As a spectrum: zen, Scelsi, Czernowin, Schnittke, Martin Iddon, noise, Cage, pop, television.
*BANG!* humor.
Sounds Like
"How delightful to observe convergences so fragile and ephemeral and yet intended and hard-won."
-Steve Takasugi
"Schwer zu singen."
-Cornelius Schwehr
"That was the right note."
-Chaya Czernowin
"If I ate your music, would I get cancer?"
-Bryan Christian
"Tough act to follow."
-Pauline Oliveros
"Your emotions are weird, Ian. I always feel like your music is
a very complex reflection of you trying to work out whether or not it
is, in fact, ok to *have emotions*..."
-Trevor Baca
"Unusual..."
-Oakland Tribune
"You're good at making music with things."
-Mizuki Brent, age 6
That's goddamn right, Mizuki.
There are a lot of ways that life, with a little help, can be just like TV. I try to point those out.
Sample tracks are excerpts, except where noted. If you can't hear it, turn up the volume, some of the music is very soft. Full tracks available: e-mail me and I can either e-mail you tracks or mail a CD. For all contact use ianhpower@gmail.com
My name is Ian Power, and I am an American musician and composer. I am currently pursuing a Master's Degree in Composition (Exp. 2009) from the University of California, San Diego, where I work primarily with Lei Liang and Anthony Burr. I have also studied independently or at summer composition programs with Chaya Czernowin, Steven Kazuo Takasugi and Robert Morris.
I was born in 1984 in Rochester, New York. In high school I played in many ensembles on flute, saxophone, clarinet, and keyboards. I wrote my first chamber compositions when I was 17.
I went to Ithaca College in Ithaca, N.Y., where I studied with Dana Wilson and Gregory Woodward, and received a Bachelor's of Music in Composition (Cum Laude) in 2006. My senior year I received the Smadbeck Prize for best new piece by a composition student for my ensemble piece Real Good. I have attended the Brevard Summer Academy (2005), International Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (2006) and the Akadamie Schloss Solitude Sommerakademie (2007) where I worked with Takasugi, Czernowin, and Ole Lützow-Holm.
As a composer: my work has been performed in Rochester, Ithaca, New York City, San Diego, Oakland, and Stuttgart, and heard on recording in Darmstadt at the Young Composer's Forum. Ensemble Surplus performed my Quartet, and in April 2009 red fish blue fish will perform a new work for percussion in San Diego. My music can also occasionally be heard on modbit radio.
As a performer: I have conducted premieres of Robert Pierzak's Forty Gallons and Ashley Rose Fure's Néve, as well as many of my own pieces. I performed my "I seem to be a verb..." at UCSD and in Oakland at the 11th Annual Music for People and Thingamajigs Festival. I also premiered Martin Iddon's ventilation (as one of six vocalists) and Rapt before the sky... (solo flute), and played piano on the premiere of Charlie Wilmoth'sBlanks for piano and slide whistlist. I play flute, saxophone and piano in the San Diego country band The GO Duo. In May I will be part of a concert that features a group of composer and performers including myself, Carolyn Chen, Clint McCallum, Zeynep Bulut, David Wightman, and Kathleen Gallagher.
As a writer: I write about pop music often, and am currently working on papers on The Dollyrots and silliness; Schnittke, techno, and Britney Spears and nostalgia; and Czernowin and orchestration. I review pop music for USCD's The Scene magazine, and keep a music/humor blog (linked to your left).
As a teacher: I have led sections as a Teaching Assistant for courses on the Beatles, Art Rock, Surf Rock, Heavy Metal, The Symphony, and Sightsinging and Music Theory. This summer I will co-teach a course aimed at high school students with Clint McCallum on issues of politics and meaning in pop music. I have also given lectures to high school students on modern music apprecation. I teach piano privately in the San Diego area.
As an organizer: I have organized and partially funded two concerts of new music: the first in April 2007 in Rochester, featuring performers from the Eastman School and work by Czernowin, myself, Robert Pierzak, Baljinder Singh Sekhon, and Marco Alunno; the second in June 2008 at UCSD featuring music by Ashley Rose Fure, Martin Iddon, and Alex Mincek. I am also a co-organizer of the above-mentioned concert for bodies music on the UCSD Spring Festival in May 2009.
Check out facebook for more INTIMATE details.
Recent List of Works: Our Hero's Dilemma for Batman and one other performer (2008); My lips grow dry,...,,,,,,, for 13 players (2008); "We have not been...picked out...simply to be abandoned..." for two strings and two optional assistants (2007); I seem to be a verb, for reciter, ceramic coffee mug and butter knife (2007); Quartet for violin, clarinet, piano and percussion (2007); in memory of Austin T. Craig for piano (2006); Study for piano (2006); Real Good for 13 players (2006); Passages of Dreaming and Waking for string quartet (2005/06); I'm Not Proud of How I Handle the Prospect of Rejection for pierrot ensemble (2005).
Recent Writings: On the Nature of Aesthetic Evaluation (2007); Covering a Basis: Tactics of Experiential Manipulation in Skye Sweetnam's cover of "Wild World" (2006); Motivic Parallelism and Prolongation in Tchaikovsky’s 1st Piano Concerto, Mvt. II (2004).
Thanks for the add! I enjoyed perusing your site, especially your list of comments from composers/teachers. The one from Baca is great and I can hear Roger's voice saying "Face Up". I'm not sure what it means but it sounds like him.
Thanks Ian! Yea, it's very exciting - roll on september! Everything's good apart from having to work lots and only getting to compose a little. Can't wait to be a student again. How's the Masters going?
Hey, Ian. Thanks for the add. Your work is really nice, I really like it. Have fun at Schloss and say hi to James Avery, Kenn Kumpf, and Paul Feyertag for me. Best, Marcos
