|
|
|
T O D D B A R T O N
short biography:
After four decades of exploration Todd Barton is still delving deeply into
the ever-expanding frontiers of musical expression: from his DNA derived
Genome Music to his innovative scores for plays at the Oregon Shakespeare
Festival; from performances of Zen Shakuhachi Meditation Music to avant-garde
music for electronic synthesizers and computers; from performing with
luminaries of jazz and poetry to lecturing on music and composition from the
Middle Ages to the 21st Century.
Todd Barton is the Resident Composer and Music Director for the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival. He is also the Director of Composition Studies for the
Music Department at Southern Oregon University. Todd is also a member of the
multimedia performance art ensemble, sonoluminescence.
His compositions have been performed by the KRONOS Quartet, Oregon Symphony
Orchestra, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Southern Oregon Repertory Singers, the
Shasta Taiko, and the Rogue Valley Symphony to name a few.
Barton has received numerous awards for his theater music including the ASCAP
Award for Popular Music, Dramalogue Critics Award, and the San Francisco Bay
Area Theatre Critics Circle Award. He recently received a Jeff Award Nomination
in Chicago for his original score to The Oedipus Complex.
His music has been heard on NPR’s Morning Edition, Westcoast Live, and the
Curve of Wonder.
biography extensions:
Todd’s Genome Music is available online at http://www.garageband.com/metascapes
and more information on his research is available at
http://www.toddbarton.com/.
His Genome Music has been heard and exhibited at the Smithsonian Insitute,
the Carnegie Insitiute of Biological Research at Stanford University, the
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Graduate Art Gallery at CUNY (NY) as well as
mentioned in articles for the Washington Post, New York Times, Christian
Science Monitor, The Economist and Wired.
Todd has been composing music at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival since Angus
Bowmer hired him in 1969. He has composed music for the entire canon of
Shakespeare’s plays twice as well as music for over a hundred classical and
contemporary theatrical productions.
Besides the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Todd has created scores for the
Seattle Repertory Theatre, the Folger Theatre and Kennedy Center in
Washington D.C., the Berekeley Rep, ACT and Intiman in Seattle, ACT in San
Francisco, the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre and the Goodman Theatre in
Chicago.
Todd’s scores last season at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival included The
Tempest, The Cherry Orchard and Taming of the Shrew. Next season Todd will create music
for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Coriolanus and Our Town.
Todd continues to study zen shakuhachi meditation music which he began in
1989. He has recorded four albums: Tai Chi Shakuhachi, Mountain Ghost
Breathing, Shakuhachi Ma, and Ro. His teachers include John Singer, John
Kaizan Neptune, Matsumura Homei, Ronnie Nyogetsu Seldin and Philiip Gelb.
Some of Todd’s shakuhachi music can be heard online at and purchased at
http://www.garageband.com/shakuhachi.
Since 1979 Todd has been exploring electronic systhesis and computer-based
music. His most acclaimed album is “metascapes”. Selections are available
online at http://www.garageband.com/metascapes. This album features the
visual music program Metasynth which allows the composer to “paint” on a
computer screen and hear the painting as music and/or sound.
Todd’s current
explorations into analog synthesis can be heard live with the multimedia
performance art ensemble, sonoluminescence.
Sonoluminescence is five
creative artists improvising together in an experimental environment to
explore the boundaries of time, light, sound and space.
Over the years Todd has been collaborated with a variety of jazz musicians
and poets including Anthony Braxton, Zakir Hussein, William Stafford, Ursula
K. Le Guin and Lawson Fusao Inada.
He has done multimedia and dance works with Suzee Grilley, Miles Inada, and
Ursula Le Guin.
As a lecturer on topics ranging from the Symbolism of Muiscal Notation of the
Middle Ages, Renaissance Philosophy and Muisc, to Music for the Theatre,
Music and the Human Genome and Visual Music, Todd has been guest lecturer at
the Smithsonian Institute, CalArts, Future Music Oregon, University of the
Pacific, Cornish College of the Art, Seattle University, et al.
Todd Barton, composer
541.488.2492 p.o. box 3220 ashland, or 97520
bartonmusic@mac.com
http://homepage.mac.com/bartonmusic
|
|
|
