Riley Nicholson

D. Riley Nicholson: Shimmer for piano, electronics, and projections
Ted Moore: feedback ix for electronics and objects

About Shimmer:
Shimmer is a 50 minute musical work by composer-pianist D. Riley Nicholson for piano and electronics. Nicholson worked closely with sound designer Zach Miley to record, sculpt, and create an interface suitable for live electro-acoustic performance. Shimmer is performed by Nicholson alongside projected visuals created specifically for the production by artist Robby Gilson.

To shimmer is to reflect a wavering or distorted visual image, to tremolo a fitful light. To shimmer is to flicker and allow the complexity of a beautiful light to evolve, to open up the possibility of an object viewed from multiple perspectives simultaneously. From a different angle, Nicholson explores Shimmer as a highly personal verb: We are remembered by how we reflected the light around us. We didn’t create our light, but we do choose to spread and magnify it in a myriad of directions. Shimmer reflects these ideas as a repetitive tremor of shaking, mesmerizing, aural glare.

About feedback ix:
Ted Moore will present his work, feedback ix which explores physical materials, resonant properties of space, and the system of air molecules that is often overlooked when one hears music or sound. By amplifying large PVC tubes harmonic and melodic contours emerge from the physics of sound. Moore explores resonant properties molded in expressive ways, often through the use of digital manipulation, presenting both harmonic and inharmonic spectra.

Bios:
D. Riley Nicholson has composed for a wide range of ensembles and performance venues including music for contemporary ballet, theater, orchestral music, wind band, chamber music, vocal music, and electronic music. Riley feels comfortable writing for electric guitar one day and string orchestra the next; his music can be described as metaphorically rich, innovative, and modern, but never inaccessible or overly esoteric.
Fascinated and committed to working with artists outside of music as well as within, collaborations include original music for Hot Air Music Festival, Post:Ballet, Switchboard Music, Ballet Memphis’s Cecily Khuner, Three Penny Theater, Cello Street Quartet, Amaranth Quartet, SFCM New Music ensemble, Balmoral Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Roar, San Francisco Conservatory of Music Percussion Ensemble, University of Memphis Percussion Ensemble and many other talented artists and organizations.
Riley was the recipient of the Horizons Foundation grant in support of his work One, for large string orchestra, which headlined Hot Air Music Festival on March 6th, 2016, and received another Horizons grant in support of his Shimmer production. His music has been featured on I Care if You Listen TV and will be featured on Not Art Records 2017 Mixtape.
Riley has a M.M. in Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, a B.M. in percussion performance, and a B.A. in psychology from the University of Memphis.

https://www.rileynicholson.com/

Ted Moore is a composer, improviser, intermedia artist, and educator based in Chicago. His work focuses on fusing the sonic, visual, physical, and acoustic aspects of performance and sound, often through the integration of technology. Ted’s work has been reviewed as “an impressive achievement both artistically and technically” (Jay Gabler, VitaMN), “wonderfully creepy” (Matthew Everett, TC Daily Planet), and “epic” (Rob Hubbard, Pioneer Press). Ted’s work has been premiered by the International Contemporary Ensemble, Spektral Quartet, The Dream Songs Project, Yarn/Wire, Splinter Reeds, Quince Vocal Ensemble, AVIDduo, and others, and has been performed across the country including at The Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Spectrum (NYC), Root Signals Electronic Music Festival (Statesboro, GA), and the Electroacoustic Barn Dance (Fredericksburg, VA), among others.
Ted also frequently performs solo on electronics using his laptop, modular synthesizer systems, resonant physical objects, lighting equipment, and video projection. He has been featured as an installation artist by the Northern Spark Festival (Minneapolis), Studio 300 Festival of Digital Art and Music (Lexington, KY), St. Paul Public Library, TC Make (Minneapolis). As an improviser, Ted is one half of Binary Canary, a woodwinds-laptop improvisation duo alongside saxophonist Kyle Hutchins. As a theater artist, Ted has worked with many independent companies, notably with Skewed Visions and Savage Umbrella.

http://www.tedmooremusic.com/