Contact: BTBaxt@gmail.com Links: Brian Baxter MySpace Luke Gullickson Benjamin Hjertmann Eric Malmquist The Sissy-Eared Mollycoddles Shout Section Big Band |
Upcoming Concerts January 23rd, 2010 7:30PM, The Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra will be premiering Cahokia as a part of their 50th Anniversary Season. For directions to any of the above locations please email: BTBaxt@gmail.com Biography Brian Baxter’s music is recognized for its colorful timbre, unique rhythmic textures, and a healthy preoccupation with symmetry. He recently took part in the Seasons Music Festival in Yakima, WA as a composer fellow where he had works read and recorded by the Yakima Symphony Orchestra, Finisterra Piano Trio, as well as soprano, Gilda Lyons. His latest piece for wind ensemble, A Rising Sun Across the Water (2007), was chosen as a winner of the 2008 CCPA Wind Ensemble Composition Competition and was premiered in Chicago on May 5th, 2008. People Movement (2006), written for chamber sextet was selected for performance by the neoPhonia New Music Ensemble at the 2008 Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference in Atlanta. Brian Baxter currently resides in Chicago where he is pursuing an M.M. in music composition at the Chicago College of Performing Arts. In 2007, he received a B.M. in music composition from Illinois Wesleyan University . His principal teachers have included; Stacy Garrop, Daron Hagen, David Vayo, Mario Pelusi, and Garrett Byrnes. Baxter is also an active performer (percussion, piano) in several groups around the Chicagoland area including the Sissy-Eared Mollycoddles, Chicago's most exciting up-and-coming new music trio. Brian originally hails from Geneva, IL. |
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Selected List of Recent Works
Mixed Chamber Music: Creatures Full of Eyes - for three or six performers (unspecified instrumentation) (2008-2009) fireworks and the end of things - piano trio (2008) Elegy - alto saxophone and piano (2008) Neige de Janvier - duet for percussion and steel string acoustic guitar (2008) The Morning of... - two speaking voices and doumbek (2007) Colossus of Rhodes - Percussion Ensemble (7 players) (2007) People Movement - chamber septet for flute, bassoon, 2 percussion, violin, viola, and cello (2006) Vermont - quartet for A clarinet, two celli, and a string bass (2005) Vocal Music: the great work Time - song cycle for high voice and piano, four songs based on four poems written by Henry David Thoreau. (2007-2008) Songs include (in order): Old Meeting-House Bell, When Winter fringes every bough, the brass in the East, The Thaw If I gave you jigsaws. - tenor voice and piano, text by Josh Ziemann (2006-2007) Light the Way - song cycle for baritone voice and piano, seven songs based on seven poems written by Josh Ziemann (2005-2006) Songs include (in order): To Martyr; Missile Life; If I peeled every birdie, flung; a wolfpack thundered in and tore me lengthwise, your could would, Chaos Bush, and “(a riddle)” Large Ensemble Music: and there in heaven a door stood open - orchestra (2009) Fountain - orchestra (2008) Sol through white curtains - orchestra (2008) A Rising Sun Across the Water - wind ensemble (2007) After the Fact - wind ensemble (2004-2006) Solo Music: Three Sketches for Clarinet in B-flat - solo for B-flat Clarinet (2007) Airport Sketch - solo for double-bass (2006) The Box of Justice - unaccompanied solo for tuba (2005) Please email Brian at Brian Baxter for scores and parts or for more information about the above pieces. |
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Compositions | |||
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A Rising Sun Across the Water (wind ensemble) |
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| A Rising Sun Across the Water (wind ensemble).mp3 - complete | |||
| A Rising Sun Across the Water (wind ensemble).pdf - complete | |||
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Composer’s Note: I sketched the initial drafts of A Rising Sun Across the Water during the fall of 2007, while gazing out over Lake Michigan from the Chicago lakefront. I completed further work on the piece during time spent gazing into the spray of water shooting forth from Grant Park’s Buckingham Fountain. A Rising Sun Across the Water invokes the natural beauty of Lake Michigan juxtaposed with the hustle and bustle of downtown Chicago. This juxtaposition was inspiring to me due in large part to my own personal struggle for identity as a young adult. By intertwining personal themes into the music I related my own experiences to my observations of the world around me. The music in a way is a conglomeration of several diverse elements unified by a common context. A Rising Sun Across the Water has come to represent a new sensitivity toward timbre and instrumental color in my compositional approach. On this recording: Chicago College of Performing Arts Wind Ensemble, conducted by Stephen Squires. | |||
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Old Meeting-House Bell (soprano voice and piano) |
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| Old Meeting-House Bell (soprano voice and piano).mp3 - complete | |||
| Old Meeting-House Bell (soprano voice and piano).pdf - complete | |||
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Composer's Note: Old Meeting-House Bell is the first in a cycle of four songs for soprano voice and piano that I am in the process of completing. This particular song is relatively short. The text itself consists of only a single five-line stanza. In the song, the sound and image of a large church bell is invoked on a couple of different levels. It is literally referenced through broadly sweeping bell-shaped gestures in the piano. These gestures produce a rich and sonorous sound reminiscent to that of a powerfully tolling bell. On a larger scale the image of the bell is projected in the overall formal shape of the piece. In this sense the musical materials for both the voice and piano parts are constructed in a symmetrical manner reflecting the similarly symmetrical construction of a bell. In fact, there is a broad sweep in range from low to high and then back down again in both the voice and the piano that create this composite symmetrical effect. Below is the text for Old Meeting-House Bell: Old Meeting-House Bell On this recording: Emily Sladek, soprano and Brian Baxter, piano. | |||
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fireworks and the end of things (piano trio) |
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| fireworks and the end of things (piano trio).mp3 - complete | |||
| fireworks and the end of things (piano trio).pdf - complete | |||
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Composer’s Note: Imagine you have just gone out to celebrate the Fourth of July by enjoying a fireworks show. However, after waiting for a while amidst a crowd of people the fireworks never appear. A sense of confusion and disappointment sweeps across the crowd and stings you particularly deep. These thoughts pick at a suppressed feeling of internal emptiness resulting in a state of outright frustration and helplessness. Despite physically being a part of the crowd, you feel at once utterly alone. fireworks and the end of things was originally written for the Finisterra Piano Trio as a part of the 2008 Seasons Music Festival Composer Seminar in Yakima, WA. It was completed in August, 2008 and will be premiered at the Gamma-UT Conference on March 7th, 2009 in Austin, TX. On this recording: Catherine Price, Kyra Saltman, Aleks Savitzki. | |||
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Fountain (orchestra) |
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| Fountain (orchestra).mp3 - complete | |||
| Fountain (orchestra).pdf - complete | |||
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Fountain was written during the summer of 2008 and was conceptually inspired by the famous Buckingham Fountain situated in the center of Chicago’s Grant Park. Much of the sketching and composing for the piece took place while I was sitting near the fountain enjoying the view and sound of shooting water, chirping birds, and people all around. I synthesized these sounds into a short burst of shimmering energy reflecting the breathtaking beauty of this magnificent Chicago landmark. Fountain was originally written for the Yakima Symphony Orchestra in conjunction with the Composer Seminar of the 2008 Seasons Music Festival. On this recording: Yakima Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Brooke Creswell. | |||
©2009 by Brian Baxter
All Rights Reserved
Brian Baxter is a member of Society of Composers, Inc. SCI is dedicated to the promotion of composition, performance, understanding and dissemination of new and contemporary music.