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Self-penned blurb:
Hello, my name is Jon Fielder and you are currently reading about me and my music. I often struggle to define or describe my music, but if I had to put a label on it I would have to go with post-kerplunkity neomodernism, though you could more easily call it atonal electroacoustic/acoustic music. And if I had to describe my main interests and goals compositionally and artistically they could be distilled into 4 dyadic categories: 1) electronics and media, 2) timbre and texture, 3) gesture and energy, and 4) sound and metaphor. Throughout my career and development as a musician my interests, style and conceptualization of music has evolved many times over, but those four categories are, and always have been, at the forefront of my musical thinking. I’m particularly drawn to the thornier side of the musical spectrum, with a strong preference for atonality, juxtaposition of contrasting elements, and abrasive sounds (I think I would genuinely love the sound of chewing on tin foil). When creating my own music I often turn to more mathematical and structured approaches to generate content, which is then filtered through personal life experiences to, hopefully, create interesting sonic narratives and imagery.
I also keep a blog called KLANG dedicated to discussing experimental and adventurous new music in America, reviews of recordings, concerts/festivals and book, and interviews with emerging American composers.
Composition/Performance Activity:
Jon's music has been presented and performed at the SEAMUS conference, International Computer Music Conference, Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium, Electronic Music Midwest, the Electro-Acoustic Barn Dance, CEMI-circles Festival, N-SEME, North American Saxophone Alliance (NASA) conference, LaTex festival, KcEMA, Omaha Under the Radar, the International Double Reed Society Conference (2012), Something Said Only Once (SSOO in Tempe, AZ), the 2010 Northern Ohio Music Exchange (NOMA) concert at the Oberlin Conservatory, the Olmsted Festival of the Arts, and inclusion in the Alex Sramek call for scores for the Voxnovus 15-Minutes of Fame series. In 2016 he received an ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission for his piece Dissociation Sequences (C23H28O8) for cello and live electronics and he was the first recipient of the Mark Phillips Distinguished Professor award for composition in 2009 (Ohio University). Jon has received commissions from the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music of the United States (SEAMUS), Tetractys (new music series in Austin, TX), ADJ-ective New Music, Patchwork Duo, Jacqueline Leclair, Liz Pearse (soprano), Noa Even, and Katherine Woolsey.
Jon is also an active researcher and music theorist (see Writing), his primary topics of interest being music of Franklin Cox, Brian Ferneyhough, Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen as well as multi-channel diffusion systems and performance practice of Acousmatic music. Jon's research includes papers on repetition of schematic gesture in New Complexity, Narrative and syntactical form in the music of Franklin Cox, history of multi-channel speaker systems since 1958 and the compositional considerations therein, and analyses of pieces by Jonty Harrison with particular attention paid to the composer's conceptualization of space as a compositional construct.
Based in Cleveland, OH, Jon is active as a freelance composer and audio engineer. He was previously a full-time instructor of audio and music at SAE Expression College in Emeryville, CA, and taught course in music theory, electronic music, signal processing and mixing, foundations of acoustics, interactive audio with Max/MSP, and multimedia composition. He received two B.M. degrees in composition and theory from Ohio University in 2010, a M.M. in composition from Bowling Green State University in 2012, and a DMA in composition from the University of Texas at Austin in 2017.. Previous instructors and mentors include Elainie Lillios, Russell Pinkston, Mikel Kuehn, Franklin Cox, Bruce Pennycook, Mark Phillips and Christopher Dietz.
Download Resume
Self-penned blurb:
Hello, my name is Jon Fielder and you are currently reading about me and my music. I often struggle to define or describe my music, but if I had to put a label on it I would have to go with post-kerplunkity neomodernism, though you could more easily call it atonal electroacoustic/acoustic music. And if I had to describe my main interests and goals compositionally and artistically they could be distilled into 4 dyadic categories: 1) electronics and media, 2) timbre and texture, 3) gesture and energy, and 4) sound and metaphor. Throughout my career and development as a musician my interests, style and conceptualization of music has evolved many times over, but those four categories are, and always have been, at the forefront of my musical thinking. I’m particularly drawn to the thornier side of the musical spectrum, with a strong preference for atonality, juxtaposition of contrasting elements, and abrasive sounds (I think I would genuinely love the sound of chewing on tin foil). When creating my own music I often turn to more mathematical and structured approaches to generate content, which is then filtered through personal life experiences to, hopefully, create interesting sonic narratives and imagery.
I also keep a blog called KLANG dedicated to discussing experimental and adventurous new music in America, reviews of recordings, concerts/festivals and book, and interviews with emerging American composers.
Composition/Performance Activity:
Jon's music has been presented and performed at the SEAMUS conference, International Computer Music Conference, Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium, Electronic Music Midwest, the Electro-Acoustic Barn Dance, CEMI-circles Festival, N-SEME, North American Saxophone Alliance (NASA) conference, LaTex festival, KcEMA, Omaha Under the Radar, the International Double Reed Society Conference (2012), Something Said Only Once (SSOO in Tempe, AZ), the 2010 Northern Ohio Music Exchange (NOMA) concert at the Oberlin Conservatory, the Olmsted Festival of the Arts, and inclusion in the Alex Sramek call for scores for the Voxnovus 15-Minutes of Fame series. In 2016 he received an ASCAP/SEAMUS Student Commission for his piece Dissociation Sequences (C23H28O8) for cello and live electronics and he was the first recipient of the Mark Phillips Distinguished Professor award for composition in 2009 (Ohio University). Jon has received commissions from the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music of the United States (SEAMUS), Tetractys (new music series in Austin, TX), ADJ-ective New Music, Patchwork Duo, Jacqueline Leclair, Liz Pearse (soprano), Noa Even, and Katherine Woolsey.
Jon is also an active researcher and music theorist (see Writing), his primary topics of interest being music of Franklin Cox, Brian Ferneyhough, Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen as well as multi-channel diffusion systems and performance practice of Acousmatic music. Jon's research includes papers on repetition of schematic gesture in New Complexity, Narrative and syntactical form in the music of Franklin Cox, history of multi-channel speaker systems since 1958 and the compositional considerations therein, and analyses of pieces by Jonty Harrison with particular attention paid to the composer's conceptualization of space as a compositional construct.
Based in Cleveland, OH, Jon is active as a freelance composer and audio engineer. He was previously a full-time instructor of audio and music at SAE Expression College in Emeryville, CA, and taught course in music theory, electronic music, signal processing and mixing, foundations of acoustics, interactive audio with Max/MSP, and multimedia composition. He received two B.M. degrees in composition and theory from Ohio University in 2010, a M.M. in composition from Bowling Green State University in 2012, and a DMA in composition from the University of Texas at Austin in 2017.. Previous instructors and mentors include Elainie Lillios, Russell Pinkston, Mikel Kuehn, Franklin Cox, Bruce Pennycook, Mark Phillips and Christopher Dietz.