Category: Projects & Collaborations

Video Game: Minor Planet Mailing List

Recently, Sean Hurley approached me about a new video game concept.

Sean is a man of many incredible talents but I had no idea he had moved into video game design. Neither had he, apparently. “It sort of snuck up on me and then suddenly I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” he wrote. “You probably know the feeling…”

At any rate, here’s the original idea in his own words:

And so Sean wanted to know: did I find it interesting? would I like to be involved?

Yes. And YES.

Because the game is in a very early stage of development, Sean is open to a wide range of input — and we’ve been enjoying an interesting journey. I’ll continue adding journal entries (below) as things develop if you’re interested in tracking the progress…

April 12, 2019
Live Music & Film: Vampyr (1932)

Vampyr: Live! is a live music and film experience that pairs music and arrangements from Blix Byrd and myself with Carl Theodor Dreyer’s groundbreaking 1932 film, “Vampyr”.

The concept involves integrating dark, edgy songwriting with my human/machine collaborative works for piano and computer. The aim is to develop an evening of adventurous and theatrical musical performances that tightly synchronizes with the natural drama of the film.

How It Started

We were first introduced to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s films in early 2019 and immediately went on the hunt for more. Before we had even finished our first screening of Vampyr (1932), we knew we had discovered our next musical project…

Vampyr (1932) original screenplay excerpt

Although Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr is one of the earliest films to include recorded sound, it contains minimal dialog and relies heavily on the rich imagery and extended mood-setting techniques common to silent films of the era.

After becoming more familiar with Vampyr and its historical context, we got our hands on Dreyer’s original screenplay (excerpted above) and sketched out our interpretation of the dramatic form:

Since then we’ve been extremely busy in our respective studios developing a wide range of sound concepts and show ideas. After months of testing, the range of options has narrowed and the shape (and sound!) of the show is coming into focus.

Current Status

Before the pandemic we had tracked and mixed ~35 minutes of music along with an additional 20 minutes of demo tracks. We’ve now picked things up once again and are working toward our first “test” shows during the summer of 2022. Check out the journal entries below to track the continued progress…

January 1, 2019
After Rochberg: A Centenary Celebration Concert

Since 2013, my close friend and colleague Jeremy Gill and I have been searching for an opportunity to put together a concert in honor of our mentor George Rochberg. At long last, we found it.

Jeremy and I were fortunate to have worked closely with George during the last 10 years of his life. Rochberg’s legacy as a composer and teacher is widely felt, and in a very real sense, our compositional work is part of that legacy.

Our concert title “After Rochberg” is a play on his 1966 piano solo work Nach Bach and is designed to showcase the incredible range of George’s musical output and his legacy — in the form of works from two of his last students.

Half of the concert is a survey of George’s piano music from 1941 to 1984. By way of example, here’s a selection of short movements from one of Rochberg’s seminal twelve-tone works from the 1950s.

Twelve Bagatelles (1952), Nos. 1, 2, 5, and 9, Greg Wilder, piano

Between musical selections, we hear George’s own voice (captured in interviews) describing his personal journey and attitudes toward various aesthetic and historic approaches to music composition.

“Retina of Memory”, George Rochberg

The second half of the recital is split between Jeremy’s and my own compositions, all of which were written within the last 15 years. (Plume and The 13th Page were were among the included works.)

Throughout November and December of 2018, we prepared and tested the recital concept with small audiences, eventually presenting the public premiere as a part of George’s centenary celebration (1918-2005) in Philadelphia on December 10th.

December 10, 2018
Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency

I’ve just returned from a three-week residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida — and what an INCREDIBLE experience it was!

From the wonderful studio facilities to the glorious chef-prepared meals, the ACA exceeded all expectations. But the outstanding aspect of the residency was the people! Getting to know the staff and the other 23 artists was what made the whole experience worthwhile.

(more…)

March 12, 2018
Radio Project: Valley of the Tharsans

After many long months of development and testing, I’m thrilled to announce Isomer’s composition debut! And if that’s not exciting enough, Isomer’s first project was recently selected for programming on basic.fm this fall.

About

“Valley of the Tharsans” is a sci-fi radio play with a keen sense of nostalgia for the science fiction of the early- to mid-20th century, when finding intelligent alien life on nearby planets seemed completely feasible. The piece is narrated by the head of Lanscorp, a mega-corporation that is the first to send colonists to Mars in 2016.

The aliens’ “natural” music, created entirely by Isomer, is based on models from the 1922-3 work “Hyperprism” by Edgar Varèse, an important early 20th-century composer who elevated the role of rhythm and timbre to equal that of pitch and harmony, thereby adding new dimensions to the way music is structured and perceived.

The sound of the narrator was created using acoustical analysis and resynthesis techniques to transform the natural sound of the actor’s voice. Additionally, the speech patterns found in the narration were fed into Isomer as models, allowing the musical output to tightly conform to the actor’s performance.

“Valley of the Tharsans” is science fiction through and through: its narrative surrounds the discovery of an intelligent alien race, and its musical score was created by artificially intelligent software from musical models that, when originally conceived, evoked a futuristic musical landscape.

Script: Alison Wilder and Greg Wilder
Voice Actor: Beau James Fisher
Music Composition: Isomer
Production: Greg Wilder and Alison Wilder

July 23, 2012
Moment of First Awakening
Moment of First Awakening (2012) is an audio-visual collaboration between musician/video artist Alison Conard and composer Greg Wilder.

In the spring of 1985, conductor Clive Wearing suffered from a virus that attacked his brain’s ability to form short-term memories. He was left with less than 2 minutes of recall at any given time.

To this day, Clive keeps a journal in a stilted attempt to record his existence:
- 8:31 AM: Now I am really, completely awake.
- 9:06 AM: Now I am perfectly, overwhelmingly awake.
- 9:34 AM: Now I am superlatively, actually awake.
Clive lives in a perpetual state of temporary standby. His entire awareness is limited to a tiny window of time — a momentary gap that creates for him a continuous moment of first awakening.
May 17, 2012