Flatland video

Now on line: a 4.5 minute demo video of Flatland from live performances at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, January 2007. (It's not high resolution in order to keep the file size fairly small.) Video by Jed Lackritz and David Wilson.
Flatland video

Note from Jed: "The video may appear to be full of CGI or camera effects, but in fact the ghostly, geometric images you'll see are exactly what we in the audience saw."

new and improved

Now, new and improved: I've added live performance audio excerpts from the
Household Opera

Alice songs

Instrumental versions of four songs for the production of Alice in Wonderland at the Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco.
4 songs from Alice in Wonderland
Outdoor productions invariably present particular sound problems; here, I was able to experiment with the instrumentations, e.g., toy piano in the Lobster Quadrille.

the world of sound

Even in the 19th century, people were alarmed by the ever growing presence and volume of music. This, before everyone had little white earbuds grafted onto their heads. Grandville (1803-1847): "An accident at the concert: an ophicleide bursts from too much harmony, peppering the listeners' ears with notes." (The ophicleide was the largest member of the keyed bugle family- now replaced by tubas.) Grandville also did a series of engravings of steam powered music and musicians. The fears of current performing musicians that they will be made obsolete by technology has historical precedence.

"Why is this guy singing like that?"

Anyone who knows of my work might be wondering, "I thought this guy was a singer- one of those male soprano, countertenor creatures." Well, yes, that's true. Here's a link to an eclectic collection of vocal mp3s:
songs & arias
It's a mixture of early and modern work by composers such as Vivaldi, Meredith Monk, and others. The selections will change from time to time.
For more information on the (admittedly esoteric) male soprano scene, you might check out Andrea Kopp's well researched
Male Soprano Page
Most of the repertoire is drawn from baroque soprano literature (castrated or otherwise), but several modern composers are writing for us again (e.g., Meredith Monk or Thomas Bloch). Keep it up, guys.

Flatland: sound files

New link to the instrumental suite from Flatland
Flatland (instrumental suite)

mysterious glowing object #5

The Groove Tube was a screen of translucent square boxes that was placed in front of your tv, resulting in ever shifting, unpredictable pixelations of color. In many ways like the dance floors of 70's discos, but much more subtle and hypnotic. They appear to no longer be in production but little caches of stock may still survive; I found one recently from a seller in Seattle who had stopped carrying them, but who had remembered they had 2 or 3 sitting around somewhere in storage. Similar effects can be achieved from toilet paper tubes and wax paper, but after all is said and done, they still look like just tubes and wax paper.

Waiting for Godzilla

As in Beckett, we never fully see Godzilla (except as a shadow). Here's some music from the short puppet opera, Waiting for Godzilla. Many of the melodies came from the original Godzilla score by Akira Ikufube; in the case of "Shadow Godzilla," the music is based on Ravel. If you know what Ravel work, you'll understand the irony of this choice- it's a little joke.
Waiting for Godzilla Added bonus: a 1:25 min demo movie of tiny clips. The theory is, the jerkiness of the movement is part of its homemade charm, rather than a defect in the filming. (I wasn't running the camera so it wasn't my doing.)

Flatland at the MJT

We just finished a successful five show run of Flatland at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, Culver City, CA (January 26-28, 2007). New visual and lighting effects were added since the initial June run last year. Some demo mp3s wil be posted soon; there are still aspects of modern computer tech that I find baffling. Maybe this show will have a future?

di Nostra Vita: sound files

mp3 links to music from:
Di Nostra Vita

The Household Opera: sound files

Finally- a new page of mp3 excerpts from
The Household Opera
plus: a one minute demo movie of scenes from the show- or maybe you could call it a "commercial." Yes, that's my voice on the soundtrack.