Student Accomplishments

My composition and music technology students are professionally successful, receiving performances of their acoustic, electroacoustic, and video pieces at festivals and conferences. They've also won competitions. Here's a sampling of some recent accomplishments:

Stacy Borden's electroacoustic piece 12 Wings will be presented at SEAMUS 2008 in Utah.

Gregory Cornelius (MM 2003) won a Residence Prize in the 2007 Bourges competition! He didn't write the piece with me, but the prize is such a big deal, it bears mentioning on my website! YEAY Greg!

Mihai Popean's Artemis and the Red Dragon (2007) for flute and piano won first place in the 2007 University of Toledo/Craig's Keyboards Young Composers Competition. His piece permiered April 11, 2007, at the Univeristy of Toledo New Music Festival.

Nicole Carroll's (MM 2005) video art/audio master's thesis Awakenings (2005) was presented at the 2007 SEAMUS National Conference in Ames, Iowa, in March. It premiered at the 2006 Biennial Symposium on Arts and Technology at Connecticut College in April 2006. Here we are at SEAMUS!

Download my student success list.

Selected Course Information

Below you'll find information on some of the courses I teach. All courses are undergraduate/ graduate. Please contact me if you'd like additional information not included below.

Experimental Digital Audio and Animation

This is an interdisciplinary, team-taught course created in collaboration with Bonnie Mitchell (BGSU Digital Arts). As an introduction to experimental digital audio and time-based visual art, the course focuses on artistic expression integrating the principles of art and music. Music and art students come togehter in this course to pursue areas of interest and explore new ideas, with the end result being the creation of experimental works that focus equally on audio and visual components. Weekly screenings of video art, animation, and electroacoustic music provide students with real-world examples and models for their creative projects.

Download the Summer 2005 course syllabus, course schedule, and a sampling of assignments including audio/visual observation, and visualizing concepts abstractly.

Music Technology I and II

In music technology I challenge students to view and employ technology in creative and innovative ways, to expand their concepts of technology’s function in music, and to explore new territories using technology as a means of expression. In each course students learn techniques and concepts related to sound (practical skills) and then employ those concepts in hands-on creative activities (expanding practical skill into creative realization).Since critical, active listening is central to understanding and creating electroacoustic music, students are assigned two listening projects per week that include a written component.

Download the Music Technology I course syllabus, course schedule (includes listening list), and a sample journal assignment. Download the Music Technology II course syllabus, course schedule (includes listening list), and a sample journal assignment.

Applied Composition

One of my goals as an applied instructor is exposing students to a wide variety of contemporary musical styles. I assign weekly listening and score study tasks from a twentieth-century repertoire list to provide students with varied examples of solo and ensemble writing, stylistic application, and notational solutions. I also encourage journaling in the form of abstract sketching, flow-charting, graphing, and text-based writing as a means to organize ideas and projects, and as a method of problem solving.

Download the Applied Composition course syllabus and listening list here.

Contemporary Music Pro Seminar/20th Century Analysis: John Cage

This special topics seminar consisted of five units, each concentrating on an aspect of Cage’s artistic development and output. Modules including “Indeterminacy/Music of non-intention/I-Ching”, “New Notations”, “Cage’s Writings and Lectures”, “Exploring New Sounds, Silence, and Electronics”, and “Collaborations/Influences” provided students with macro- and micro-level views of John Cage as a composer, philosopher, artist, and catalyst of avant-garde music. While the course focused primarily on Cage’s musical output, these modules also allowed students to explore the interdisciplinary nature of his life and work including his affiliations with eastern philosophy, visual arts, dance, and writing.

Download the Cage Seminar course syllabus and final project guide.