolo (Italy), and Hultgren Biennial competition (USA).

Burtner’s music, often combining acoustic instruments and new technologies with video, dance or theatre, has been performed in major festivals and venues throughout the world. Canada’s Exclaim! Magazine writes that his music “blurs the distinctions between acoustic and electronic idioms in fascinating ways.”; the Norwegian Nordlandsposten writes that his music “evokes ice crystals and wind that transform into a blinding light. You can sense running water, waves, and an overwhelming movement!"; and La Liberte of Switzerland described his music as “the mystical evocation of a magician of sonorous spaces.” He is the composer of three multimedia operas -- Ukiuq Tulugaq (Winter Raven), Kuik, and Auksalaq.

Ensembles and organizations commissioning Burtner’s music include Ensemble Integrales (Germany), San Diego New Music and NOISE (USA), Trio Ascolto (Germany), MiN Ensemble (Norway), Musikene (Spain), Spiza (Greece), German Ministerium for the Arts (Germany), Jerome Foundation (USA), CrossSound (Alaska), and others. He has also had the opportunity to work with virtuosic soloists such as Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Dimitris Marinos, Morris Palter, Haleh Abghari, Lukas Ligeti, Michael Straus, Madeleine Shapiro, Wu Wei and others.
Among published recordings for DACO (Germany), The WIRE (UK), MIT Press (US), Innova (US), ICMA (US), Centaur (US), EcoSono (US) and Euridice (Norway), his music appears on three critically acclaimed solo recordings: "Portals of Distortion", "Metasaxophone Colossus" and “Signal Ruins”. Of his 2008 “Signal Ruins” sound art-works DVD France’s Sonhors writes "Matthew Burtner plays with beauty, coolness and space, halfway between chamber music and sound sculpture -- dialogues, modulations, swirl, noise, dissonance, metallic roar, crackle: nothing can break the expressive unity." And London’s Further Noise describes it as “a dissonant, ecstatic anti-chorus of metallic shrieking, stresses, and crackle… cementing this audio-visual project as a most trenchant experience in ritual.”

A 2009 Howard Foundation Fellow of Brown University, and the 2010 Provost Fellow at the Center for 21st Century Studies at UWM, Burtner has also conducted major artist residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), Phonos Foundation/Pompeu Fabra Universidad (Spain), Musikene (Spain), Cite des Arts (France), IRCAM/Centre Pompidou (France), The University of Missouri Kansas City (USA) and the University of Washington (USA). Since 2001 he has taught at the University of Virginia where he is Associate Professor with tenure, Director of the Interactive Media Research Group (IMRG), and Associate Director of the VCCM Computer Music Center. He studied composition, computer music, saxophone and philosophy at St. Johns College, Tulane University (BFA, summa cum laude), Iannis Xenakis's UPIC-Studios, the Peabody Conservatory/Johns Hopkins (MM), and Stanford University/CCRMA (DMA). At Stanford he worked closely with Jonathan Harvey, Max Mathews, Brian Ferneyhough and Jonathan Berger.

Burtner invents and develops new technologies for creative and educational applications. In 1999, he invented the Metasaxophone, an acoustic/electric/computer instrument extending the saxophone into the world of electro-acoustics. Paul Wagner of the Saxophone Journal describes the Metasaxophone as "a new instrument with innovative and exciting possibilities for the saxophone world... the music is as mysterious and fascinating as the instrument itself," and Scram Magazine writes "If Burtner’s saxes were flesh, they’d be bionic: wired for feedback loops and computerized programs... Burtner explores the outer edges of live performance potential."

His work with imbedded computer systems and sensor technology led him to create other unique instruments, most notably the theatrical ecoacoustic instruments for his large-scale staged multimedia operas. As an Invited Researcher at IRCAM in Paris he developed sensor-based software/hardware interfaces for multimedia performance. In 2008 he invented NOMADS (Network-Operational Mobile Applied Digital System), a system now developed by the Interactive Media Research Group (IMRG) at UVA in collaboration with David Topper and Steven Kemper.

His MICE (Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble) is a unique human-computer ensemble, active since 2001. MICE performs regularly both as a small group and as an unprecedented 250-player human/computer orchestra. MICE have performed throughout the world in countries such as Japan, China, South Africa, Thailand, India, Singapore and Panama, and in the US at venues such as the University of Washington Bothell, Symphony Space in NYC, The DCCA Museum, the Digitalis Festival, and the Most Significant Bytes Festival. MICE’s first album, MICE World Tour (EcoSono) was listed as one of the top 10 albums of 2009 by The WIRE’s Susanna Glaser (UK).

500-word biography

Matthew Burtner (www.burtner.net) is an Alaskan composer and sound artist specializing in concert music and interactive media. His work explores ecoacoustics, (dis)embodiment, and extended polymetric and noise-based systems. First prize winner of the Musica Nova International Electroacoustic Music Competition (Czech Republic) his music has also received honors and awards from Bourges (France), Gaudeamus (Netherlands), Darmstadt (Germany), Prix d’Ete (USA), Meet the Composer (USA), ASCAP (USA), Luigi Russolo (Italy), and Hultgren Biennial competition (USA).

Burtner’s music, often combining acoustic instruments and new technologies with video, dance or theatre, has been performed in major festivals and venues throughout the world. Canada’s Exclaim! Magazine writes that his music “blurs the distinctions between acoustic and electronic idioms in fascinating ways.”; the Norwegian Nordlandsposten writes that his music “evokes ice crystals and wind that transform into a blinding light. You can sense running water, waves, and an overwhelming movement!"; and La Liberte of Switzerland described his music as “the mystical evocation of a magician of sonorous spaces.” He is the composer of three multimedia operas -- Ukiuq Tulugaq (Winter Raven), Kuik, and Auksalaq.

Ensembles and organizations commissioning Burtner’s music include Ensemble Integrales (Germany), San Diego New Music and NOISE (USA), Trio Ascolto (Germany), MiN Ensemble (Norway), Musikene (Spain), Spiza (Greece), German Ministerium for the Arts (Germany), Jerome Foundation (USA), CrossSound (Alaska), and others. He has also had the opportunity to work with virtuosic soloists such as Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Dimitris Marinos, Morris Palter, Haleh Abghari, Lukas Ligeti, Michael Straus, Madeleine Shapiro, Wu Wei and others.
Among published recordings for DACO (Germany), The WIRE (UK), MIT Press (US), Innova (US), ICMA (US), Centaur (US), EcoSono (US) and Euridice (Norway), his music appears on three critically acclaimed solo recordings: "Portals of Distortion", "Metasaxophone Colossus" and “Signal Ruins”. Of his 2008 “Signal Ruins” sound art-works DVD France’s Sonhors writes "Matthew Burtner plays with beauty, coolness and space, halfway between chamber music and sound sculpture -- dialogues, modulations, swirl, noise, dissonance, metallic roar, crackle: nothing can break the expressive unity." And London’s Further Noise describes it as “a dissonant, ecstatic anti-chorus of metallic shrieking, stresses, and crackle… cementing this audio-visual project as a most trenchant experience in ritual.”

A 2009 Howard Foundation Fellow of Brown University, and the 2010 Provost Fellow at the Center for 21st Century Studies at UWM, Burtner has also conducted major artist residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), Phonos Foundation/Pompeu Fabra Universidad (Spain), Musikene (Spain), Cite des Arts (France), IRCAM/Centre Pompidou (France), The University of Missouri Kansas City (USA) and the University of Washington (USA). Since 2001 he has taught at the University of Virginia where he is Associate Professor with tenure, Director of the Interactive Media Research Group (IMRG), and Associate Director of the VCCM Computer Music Center. He studied composition, computer music, saxophone and philosophy at St. Johns College, Tulane University (BFA, summa cum laude), Iannis Xenakis's UPIC-Studios, the Peabody Conservatory/Johns Hopkins (MM), and Stanford University/CCRMA (DMA). At Stanford he worked closely with Jonathan Harvey, Max Mathews, Brian Ferneyhough and Jonathan Berger.

250-word biography

Matthew Burtner (www.burtner.net) is an Alaskan composer and sound artist specializing in concert music and interactive media. His work explores ecoacoustics, (dis)embodiment, and extended polymetric and noise-based systems. First prize winner of the Musica Nova International Electroacoustic Music Competition (Czech Republic) his music has also received honors and awards from Bourges (France), Gaudeamus (Netherlands), Darmstadt (Germany), Prix d’Ete (USA), Meet the Composer (USA), ASCAP (USA), Luigi Russolo (Italy), and Hultgren Biennial competition (USA).

Burtner’s music, often combining acoustic instruments and new technologies with video, dance or theatre, has been performed in major festivals and venues throughout the world. He is the composer of three multimedia operas -- Ukiuq Tulugaq (Winter Raven), Kuik, and Auksalaq. Among published recordings for DACO (Germany), The WIRE (UK), MIT Press (US), Innova (US), ICMA (US), Centaur (US), EcoSono (US) and Euridice (Norway), his music appears on three critically acclaimed solo recordings: "Portals of Distortion", "Metasaxophone Colossus" and “Signal Ruins”.

A 2009 Howard Foundation Fellow of Brown University, and the 2010 Provost Fellow at the Center for 21st Century Studies at UWM, Burtner has also conducted major artist residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), Phonos Foundation/Pompeu Fabra Universidad (Spain), Musikene (Spain), Cite des Arts (France), IRCAM/Centre Pompidou (France), The University of Missouri Kansas City (USA) and the University of Washington (USA). Since 2001 he has taught at the University of Virginia where he is Associate Professor with tenure, Director of the Interactive Media Research Group (IMRG), and Associate Director of the VCCM Computer Music Center.

100-word short biography

Matthew Burtner (www.burtner.net) is an Alaskan composer and sound artist specializing in concert music and interactive media. A 2009 Howard Foundation Fellow of Brown University, and the 2010 Provost Fellow at the Center for 21st Century Studies at UWM, Burtner has received First prize in the Musica Nova International Competition, and honors from Bourges, Gaudeamus, Darmstadt, Prix d’Ete, Meet the Composer, ASCAP, Luigi Russolo, and Hultgren Biennial. Since 2001 he has taught at the University of Virginia where he is Associate Professor with tenure, Director of the Interactive Media Research Group (IMRG), and Associate Director of the VCCM Computer Music Center. .

 

 

 

 

 

 

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