Hello to everyone I met at Music China 2011 in Shanghai! Had an awesome week with Florian Popa at the ClarSax Popa FP booth, and with the cool people of P. Mauriat. Tried some great new products, and did some investigation into what else is out there.

The really cool part:
I've decided to pursue R&D for a product of my own, which I find really exciting and fun. I haven't seen anything like it, though all the pieces of the puzzle were available at the convention, or at least in the realm that they could be custom-manufactured. Aiming on having a prototype in the next few months and a sellable product next year (which probably puts it 2 years out, but if I aim for 2 years, it'll be 4). Stay tuned for more on that!

Quick update about my autumn shenanigans...

- I've moved to Highland Park, just north of downtown L.A. Terribly convenient for all sorts of musical awesomeness!
- "Bubbeleh", the klezmer-etc. band with which I play Eb and contrabass clarinet, had its debut late September, with lots more to come!
- Playing with GRIT a lot these days, including recent performances at the Pierce Harvest Festival and the Burning Man L.A. Decompression. We're recording a track for a benefit CD this month, more on that soon.
- Audio Destructinators is undergoing some reorganization to improve our ability to inflict quality guerilla awesomeness on the L.A. public. Our DogStar 7 show proved we have lots of great stuff going on, so watch for more of us before long.
- Launching another round of the Contrabass Clarinet Commissioning Project shortly.
- Clarinetfest 2012 will feature a series of workshops at the mostlydifferent.com booth, focusing on extended techniques but possibly diversifying to other topics.
- The performance space is still in the works. Found some possible locations, will have time to dedicate to this again come late October.
- I'm distributing the ClarSax Popa FP line of clarinet and sax ligatures, barrels, bells, and reeds in the U.S. Keeping me busy, in a good way.

Hi everyone from Clarinetfest 2011! Good day today (Thursday), and better days to come!

Enjoyed some great conversation at the mostlydifferent.com booth today (along with boothmates Matthias Muller of the European Clarinet Association and Reina Abolofia of ClarinetCat, and my awesome helper-in-crime Nathan Smith), including some serious contrabass clarinet logistical and historical talk, networking with other composer-types, chilling with the CSU Long Beach clarinet studio, and hearing of an exciting experimental instrument codenamed "Home Depophone". Met lots of cool people, and saw a bunch of friends, including Eric Mandat, Stephan Vermeersch, Florian Popa, Alejandro Loveira, my peeps from the L.A. Clarinet Choir, and some members of Licorice Anonymous.

Tomorrow should be fairly epic. Lots of crazy-awesome performances on the schedule, even more new shirts to buy, and... perhaps... some shenanigans... <_< >_>

I'm all graduated, done with school for the foreseeable future. In between excessive recovery-napping, plans are afoot for the following awesomeness, with varying degrees of certainty...

- Presenting unconventional extended techniques at Clarinetfest in August. Demonic growls, diarrhea noises, and more surprises! Most likely will have an exhibitor booth there as well.

- Starting a music performance/installation/gallery/hangout space in the vicinity of Eagle Rock. Most of my attention is going here lately. Aiming to have a temporary space up and running by the end of June, permanentish late summer or early fall.

- The reemergence of the Audio Destructinators

- Performing in the Dog Star 7 concert series

- Recording and setting to video of a few songs to put on teh YouTubes

- Have joined a stylophone ensemble. Time to find some appropriate hipster attire.

- Buttermilk (our metal band) - writing more songs so we can play some shows!

- A handful of other projects that might help pay bills in a musically unusual and awesome manner.....

My MFA graduation recital is coming on March 12, 2011, at 2pm (PST), in the ROD concert hall at CalArts. Free admission, come in person or watch online at http://music.calarts.edu/webcast

PROGRAM:
- Liability
- Entry Music and Introduction of Esteemed Guests and Colleagues
- 'Nail Variations
- Anubis, Nout (Grisey)
- Carbon (Jarvinen)
- POLKATRON
- Minimalist Children's Songs for the Obsessive-Compulsive Lifestyle
- Art Walks
- Metal band, with music by Sramek, Baldwin, Immortal

Happy New Year (with hopes you're not still reading this message in April)!

Lots of awesome stuff coming up. Some highlights:

• I'm presenting at the SABRe Symposium in Zurich, Feb 3-4. Will be demonstrating homebrew bass clarinet amplification techniques, premiering a solo work, and premiering an ensemble work with the other attendees. Time to finish writing them both!
• My graduation recital promises to be a... well, it promises to be something indeed! All sorts of awesome plans for it, hopefully they all come together.
• I'm on track to finish my Masters in May. After that, who knows!!
• The Audio Destructinators will resume activities shortly, after a period of dormancy due to positive busy-ness of members. Watch for us!
• The Contrabass Clarinet Commissioning Project had a greatly successful premiere, and so I'm making it a regular occurrence. Watch for two events per year, details forthcoming. If you're interested in writing for the instrument, drop me a line!
• I've been invited to present at Clarinetfest 2011 in Los Angeles this August. I'll be giving a lecture/workshop (bring your instruments!) on VERY extended clarinet techniques. This might get a bit raunchy!

Plus a bunch of stuff that's simmering and/or still hypothetical at the moment.

TONS of stuff going on lately, so much that I've neglected this site a bit.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• November 22, 8pm, CalArts ROD: New Century Players (performing other grad students' music)
• November 23, 10pm CalArts Main Gallery: Sounding Out (premiere of "Liability")
• December 4, 8pm, CalArts ROD: Sonic Boom (metal, rock, experimental. Premiere of "Doom Pa")
• December 13, 8pm, CalArts ROD: New Century Players (performing other grad students' music)
• December 15, 8pm, CalArts Wild Beast: MY CONTRABASS CLARINET RECITAL, featuring a program of new music for contrabass clarinet, both solo and in small ensembles.

Stuff That's Happened Recently (i.e. "Why This Site Hasn't Been Updated Much")

• Performed contrabass clarinet in Xenakis' Oresteia
• Formed a metal band
• Performed bluegrass-style clarinet with GRIT at the Pierce Harvest Festival
• Dipping my feet into folk music with Heather Lockie
• Playing incredibly loud amplified contrabass clarinet in a noise trio
• Played clarinet in an Indian ensemble
• Learning to play tabla
• Performed at the Vandoren Clarinet Festival at UCLA
• Performed contrabass clarinet at Paul Fraser's "Histrionic Music" show

Here's some of what I've been up to lately: The Audio Destructinators. A collective of musicians that I'm chancellorizing (chancelling?). We aim to explore an extremely broad spectrum of music and sound, and of where and when it might appear. Concert halls, parking lots, urban environments, processionals along the beach, etc. Often unexpected and unannounced, we're spreading spontaneous audio awesomeness throughout southern California!

Coverage in the 24700 blog: http://blog.calarts.edu/2010/08/04/seen-calarts-audio-destructinators-ca...

Website: http://www.audiodestructinators.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/AudioDestruct
Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/audiodestruct