Michael Edgerton
Michael Edgerton
I am a composer whose music is increasingly motivated by the nonlinear complexities of dynamical systems and non-western music. Currently these interests, mostly applied to instruments and voices, are developed through a multi-dimensional network of scalable components involved in the production of sound. This approach to composition attempts to radicalize acoustic periodicity (limit cycle) by shifting prominent variables during the production of sound, so that the acoustic output will feature dynamical transitions (bifurcations) to higher-level attractor states (folded limit cycle, tori, chaos). The result is a music that offers transient, fleeting and unusual sound worlds of beauty and power. In total, my compositional activities involve the concert stage, music theater/opera, interdisciplinary collaboration and electronic/computer music.
Recent performances of my compositions include excerpts of an opera-in-progress CREATION OF THE WORLD in Berlin, Milan and Dresden; a concert of experimental vocal music in Joensuu, Finland; The Elements of Risk in Creation in Bourges; Wassermann in Dresden; and an excerpt of Kalevi Matus in Potsdam. My music has received awards and recognition both in the U.S. and abroad, and has been performed in Germany, England, France, Belgium, Italy, Finland, Estonia, Korea, and the U.S. Most recently I completed my String Quartet #1 for the Kairos String Quartet and Tractatus 1, for solo oboe. Currently I am developing further the opera CREATION OF THE WORLD, and a series of solo works combining scaled multidimensional networks with ancient and medieval musical treatises from the far east, the middle kingdom and Europe (such as the SANGITASIROMANI) that are grouped under the title Tractatus.
Research has become increasingly important to my compositional development. This interest involves analyses and experimental research designed to quantify the acoustic, physiologic/mechanical and perceptual characteristics of extra-normal instrumental and vocal sonorities. From 1996 to 1999, I completed a three-year Postdoctoral Fellowship with the National Center for Voice and Speech, in order to gather more information regarding vocal acoustics and physiology for a recently completed book which will be published with SCARECROW PRESS in April 2003 - THE 21ST CENTURY VOICE. Since coming to Europe, this research has continued to offer new insights through two projects. The first involves a continuing collaboration with scientists (Herzel and Neubauer) at The Institute for Theoretical Biology in Berlin, where we are researching nonlinear phenomena in contemporary music. Two papers from this collaboration have been accepted for publication by Perspectives of New Music, and the Journal of Voice, while a third paper was published in the Proceedings of the 4th international conference Generative Art 2001, Milano. The second project involves a collaboration with professor Auhagen at Humboldt University titled "Psychoacoustic Measures of Temporally-Shifting Multidimensional Phase-Space Transitions in Musical Instruments: the Violin".
http://www.geocities.com/edgertonmichael/

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