Artist description Many composers in the past have been influenced by the music they grew up with, typically the folk music of their country. In my case the music I grew up with was very influential for me but is hardly "folk" music. ¶ Firstly, like most children in the latter half of this century, I watched cartoons and other children's shows, and today feel a great affinity to the music I hear when I tune into a broadcast of Babar, Merry Melodies, or The Toy Castle. The playful exuberance and bombast of much of this music is something I strive for in many of my compositions. ¶ Secondly, while my true affinity for classical music was only fostered later, I still have memories of listening endlessly to a cassette I had of the nutcracker suite, and of being scolded when I was found marching about with the television volume at maximum when the 1812 Overture was being played on Sesame St.. ¶ Thirdly, as a child I also played many video games and still greatly enjoy the harpsichordish machinations of many of the soundtracks on 8-bit systems (the polyphony was strictly limited on these systems which led to a generally contrapuntal style) and the playfulness of much of the later music in the genre. Stylistically I have been deeply influenced the music of Nobuo Uematsu, who is arguably the most significant figure in game music today. While as a genre game music is certainly in its infancy, and my interest is more in its style than its craft, I am concerned with its development much like Leonard Berstein was with the development of the American Musical. ¶ Beyond my early influences, I later became greatly enamoured of the music of the Beatles and other music of that period. My natural taste for the strange and unusual drew me to their psychedelic expression, and my taste for "progressive rock" remains to this day, in groups such as Gentle Giant, Jellyfish, Klaatu, early Genesis, Emerson Lake and Palmer, and so on. ¶ But above all these genres, "Classical Music" in its broadest sense is my true musical love. As I have mentioned, it was in grade 9 that I chose to become a composer; this aspiration was a direct result of my falling in love with J.S. Bach that year. His instrumental music captivated me with its ornate complexity, and I had a great respect for the chromaticism of his harmony. ¶ Since then I have listened to a great deal of classical music, and while I listen to less Bach than I used to, I have come to adore Beethoven. His influence is unmistakeable in the first work in my portfolio, "Untitled Work for Orchestra in A Minor." I listen to his symphonies quite regularly, and while I tire of many other works, these works are refreshing every time. ¶ In addition to my love for the promethean style of Beethoven, Dvorak, Rossini, Verdi, and much late romantic orchestral music, I take great liking to the strange (Charles Alkan, Gesualdo, Danny Elfman, Bernard Hermann) and playful (Haydn, Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach), Prokofiev, Leroy Anderson) sides of "art music" and these tastes are mirrored in my compositional objectives. I strive toward expressing many things which are not frequently expressed in music, such as comedy, fantasy, bombast, and stark madness.

Musical Influences Nobuo Uematsu, Beethoven, The Beatles, J.S. Bach, Danny Elfman, Charles Alkan, Klaatu, Prokofiev, Early Genesis, J. Strauss, Hiroki Kikuta, Leroy Anderson, Jellyfish, Leonard Bernstein, Haydn, Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach), Dvorak, Frank Zappa, Carl Orff, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Rossini etc.

Similar Artists Nobuo Uematsu

Artist History Although my formal musical training began just over five years ago, my interest in music has been lifelong. As early as the age of three I was interested in taking piano lessons, which my mother was unwilling to finance. However, this did not prevent me from conducting early musical experiments as a young child. One of my first pieces of musical equipment was a "Variable Speed Tape Recorder" on which, as a preschooler, I recorded countless exuberant vocal improvisations, not to mention my first "compositions" such as "Here is a Song that You've Never Heard Before" and "There Was a Man Who Was a' Strong as a' Elephant." Additionally, I meddled with various keyboard instruments including a decrepit piano and a cherished tacky red keyboard/guitar synthesizer on which I would improvise and play simple music from method books out of which I had taught myself basic music notation. In elementary school, I always met musical activities such as choirs and hodge-podge recorder ensembles with great enthusiasm. ¶ My compositional development began humbly enough in grade 6 when I received a Super Nintendo game called "Mario Paint" which included a severely limited compositional component: it restricted pitch to "white-notes" from b below the treble clef to g above, polyphony to three voices, rhythm to only quarter -notes and -rests, timbre to a motley assortment of strange sounds, and piece length to 96 quarter notes, and left metre and dynamics essentially indiscriminate except insofar as they can be determined by these other elements. Limited as it was, this "toy" was responsible for my creative genesis, and without it I may not have come to pursue a career in composition. I wrote several "works" in this medium and generally extended them past the 96 quarter limit by looping them and manually effecting an accelerando on each repetition when recording them. In this manner did I reverse what I conceive is the traditional order and began life as a composer long before I was any sort of performer. ¶ I later advanced mediums in grade 7 to a program called "Quartet" which ran on my class' Atari ST computers. This software opened up new options for me by offering most pitches and rhythms, but, as the title implies, it was limited to four-part polyphony. One striking difference was that while this software also provided a "loop" function, each of the four parts could loop at their own intervals, depending on the amount of material each contained. Thus the medium influenced the message and I tended to create works then that exploited this feature and had staggered loops which would eventually return to their original synchronization. The limited nature of both of these programs essentially encouraged me to write contrapuntally, and I often did so in a sort of 20th-century medieval fashion in that I grave melodic contour and general texture clear priority over any strict concepts of consonance and dissonance, although my diabolications were much more insidious than medieval sacred music. ¶ However I found my first "real" tool when, in the summer following grade 7, I finally had a personal computer. At this point many possibilities were opened to me through various pieces of software and my progress began to quicken. By grade 9 I had amassed a small body of short works which, if they are not noteworthy unto themselves, are noteworthy in that I wrote them with essentially no musical training whatsoever. It was at this point that I decided that I wanted to pursue a life of composition and began formal music studies. ¶ I began to study piano and progressed at a rate of about two conservatory grades per calendar year through to grade 8. In my first season or so of piano I got acquainted with a worn copy of Horwood's "The Basis of Harmony" which I had found in a closet, and soon later began studying Theory and Composition formally with Juhan Puhm, attaining my grade 5 theory certificate in under two years. ¶ I also began to study bassoon through my high school in the summer following grade 9. I joined the "Junior Band" in September, the "Senior Band" the following spring, and performed twice with the Huronia Symphony Orchestra as a bassoonist. I was also a founding member of a small woodwind ensemble in which I played bassoon and for which I created some arrangements and compositions. Through my high school I have also played glockenspiel and xylophone, and studied one semester of trumpet. I have since retired my bassoon and trumpet, but maintain an interest in the idiophones. In addition to studying vocal music in high school, I began taking private voice lessons last summer, and conduct male sectionals in the choir which my voice teacher, Natalya Gurin, conducts. ¶ In grade 11 I submitted my first orchestral work to the "Orillia Youth Symphony Young Composers' Competition" and claimed first prize, which I claimed twice more in the following years. A revision of the second work I submitted to this competition, "Untitled Work for Orchestra in A Minor" is included on this website. In grade 12 I founded a 13-piece chamber ensemble, which I conducted and for which I composed 5 (and a half) works altogether. I conducted live performances with this ensemble twice, but it eventually disbanded due to personnel problems. "Desert Asylum," one of my works for this medium, can also be heard on this website. While in OAC, I entered five works in the Barrie Kiwanis Composition Class, which was adjudicated by Clifford Crawley, and received a gold award for each. In addition to "Desert Asylum," which was one of these submissions, another of the five, "Triplicitous Villany" is available on this website. ¶ For the premiere of this website, I have released 10 of my compositions, most of them being from among my more recent works. In September of this year, I plan to be studying undergraduate composition at the University of Toronto. During the interim, I intend to revise a number of my previously composed works, and also to complete some of my more significant unfinished pieces, for release on www.mp3.com. Should I complete this process, I may release a CD compilation of these works.

Additional Info scores of selected works available for study or performance upon request

Location Barrie, Ontario - Canada

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