ACTIVITIES
2023
Cosmic Web Lights Up the Darkness of Space (10/23)
Schumaker’s Spiral, supercluster, filament, wall (after Michael Anderson) sonifies data from Caltech scientist Christopher Martin’s groundbreaking findings concerning the cosmic web. Reported by Caltech and picked up by Sky and Telescope and other outlets. Read the articles here:[Caltech], [Sky and Telescope]
Stream_l__i___n____e_____s (after Robert Lawrence, Jr.) at soundSCAPE (7/23)
Clarinetist Joshua Rubin presented Stream_l__i___n____e_____s (after Robert Lawrence, Jr.) as part of the soundSCAPE Festival at the Hindemith Music Centre in Blonay, Switzerland on 7/23.
Temporary structures at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum (5/20)
Performance of Temporary structures (disklavier and computer graphics version) at the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum’s FMFF ‘23 Festival in St. Augustine, Florida. Curated by Julie Dickover and supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation. [event link]
Images from Christopher Martin’s talk: Imaging the IGM & CGM, UCSC 2022 Galaxy Workshop August 16; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLPg6ibOMTE&t=1268s
Spiral, supercluster, filament, wall (after Michael Anderson)
Gassmann Electronic Music series concert (4/19)
The Gassmann Electronic Music Series at UC Irvine presented three works by Schumaker on its 4/19 concert. New York Philharmonic Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Piano Chair, Eric Huebner premiered Spiral, supercluster, filament, wall (after Michael Anderson) for piano and electronics. Huebner also performed Temporary structures, for piano and computer graphics. Celebrated founding clarinetist and previous Artistic Director of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Joshua Rubin performed Stream_l__i___n____e_____s (after Robert Lawrence, Jr.), for clarinet and electronics. The concert also included ACTIONS, an electroacoustic piano work by Roger Reynolds. [link]
April in Santa Cruz concert (4/17)
Pianist Eric Huebner performs Spiral, supercluster, filament, wall (after Michael Anderson) for piano and electronics in concert at the April in Santa Cruz Festival. [link]
Composer colloquium at UC Berkeley (3/3)
A composer colloquium on recent compositions.
Dog Trio perform Temporary structures at the klub katarakt Festival for Experimental Music in Hamburg on (1/21)
Hanne Franzen, piano, and Dong Zhou, electronics, of Dog Trio performed Temporary structures at the klub katarakt Festival for Experimental Music in Hamburg, Germany, as part of the Long Night program on Saturday, January 21, 2023. The performance also included the premiere of Dong Zhou’s & Dror Elimelech’s Cosmic Blue (2022) for piano and electronics and Helga Arias Parra’s Astraglossa (2016).[link]
2022
Temporary structures showing at CNMAT, (11/5)
Temporary structures was shown at SCOPE, a concert featuring audio-visual compositions and improvisations at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies at UC Berkeley on Saturday, November 5, 2022, 8:00pm to 9:30pm [link]
Temporary structures at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville
Temporary structures, a visual music piece, was on display at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville from April 2 - May 28. [link] Mentions about the Zeitgeist Gallery group show in the Nashville Scene (5/5) [link] and (3/31) [link]. Artist talk and presentation of Temporary structures at Zeitgeist Gallery in Nashville (4/1)
Temporary structures performance at April in Santa Cruz
Performance of Temporary structures, for piano and computer graphics, by pianist Chia-Lin Yang, at the April in Santa Cruz Festival on 4/22 @ 7pm at UCSC’s Music Center.
November UCSC Arts Division newsletter [link]
Composer colloquium at UC Irvine [2/8/22]
NASA Figures: An MIT Constellation.
Stream_l__i___n____e_____s (after Robert Lawrence, Jr.) is included in NASA Figures: An MIT Constellation. The recording of the piece features clarinetist Rane Moore.[link]
2021
Mehretu trace on Score Follower
Recorded by the Radius Ensemble [link].
UCSC Newscenter
I’m excited to be taking on the new role of Assistant Professor in Music in the Arts Division at UC Santa Cruz beginning fall 2021. [link]
Feature in the CNMAT Spring 2021 Newsletter
Conversation with Edmund Campion [here].
Composer Colloquium @ Princeton University
Composer colloquium at Princeton University (2/11/21) [event listing]
2020
Mehretu trace
A musical homage to the abstract landscapes of celebrated painter Julie Mehretu. A computer-assisted composition exploration making connections between Mehretu’s vibrant curved gestures and slashed markings and musical lines. Premiere performances by the Radius Ensemble on 3/7 and 3/8, 2020 in Cambridge and Fitchburg, MA.
MLK Visiting Scholar Lecture: Mehretu trace
Computer-assisted composition techniques in a musical homage to the work of painter Julie Mehretu.
Seeing Sound—MIT Full STEAM Ahead
A short video talk touching on partials, spectral analysis and sound resynthesis for MIT Full STEAM Ahead, a team creating educational materials geared to students K-12 in response to the pandemic.
M_retrace
A re-articulation of the piece Mehretu trace where music that was originally created from tracings of painted gestures now shapes the contours of computer-generated forms in an installation piece.
2019
Stream_l__i___n____e_____s (after Robert Lawrence, Jr.)
A work for clarinet and real-time computer accompaniment inspired by Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the first African-American pilot selected for a space mission. The work utilizes a method to derive musical lines from measurements of aerodynamic streamlines. Commissioned and premiered by Dinosaur Annex.
[project page, premiere performance: 4/14/19]
Arts at MIT: Computing and the Arts
A musical piece for clarinet and computer honors a pioneering jet pilot.
[Stream_l__i___n____e_____s writeup]
MLK Visiting Scholar Lecture: Stream_l__i___n____e_____s (after Robert Lawrence, Jr.)
Music reaches towards the science of flight in a new concert piece inspired by Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. The composer presents on computer-assisted composition techniques he created for this work.
Nocte lux
Performance of Nocte lux, for two cellos, double bass and electronics by the Eco Ensemble for Cal Performances in Berkeley, CA.
[Nocte lux project page], [Eco Ensemble performance: 3/2/19]
2018 + earlier
Tessellate: A CNMAT OpenMusic Library
Tessellate assists with the generation, analysis, filtering, and mapping of rhythmic and pitch structures. Specified by Edmund Campion and programmed by Matt Schumaker with contributions and guidance from Jean Bresson.
As I ride the late night freeways
As I ride the late night freeways is a work for singer and orchestra that sets Census, a poem by Cathy Park Hong written for this project. California freeway driving suggests compositional processes for the piece, from harmonic and textural elaborations drawn from the analysis of car sounds to a poetic suggestion of wind rushing over a car given by the algorithmic shaping of musical gestures and by the smooth morphing of one musical line into another.
Computer-aided composition in the creation of As I ride the late night freeways
A case study chapter published in the The OM Composer’s Book.3 (Delatour/Ircam, 2016) documenting the use of OpenMusic software in the compositional process of As I ride the late night freeways, a work for singer and orchestra.