The Riot Ensemble connects people to great contemporary music in concerts and events that are just as innovative, vibrant and rewarding as the music itself. They put on events in venues ranging from the concert hall, to London’s parks, to YouTube.
"Atolls" - for Solo Piccolo and 29 Spatialized Piccolos
Laura Cocks and I spent January at CIRM in Nice putting together a beautiful multitrack recording of ATOLLS. Excited to share this incredible performance!
Drop - for String Octet and Strobe Lights (2015)
A new work for the JACK and MIVOS quartets,
A very stellar performance of “drop” for string octet and strobe lights
drop - for string octet and strobe lights (2015)
In the novel Agapē Agape, William Gaddis’ interpretation of late capitalism is grounded in the growing resemblance between art and commerce, both of which appeared to him to be thoroughly mechanized. If the juxtaposition of terms, Agapē Agape, suggests the “wholeness” of the prior, collapsing into the latter, then “Drop” explores this deepening gap; it also refers to the dramatic formal device employed in many genres of popular electronic dance music.
Performance of "pluck.divide.cut" by Chartreuse PLUS
An excellent performance of pluck.divide.cut by Chartreuse Plus at Clonick Hall in Oberlin, OH
Each year over half a million American Horseshoe Crabs (Limulus polyphemus) are harvested to produce Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL), a medically important product found in the crabs' blood, which is used to detect pathogenic bacteria. The FDA requires every drug they certify to be tested with LAL to ensure that intravenous drugs, vaccines, and medical devices are free of bacterial contamination that could damage patient health. As such, the copper-based and uniquely colored, “blue blood” of the horseshoe crab is in high demand; a quart of LAL typically costs around $15,000. Substantial efforts are put in place to harvest LAL and in these “blood harvests” the crabs are heavily bled — 30 percent or more of their blood is taken and approximately 20 to 30 percent of the crabs do not survive.