Brandon J. Rolle

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BRANDON
J.
ROLLE

Composer & Conductor

About

ABOUT ROLLE

Composer Brandon J. Rolle creates wildly inventive music, incorporating psychoacoustics, sonology, and computer programming to help realize the deeply-immersive sound worlds of his works. Fusing traditional and contemporary methods, his music investigates points of connection between old and new, structure and chaos, perception and deception. His diverse creative output includes orchestral, chamber, electro-acoustic, and intermedia music, which have been performed at festivals and concerts of new music across the United States and Europe.

In addition to his creative work, Dr. Rolle is a conductor specializing in new music. An advocate of hands-on opportunities for emerging composers, he has worked with numerous young composers and musicians, including the Black House Collective, UC Santa Barbara's Ensemble for Contemporary Music, jazz ensembles, chamber orchestra, and as director of the university's 2019 orchestral reading session for doctoral composition students. In 2017, Rolle was music director of a concert of new works by algorithmic music pioneer Clarence Barlow at the Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theater (REDCAT) in Los Angeles, CA.

Rolle is the co-founder and Artistic Director of the Impulse New Music Festival, a training ground for talented early-career composers to develop critical creative and professional skills needed for a career in new music. Both in the festival and the classroom, Brandon's teaching methods utilize modern tools and technologies to better understand the ways we learn and create music: he has developed custom software and exercises for his classes, created new courses courses in electro-acoustic composition and interactive videogame music, and launched intensive workshops in computer music and psychoacoustics-based composition. Brandon has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at UC Santa Barbara, Chapman University, Cal State University, Northridge, and the Colburn Conservatory of Music, and guest lectures and masterclasses at universities in California, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Rolle is based in Los Angeles, California, where he works as a freelance composer and conductor, and teaches at the COLBURN SCHOOL CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC. An active member of the L.A. New Music Community, Rolle has served as Modern Music Writer for NewClassic.LA, as a part of the teams at Equal Sound and Brightwork New Music, and is currently Associate Director at Piano Spheres. Rolle holds a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MA from Mills College; his primary teachers Joel Feigin, Clarence Barlow, Pauline Oliveros, and Roscoe Mitchell. His music is registered with ASCAP and published by Precious Noise Music. Rolle is represented by BLACK TEA MUSIC.

Music

LISTEN & WATCH

ABOUT

— Premiered Köln, Germany

Celebrating my friend and algorithmic music pioneer Clarence Barlow's 70th birthday, für Klarenz explores how the ordinary can be magnified and stretched into remote sound worlds that remain, somehow, eerily familiar.

scores

CURRENT & UPCOMING PROJECTS

Glitch Portraiture -Violin solo, Electronics, String Quartet Commissioned by New Music USA Trash Moon -Multi-channel audio-video work with Christopher Richmond Commissioned by Hear Now Festival Purgatory, a one-act chamber opera on the play by Yeats -dramatic baritone, lyric tenor and chamber ensemble Outcast at the Gate -electronics for composer Joel Feigin's new opera Commissioned by Joel Feigin
ACOUSTIC & ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC CONCERT WORKS

In-Place -for string quartet and electronics Afterward -for ukulele Call & Echo -for solo cello Focus Breathing -for orchestra Sovrimpressione, v.2 -for string quartet and live electronics Sovrimpressione -for string quartet Seagram Murals, No. x -for flute, bass clarinet, percussion, piano, violin and cello Exposure Script, no.1, chamber reduction version -for chamber orchestra (2222; 2221; 2 perc; timp; strings) Exposure Script, no.1 -for orchestra (2222; 4331; 3 perc; timp; strings) für Klarenz -for piano and electronics (2-channel, 4-channel, and 6-channel versions available) Impulse -for viola and live electronics Child's Play Variations -for violin, flute, clarinet and percussion Prayer for Isla Vista -for viola, horn and piano Fugue for changes -for piano Residual Energies -for two electric guitars and live electronics for silence -for flute, viola, cello and percussion Be Comforted -for orchestra (2222; 4331; timp; strings) War in Reverse -for speaker, clarinet, electric guitar, piano, percussion, drum set, live electronics Projections, III: Beautiful Noise -for soprano solo Projections, II: Trumpet -for trumpet and live electronics Projections, I: Awaken Pierrot -for clarinet, prepared piano, dancer and live electronics Fractal Overture -for string quartet [reclines and starts to fade] -for just-intoned guitar and live electronics [nearly home] -for SATB mixed chorus Peace. -for five spoken voices Four Songs -for mezzo soprano, electric guitar and piano Duet -for clarinet and classical guitar
ELECTRONIC & INTERACTIVE WORKS

Strange Girl -for four spoken voices, vases, beads, four surface transducers and 2-channel audio Credo -for 2-channel fixed media Artifacts for Player Piano -for MIDI-enabled acoustic player piano, electronics and 2-channel audio Invisible Windows -for tele-performance of multiple sites, modular instrument configurations. MomentStructures -for tele-performance, multiple performers, twitter account
MUSIC FOR SCREEN

Hyperway -3-channel audiovisual work in collaboration with Christopher Richmond Rocksmith 2014 -Audio Composer, team lead; Ubisoft Studios, San Francisco Historically Black -U.C. Berkley School of Journalism Andie -24-Karat Fox Productions Roots, Thirds, Fifths -Off-Duty Productions
MUSIC FOR DANCE

Cabaret -2-channel fixed media Let Down -2-channel fixed media
MUSIC FOR JAZZ ENSEMBLE

Jazz Suite: 3 More Moods from the West -for jazz combo (mixed instrumentation) The Storm -for jazz band and string orchestra Opaque -for trumpet, tenor sax, guitar, piano, double bass and drum set Said Quietly -for voice and jazz combo (mixed instrumentation; jazz band arrangement) Brandon Bop -for jazz band