Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts
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About BEK
Artist Talk: Jason Thorpe Buchanan
BEK 14.10.2015 14.00–14.10.2015 15.00
Published 11. October 2015
www.jasonthorpebuchanan.com
Jason Thorpe Buchanan's works have been commissioned and performed internationally by ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Interface (DE), Ensemble Nikel (Israel), Ensemble Linea (FR), Insomnio Ensemble (NL), Slagwerk Den Haag (NL), MIVOS Quartet, IKTUS Percussion, The Industry, wild Up, the [Switch~ Ensemble], OSSIA, and the Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble, among others. Nominated for the 2015 Gaudeamus Prize, three of his works were presented at Gaudeamus Muziekweek in September 2015. Scenes from his Multimedia Opera Hunger have received performances at Darmstadt (2014), The Industry's FIRST TAKE in L.A. (2015), and the MATA Interval Series in NYC with the [Switch~ Ensemble]. "Hunger is a kind of training session in mental disintegration… An ungodly opera needs ugly music, singers who produce primal sounds, an electric guitar that sounds scraped raw, a [sic] wailing orchestral effects, cuts the ear like a knife. Buchanan delivers." – Los Angeles Times.
Honors and awards include a Fulbright Fellowship (2010-11) at the HfMT Hamburg (Germany), Artist-in-Residence USF Verftet/City Council of Bergen, Norway (2015), American-Scandinavian Foundation Grant, ASCAP Morton Gould Award (2014 & 2015), Howard Hanson Orchestral Prize, Winner of Iron Composer (2014), Winner of newEar Composer's Competition, 2nd place American Prize, commissions from Mizzou International Composers Festival, International Horn Society, Tzlil Meudcan Festival (Tel Aviv), Chamber Music Campania (Italy), German/American Fulbright-Kommission, the NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival, and others. He is Executive Director of the VIPA Festival in Spain, Artistic Director of the [Switch~ Ensemble], and a Ph.D. candidate at the Eastman School of Music, where he has served as course instructor in electronic music and composition, as well as assistant conductor for the Musica Nova Ensemble with Brad Lubman.
Current projects include Hunger, a multimedia opera with libretto by award-winning poet Darcie Dennigan, a work for Peter Ferry (percussion) and electronics (Chicago, 2016), a commission from the New York Virtuoso Singers (NYC, November 2015), and Eklekto Geneva Percussion Center (Switzerland, Nov.2015).
Email: bek@bek.no