Jim Scully, composer, performer, educator. |
Jim Scully is a composer, performer and educator in the fields of contemporary classical music, electroacoustic music and jazz studies. He has been contributing his diverse talents to the music scene in Bakersfield, California for over 20 years. Scully holds degrees in music from CSU Bakersfield (B.A. in Music) and UC Irvine (M.F.A. in Music) and has taught music at the collegiate level at Bakersfield College, UC Irvine and now, CSU Bakersfield. He has served as Director of the Bakersfield College Jazz Ensemble and Director of the UC Irvine Community Jazz Ensemble. Currently, he is a full-time member of the CSU Bakersfield music faculty where he teaches an array of courses in the fields of Music Theory, Jazz Studies and Music Technology and serves as Director of Small Group Jazz and as Producer/Director of the CSUB Jazz Coffeehouse Concert Series that features small jazz ensembles under his tutelage. Scully plays such traditional instruments as the guitar, electric bass and piano and also makes music on Apple computers using Logic Pro and various software samples. He has appeared, collaborated, or worked with Kris Tiner, Kyle Burnham, Kenny Burrell, Eric Marienthal, Billy Childs, Carl Allen, Kei Akagi, Paul Cierley, Charles Owens, Mandy Rees and the CSUB Theatre Department, and many others. Scully’s works have been performed at various venues throughout the United States, including the Electro-Acoustic Juke Joint on the campus of Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi, the United Parish Church of Brookline in Massachusetts, The Pacific Coast Collegiate Jazz Festival in Berkeley, California and aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California as part of the Music Association of California Community Colleges Conference in October of 2000. Other performances have been hosted by the Bakersfield Symphony New Direction Concerts, Bakersfield Jazz Festival, CSU Bakersfield Jazz Coffeehouse Concerts, UC Irvine Composers’ Concert, Bakersfield Student Composers’ Concerts and CSU Bakersfield Theatre for New Voices. Scully has also led or co-led numerous small jazz groups including the Jim Scully Group, Jim Scully Trio, Jim Scully/Kris Tiner Band, the Bodfish All-Stars the Jenn Neil Group and the Speedy Neptune Project.
Contact Jim Scully at the following website to hear music or just gawk.
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Compositions | |||
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Bouncing About |
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| Bouncing About.mp3 - complete | |||
| Bouncing About.pdf - complete | |||
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Bouncing About explores the various relationships possible between the violin and piano. Composed in the fall of 2000, while studying composition at University of California, Irvine with Billy Childs, Scully employs a harmonic language that emphasizes the upper tertian extensions found in contemporary tonal music – from jazz to neo-romanticism – and embraces those dissonances both harmonically and melodically. The composition is in a traditional A-B-A form. There are two distinct themes in the A sections and much of the melodic material in the A sections is derived from the first two intervals heard in the violin – an ascending minor 6th and a descending tri-tone. The B section provides a contrast harmonically, rhythmically and melodically. This slower section is less a developmental section and more a dreamy detour from the rhythmic, agitated material from the A sections. A strict recapitulation brings the material from the A section back to wind the piece toward its conclusion. | |||
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Hop, Skip and Jump |
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| Hop, Skip and Jump.mp3 - complete | |||
| Hop, Skip and Jump.pdf - complete | |||
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This recording of Hop, Skip and Jump, for solo Bb clarinet, was recorded by Monica Duncan in the fall of 2007 for the Beauport Classical CD release Fleeting Vision which was released in the summer of 2008. | |||
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Dance of the Dots |
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| Dance of the Dots.mp3 - complete | |||
| Dance of the Dots.pdf - complete | |||
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This piece was composed in July, 2009 as part of my 30/30 Project. This project forced me to compose a 30-second piece every day (nearly) for 30 days. This dance in 7/8 is scored for guitar quartet and will be played by the CSU Bakersfield Guitar Ensemble in the Fall of 2009. | |||
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Obscure Utterance |
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| Obscure Utterance.mp3 - complete | |||
| Obscure Utterance.pdf - complete | |||
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The piece is composed for flute, marimba, violin and viola and is a little over 4 minutes in length. I have had two live performances of this piece, one in Irvine, California and one in Bakersfield in April of 2006. Both performances had their moments, but I wanted a more accurate file to post on-line, so I went the technological route. The performance heard here is a realization using Logic Pro 7.2 and the Vienna Symphonic Library. I extracted the parts from Sibelius notation software and saved each part as a MIDI file then imported each MIDI file into Logic Pro and used the wonderful samples of the VSL to emulate the flute and strings. The marimba was created using the Sculpture Audio Instrument from within Logic Pro. Of course, the velocity data was heavily manipulated to achieve a fairly human performance. Similarly, I used the combination sets of VSL instruments to implant MIDI triggers into the string and flute sequences to achieve the timbral changes on the fly - such as the flutter-tonguing, tremolo, pizzicato, etc. I have found this to be a cost-effective way of achieving good performances of my pieces to share with colleagues while still angling for great live performances in the future. | |||
©2009 by James Scully
All Rights Reserved
James Scully 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.