Composer Anthony Cornicello (born in Brooklyn, New York, 1964) writes music that blurs distinctions between performers and electronics, timbre and harmony, composition and improvisation, and explores the boundaries of what may be considered post-classical concert music. His music is vibrant and visceral, full of rhythmic energy and harmonic sophistication, and his forays into live electronics have led to exciting combinations of instruments and processed sound. Cornicello’s background as a jazz pianist is evident not only in the rhythmic activity of his music, but also in his constant investigation of the rich sonorities available from a variety of instruments.
He has been commissioned to write music for the Scorchio Electric String Quartet, ModernWorks! (funding from Meet the Composer/ Commissioning Music USA), the Auros Group for New Music, the Prism Saxophone Quartet, the New York New Music Ensemble, David Holzman, the Group for Contemporary Music, and the InterEnsemble of Padova, Italy. His work has also been featured on the Guggenheim Museum’s “Works and Process” series. Cornicello’s works have also been performed by the Chicago Civic Symphony, Parnassus, ALEA III, Composers Concordance, Madeleine Shapiro, Robert Black, among many other outstanding groups and solo performers. His music has been presented as part of the Darmstadt International Festival of New Music as well as the June in Buffalo Festival.
Cornicello’s Second String Quartet has been recorded by the Atlantic String Quartet; the Second Sonata for Piano by David Holzman (Centaur). More recently, his Post-Modern Waltz was recorded by Eric Moe for Albany Records. A portrait CD of Cornicello’s works is scheduled for 2006 release on Albany Records.
As a performer, he has conducted or played piano in his own works on numerous occasions. While a graduate student at Rutgers, he formed and directed the Janus Ensemble, a group dedicated to contemporary music. More recently, Cornicello has begun performing on the laptop, using a variety of interfaces and the Max/MSP program. Those performances, mostly with EEE!, have had a notable impact on his music, as EEE!’s music ranges from hip-hop to experimental noise. EEE! is based at Eastern Connecticut State University, where Cornicello is an Associate Professor and Director of the Electronic Music Lab.
Cornicello received the Ph.D. from Brandeis University, where he studied with David Rakowski, Eric Chasalow, and Martin Boykan. His teachers also include Charles Wuorinen, Gérard Grisey, and Richard Beirach.
His current fields of interest include developing unusual interfaces for live computer music performances, as well as continuing to investigate resonance and spatialization. His recent and current projects (mostly for string instruments and electronics) have been exploring the latter two, and the series of experimental works ReZenant Garden, performed by EEE! have operated on all three areas of interest. Future projects will include works for instrumental groups or soloists and electronics, as well as turntablists.
Cornicello's works are published by C.F. Peters Corporation and APNM, and he is a member of BMI.
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Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Back to business - Spark wrap-up
Okay, this is what I hate about going away: there's always so much to do beforehand, and then a lot to do when you return. So, now, I look at my blogsite and realize that I never finished my Spark festival posts.
The first thing I'll mention is that I won't review my own piece, although I will say that it was performed well by Madeleine Shapiro.
Anyway, to my recollections of the Saturday.
The first thing I noticed was that, apparently, no-one gets up early on a Saturday in Minneapolis. I was looking for a cup of coffee at 8, and found that most places didn't open until 10. WTF???!!! 10AM?? I'm usually up and have a few errands done by 10AM on a Saturday. Okay, we have a little one here (so the sleep-in is a distant memory), but still....
There was a paper session in the morning. One paper was about "Group Actions on Grains". This reminds me of all those articles about set theory, where people spend endless pages demonstrating the need for aggregates and magic squares. I understand the intellectual thinking behind it, but I wonder about it's musical relevance.
The other paper that I saw was by Pamela Madsen. There was a Listening Room Project that occured all day on Sunday - most of us didn't know about it, and scheduled our flights for that day. Pamela's presentation was a PowerPoint presentation of the history of her personal crusade (Women in Electroacoustic music); while she raised some interesting points, I would have liked to have heard more music. And, she kept mentioning how Saariaho was the only female composer presented on the entire festival, which wasn't true at all. Besides, it was implied that Doug Geers and others had 'conspired' to keep women off the festival, which I can't imagine to be true.
I ducked out of the rest of the papers, partially to set up my performance, and partially to get some coffee (see above!).
The morning concert was interesting. "Distant Light", by Christopher Tignor had some promising moments, but was just too long for the event. I did enjoy "moving boundary problem" (by Thomas Ciufo), as an exploration of sounds derived from mostly percussive sources, and David Kim-Boyle's "Canon" - where the canon is extended into the video realm.
The evening concert was fantastic. Brian Sacawa and Maja Cerar both played their hearts out! The pieces I enjoyed most were "Breathing Charlie" by Michael Edwards and Timothy Edwards "Triptych", from Brian's half of the concert; in Maja's portion, Roger Dannenberg's "Feedback" and Doug Geers' "Enkidu" were both outstanding. Lucier had pieces on both halves of the concert, both of which were quite special.
Overall, it was a great festival. I've been to many festivals, and it's rare that I've seen a program that has presented a huge number of good pieces. You know, there's always that piece you wonder "how did that get on the bill?"; in some festivals, there are whole concerts like that. I really didn't have that feeling at all here. Okay, there were one or two clinkers, but that's about it. As a matter of fact, I'm glad that Spark doesn't give an award for "Best piece on the Festival", because I'd have no idea who would get it. Also, it was interesting to note the number of people who stayed for the whole festival, long after their piece was performed. This is in stark contrast to an SCI festival I was at, where I saw composers get up and leave right after their piece was done. (I'm serious - quite a few people didn't even wait for an intermission or the end of the program. I wonder if they were double-parked, with their motor running?)
Well, that's it for now. Back to writing, and making some Max patches.
posted by Anthony Cornicello
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