warbling elephant music — chris miller

| introduction | current & recent | creative work | scholarship | teaching | arts production | contact |

Creative Work

My creative work includes my own compositions, collaborations with other composer/performers, improvisations, and contributions to the works of others as a performer.

Among my compositions are pieces for chamber ensembles with Western classical instrumentation, music written to accompany dance, installation and performance/installation works for electroacoustics and/or instruments, and a multimedia pseudo-documentary on Luddism and Telephony. Most of my pieces involve Javanese gamelan instruments, some of them in combination with instruments from traditional Asian musics.

Ongoing interests in my creative musical work include efforts to heighten the perception of time, and to enhance the creative engagement of performers by requiring a greater degree of interaction in realizing algorithmic (rule-based) compositions. Reflections on these interests can be found in my MA thesis, and an article for a forthcoming issue of the world of music.

| Compositions | Improvisations and Collaborations | Performance | Other |

Compositions

follow (1)

For two rebab. 12 minutes.
Performed at the Yogyakarta Contemporary Music Festival, Indonesia, September 5, together with walk.
 

klunk, whir

For gamelan instruments (four pencon the size and register of kethuk, two ceng-ceng kopyak or four simlar cymbals, three amplified rebab or two amplified rebab and one theremin), seven performers. 8 minutes.
Composed for Sekar Anu, an ensemble of four North American and four Indonesian composer/performers.
First performed at the Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival, July 2005.

Score (PDF, 221 KB)
Audio (recording by Sekar Anu, mp3, 22.4 MB)
 

for a while, in and/or around a resonant space

Performance/installation for carillon or chimes, other pitched metal percussion, wind instruments, indoors and/or outdoors. Indeterminate duration.
Two realizations, one outdoors for chime, tubular bells, and three clarinets, and one indoors, for chimes, glockenspiel, and three clarinets, presented May 1 as part of For a Long Time: A Festival of Music, Sound Intallations, and Ideas, Wesleyan University.
 

walk

For kethuk, kenong, and two pairs of finger-cymbals. 12-20 minutes.
Performed at Wesleyan University, April 22, and at the Yogyakarta Contemporary Music Festival, Indonesia, September 5, together with follow (1).
 

drift

An installation piece using samples of Javanese gamelan for the 16-channel speaker environment of Engine 27, a sound art gallery in New York. Indeterminate duration.
Created in collaboration with programmer R. Luke DuBois using the software MAX/MSP. Presented on three consecutive weekends in September, 2002.
 

as time is stretched...

A performance/installation for Javanese gamelan instruments and other sound sources (CDs of prerecorded material, amplified bottles).
Presented May 5 in the World Music Hall of Wesleyan University, Middletown CT, as a thesis project towards the degree Master of Arts.
 

sinuous, supple (peculiar)

For Javanese rebab and/or shakuhachi, koto and Javanese gender.
Commissioned by Ryuko Mizutani
 

shift, slip, slide, slump (altered)

For clarinet, soprano saxophone, cello, percussion and piano. 12 minutes.
Composed for Ensemble Symposium. Premiered February 23, St. Andrews Wesley Church, Vancouver.
Score (PDF, 881 KB)
 

trickle, dribble, teem

For Sundanese rebab, amplified bottle and water, and pre-recorded water sounds.

a long wave (slow) and a tune (nebulous), standing

For clarinet, violin, cello, percussion and piano. 11 minutes.
Composed for Standing Wave. Premiered April 11, Vancouver East Cultural Centre.

all work no play makes Sylvester a grumpy boy

For tin whistle, accodion, tuba, Irish bouzouki, guitar, Irish percussion (bodhran and bones), percussion, and tape. 15 minutes.

thinly, roundly

For two dan bau (Vietnamese one string zither), two Javanese gender, and gongs. 16 minutes.
Premiered January 29, Roundhouse Community Centre, Vancouver, as part of Vancouver Pro Musica's Further East Further West.

Le Tombeau de Ludd (or how I learned to stop worrying and love the phone)

Multimedia performance piece (a pseudo-documentary on Luddism and telephony), for slides, LP's, tape, computer synthesized voice, kitchen appliances, and toy animals. 45 minutes.
Presented May 12, Havana Performance Space, Vancouver, as part of Vancouver Pro Musica's Cheap Illusions.

three blue lotus

For bowed gender and kendang. 15 minutes.
Composed to accompany one section of an evening length work by dancer/choreographer Bambang Mbesur, presented at Taman Budaya Surakarta, Indonesia.

whining horses eat more HEY doncha no

For Javanese gamelan instruments, eight performers. 9 minutes.
Composed for a workshop project organized by English composer Adrian Lee, also involving four faculty members (Rasito, Joko Purwanto, Teti) of the performing arts academy STSI Surakarta, Indonesia.

Subsequently performed by Gamelan Madu Sari at Vancouver New Music's 25th Anniversary Party and at Gamelan Summit ‘97 Toronto.
Score (PDF, 131 KB)
 

knock, grind (and a long standing wave)

For clarinet, cello, piano and percussion. 20 minutes.

Commissioned by Vancouver Pro Musica. Premiered by Standing Wave.

heavy rain

For Javanese gamelan and Japanese taiko ensembles. 25 minutes.
Composed in collaboration with members of Uzume Taiko. Premiered April 18, Vancouver East Cultural Centre, as part of Vancouver New Music's Riptides.

hanging from branches

Performance Installation for 6 to 12 performers playing 8 to 12 Javanese gongs hung from branches of trees in a public space.
Presented twice in Trout Lake Park, Vancouver, once as part of Public Dream's (a Vancouver celebration arts organization) Illuminaries Lantern Festival, 1993.

honeyed, brutal (bronze)

For Javanese gamelan, 12 musicians. 15 minutes.
Premiered November 30, The Glass Slipper, Vancouver, as part of Vancouver Pro Musica's Sonic Boom Festival of Composers.

L'Après-midi d'un FAUNE

For Javanese gamelan and voices, 12 musicians. 25 minutes.
Composed for a collaboration with choreographer Steven O'Connell and filmmaker Anne-Marie Fleming.

towards, but no closer to, an appreciation of the infinite

For piano, vibraphone and organ. 25 minutes.
Presented by Vancouver Pro Musica at Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver.

seven scenes after Joyce

For baritone, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello.
A setting of texts derived from James Joyce's Dubliners.

eight days in April

For solo piano. 13 minutes.
Score (PDF, 170 KB)
 

one moon

For three violas. 8.5 minutes.

Precipitation

For three flutes. 6 minutes.

| Compositions | Improvisations and Collaborations | Performance | Other |

Improvisations and Collaborations

Jessika Kenney with Chris Miller and Darsono

Performance at The Stone, 6 April. Jessika Kenney, voice, Chris Miller and Darsono, gamelan instruments (gender, kendhang ciblon, Javanese and Sundanese rebab). The program consisted mostly of jineman and langgam (traditional and semi-traditional Javanese forms featuring a solo vocalist), but also included a new untitled piece by Kenney combining Persian-style tetrachords with the Javanese slendro scale, and a piece combining sections of Parita by Javanese composer Martopangrawit with Persian poetry and singing.

Sekar Anu

Ensemble of eight composer/performers, four from Indonesia (I Nyoman Dewa Supenida, Ida Bagus Widnyana, A.L. Suwardi, Pande Made Sukerta) and four from North America (Nicholas Brooke, Andrew McGraw, Andrew Raffo Dewar, myself). We presented a collaborative work, Maya, at the 2004 Yogyakarta International Gamelan Festival, and two programs of individual works in joint performances with I Made Subandi at the Umbul-Umbul Festival in Denpasar and in Peliatan, Bali.

The name Sekar Anu, a play on traditional Javanese ensemble names such as Sekar Arum (Fragrant Flower), translates roughly as "the flowering, uh..."

Mud Music

Improvisation with percussionist Andreas Kahre as part of a conference around development on a former mudflat turned industrial zone on Vancouver’s downtown eastside. Conference held at the Western Front, Vancouver.

Kami Sedang Membangun Rumah

Improvisation led by I Wayan Sadra (Betawi fiddle, tape of water dripping), with Endo Suanda (suling) and Chris Miller (Javanese rebab) for a dance performance by Marintan Sirait, Margie Suanda and Andar Manik. Performance at Taman Budaya, Surakarta.

Glossolalia

Improvisation led by Kenneth Newby with Andreas Kahre and Chris Miller to accompany a video shoot of a dance work by Lorraine Thomson.

Proses Dua

Structured improvisation with three members of Gamelan Madu Sari led by Al. Suwardi during his residency in Vancouver. Performed at the Western Front, Vancouver.

| Compositions | Improvisations and Collaborations | Performance | Other |

Performance

Gamelan

Since living on the east coast, I have been a member of the Wesleyan Gamelan Ensemble, and play regularly as a guest performer with the Boston Village Gamelan, the New York Indonesian Consulate Gamelan, and Sekar Setaman at Brown University Gamelan. I have also played with ensembles at Cornell University and Smith College.

While on the west coast, I was a key member of Gamelan Madu Sari (also known as the Vancouver Community Gamelan), performing with them both traditional repertoire and new compositions, in self produced concerts and as part of other events. These include appearances at the Gamelan Summit ‘97 in Toronto, on two programs of Vancouver New Music (25th Anniversary Party, November 1996 and Riptides, April1993), and a concert (Further East Further West, October 1995) and festival (Sonic Boom, October 1991) produced by Vancouver Pro Musica. We recorded a program for CBC Radio's Westcoast Performance in March of 1998, excerpts of which were released on the CD compilation "The Neighbourhood." In addition to playing with Gamelan Madu Sari, I performed as a guest with the Seattle City Gamelan.

I play nearly all the instruments of the gamelan (all except celempung and siter). On several occasions, I have played kendhang (drum) to accompany dance, including a special presentation by Gamelan Madu Sari at the Dancing on the Edge festival (Vancouver) in June 1997.

New Music

While at Wesleyan University, I have performed in compositions by John Cage, Ron Kuivila, Scott Wilson, Molly Sturges, Liang Liang, Shawn Onsgard, Chris Dahlgren and Yvon Bonenfant.

Uteralterance or The Interplay of Bones in the Womb

Multimedia performance work by Michael O'Neill incorporating electroacoustics, ventriloquism, and instrumental music. Musical ensemble consisted of Jim Munro -fiddle, Randy-Raine Reusch -khaen, and Chris Miller - percussion, keyboard. Presented at the Western Front, July 6, 1993.

Ecology of Souls

Multimedia performance work by composer/performer Kenneth Newby and dancer/choreographer Lorraine Thomson, involving dance, music and video projection Musical ensemble consisted of Kenneth Newby - suling gambuh, piri; Andreas Kahre - percussion; and Chris Miller - prepared/just intonation piano; with interactive computer controlled electroacoustics. Presented at the Firehall Theatre, Vancouver, July 1992.

| Compositions | Improvisations and Collaborations |Performance | Other |

Other Musical Work

Kyaw Kyaw Naing & Bang on a Can

I assisted the collaboration between Burmese pat waing (drum circle) virtuoso Kyaw Kyaw Naing and the Bang on a Can Allstars, transcribing and converting Kyaw Kyaw's arrangements from the MIDI files he produced on his keyboard into scores and parts. The arrangements were presented at the Bang on a Can marathon at Brooklyn Academy of Music, October 28, 2001, and at a concert at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York, on February 9, 2002, and have been released on CD.