News archive

I have nearly completed a new duo for flute and percussion, which will be premiered in Strasbourg in November.

Finally, I will be attending the Darmstadt summer courses this year.

5 February 2010

A Paris-based small-press publisher, Battered Press, is bringing out a collection of short prose pieces I worked on between 2002 and the present. Titled Thoughts of Marv Sandeye / Complete in One Volume, it is a short pendant to my recently published book Evidence. Many thanks to Mike Woods, the enterprising publisher. Musically, I am now mainly preoccupied with my flute/percussion duo, which is advancing well. You can now hear my ensemble piece Stars in the Dice on this site, under 'Listen'

Work continues on the new version of La Pendule de Profil, which I hope to complete by the end of the month. In parallel, I have begun a new piece for a Strasbourg-based percussion / flute duo. This piece is tentatively set to be premiered in November 2009. I am also slowly bringing to completion a large project I began in 2004 entitled The Tubular West, about which I am unable to provide details for the moment.

Evidence, my first trade collection of poetry, is now available from Quattro Books and can be ordered worldwide on Amazon.com. The launch will take place in Toronto on 18 October at 3pm at the Cameron House.

I have recently accepted a commission for a new work from Le Balcon, a Parisian ensemble based around the notion of amplified instruments. The piece will be premiered 22 May in Paris. In parallel, I am currently composing a new, extended version of La Pendule de Profil for solo basset horn, bassoon, viola, cello and double bass. This version will be performed and recorded in 2010. I will post more details as they become available.

Quattro Books of Toronto will launch my first book, Evidence, in October 2009 in Toronto and Paris. The book can now be pre-ordered on Amazon.com or Amazon.fr here.

In musical news, I have made new revised editions of two pieces, both dating from 2006: Nets Move Slowly, Yet for ensemble, and Stopping for two vibraphones. In addition, I am starting to plan a large new work for orchestra, which will be premiered in Paris in fall 2011.

My 2006 piece Nets Move Slowly, Yet is set to receive its North American première at the Domaine Forget in Québec on 17 August, under the direction of Lorraine Vaillancourt. My latest piece, Stars in the Dice for 13 instruments, will be premiered at the Journées de la Composition 2009 in Paris by Guillaume Bourgogne. The summer will be largely given over to completing work on two other pieces, as well as revising some older works.

After many years in the works, my first trade book is set to be published in fall 2009. Quattro Books of Canada is releasing Evidence, a collection of poems written between 2003 and 2009. Musically, I'm still busy writing three pieces, which I hope to complete over the summer.

You can now listen to oboist Christopher Redgate's stunning recording of my piece Locus Solus here. I am presently at work on the realization of the electronics for my double bass duet, and several more performances of older pieces are currently being organized.

I recently completed work on a revised version of Nombres Imaginaires for flute solo. This piece will be recorded and possibly performed in March 2009 - I will post details as they come. My new string quartet miniature, P. K. (the title is an obscure pun - it sounds like 'piqué' in French) will be premiered on 30 April 2009 in Paris. This short piece is based on a tarantella rhythm, and is very fast and very quiet. I am also making new recordings of Locus Solus for oboe and Micrographia for bass oboe in the coming weeks, and work continues on my basset horn / oboe d'amore duet, as well as a new piece for two double basses and electronics.

The recent performance in New York of my clarinet piece Passages was reviewed in the New York Times, along with the other pieces on the program. You can read the review here. I am currently working on a longer version of my septet Night Division, which I hope to complete in the coming days.

The French section of the International Society for Contemporary Music has selected My piece Stopping for their annual forum at the Auditorium St-Germain in Paris. The concert will take place on 6 December 2008.

With performances in Strasbourg, New York, Toronto and Paris, it's a time of intense activity and non-stop traveling. I am currently completing work on the oboe d'amore / basset horn duet, and am starting to sketch a new piece for two double basses and electronics, set to be premiered in March 2009 in Paris.

It's been a very busy time. My new septet, Night Division, will be premiered in Paris on 24 October, 2008. Details will follow shortly. Another piece is well underway: Un Homme Peut en Cacher un Autre, a duet for oboe d'amore and basset horn. Once this is done I will be starting work on a piece for large ensemble. A duographic concert to take place in Toronto at the Music Gallery in March 2009 is currently being organized in collaboration with Toronto-based experimental musician Joda Clement, and finally, my piece Stopping, for two vibraphones, will be performed in Strasbourg as part of the Musica Festival on 20 September 2008.

Now that both Indices for chamber orchestra and Situation Temporaire (acousmatic music) are complete and have been successfully performed, I am currently at work on a new septet which will be performed in Paris in October 2008. A spate of performances of older pieces is currently being organized, and I will be making new recordings of two pieces in April: Le Malheur Adoucit les Pierres and Two Pieces for Piano.

Work on my piece for 18 musicians has been temporarily set aside so that I can complete Evidence, which uses the same instrumental group as Wagner's Siegfried Idyl (13 players). This piece will be performed twice on consecutive evenings at the Opéra de Massy, France, in January 2008. Other projects include a 10-minute electroacoustic work tentatively set to be unveiled in March.

My new basset horn quintet, La Pendule de Profile, will be premiered at the Paris Conservatory on 17 October. Details here. I have added my program notes for this piece to the Works page. My current project is a large new work for 18 winds, brass and percussion, which lacks a title for the time being.

I spent all of July making high-quality digital transfers of my entire archive of tape recordings. This archive comprises hundreds of hours of short experimental pieces, spoken works, improvisations, songs and live recordings made over the period 1995-2002. The transfers were made using carefully maintained high-end playback machines to obtain the highest possible fidelity to the original sources. The tapes cover a range of formats, including stereo cassettes, 4- and 8-track cassettes, 16-track 1/2-inch reels, DAT and ADAT tapes. For the transfer of the 16-track tapes I have enlisted the services of noted tape restoration expert Richard L. Hess.

All this work was undertaken for two reasons. First and foremost, audio tape is simply not a stable medium and degrades over time, so I wanted to ensure that no recordings be lost or their quality compromised. Secondly, much of this material is being prepared for eventual commercial release, especially the 5 unreleased song collections Seuqimonoce, Switches 'n' Lights, You Only Need to Stay Above, A Walk in the Brambles and Sotas Ery; the two previously-released collections Twelve and Swollows, which will be entirely re-mixed and re-mastered, and an album of highlights from live performances with the Trosper Ensemble.

While these are not high-fidelity recordings, the original multitrack masters are of considerably superior quality to the original mixes. I am not hesitating to use every trick available in the digital domain to bring out the best in these recordings and minimize their flaws.

24 August 2007

My piece Ladle Days, from Songs of Elsewhere, is featured in the soundtrack of Luke Leonard's new film, Antiquated Play, which was premiered 9 July at Throckmorton Fine Art in New York City.