Composition

This course is for students who have already taken an audio mixing course at Bennington. We explore the art and science of mixing and producing audio for both emergent immersive formats and traditional legacy platforms. 

Through critical listening,

This class gives composers hands-on practice notating their music and hearing it played by performers playing a variety of instruments. It is meant for fledgling composers, for those who may have composed a lot of music already but have trouble writing their music down, or for those who have never even imagined composing music but would like to try. There are specific

In the first half of the term students will compose pieces for the celebrated "Eighth Blackbird" ensemble, which consists of  flute(s), clarinet(s), piano, percussion, violin, and cello. In preparation for this, we will study a few important scores written for this combination of instruments. The ensemble will visit in November and read and record the

This course will look at the versatile program of Max/MSP/Jitter, a high-level programming platform for sound and visuals. Our focus will be on the sonic capabilities of the program, though we will dip occasionally into visuals, video, and sensing technologies. Students will develop research and projects based on their interests and abilities and must

This class will focus on historical methods of electronic music composition through a contemporary lens. We will study synthesis in depth, and the development of early analog synthesizers, while learning how these techniques have influenced contemporary software design. While the class will focus

In this introductory course, we will read, examine, discuss, and design in conversation with a selected literature of recorded audio, sound design practice, and history. This course will provide the foundational technical, historical, and contextual/cultural support to your knowledge of working in music and sound design in music, theater,

An introduction to music theory course. Music theory fundamentals will be taught utilizing voice (singing) and an instrument in hand. Knowledge of the piano keyboard will be learned and utilized. Curriculum will span the harmonic series, circle of 5ths, scales and chords to ear training, harmonic and rhythmic dictation, and beginning composition. Score reading, listening,

In this class, we’ll play open-ended and comprov pieces, sourced from the last half-century as well as ones of our own making. Based on early ensembles such as the Fluxus and Scratch Orchestras, we’ll plumb piece from the open-form proto minimalism of Julius Eastman to the deep listening scores of Pauline Oliveros. Some relationship to an instrument,

What makes a group of songs a “cycle”? Is it a theme, lyric, or simple proximity?  Isn’t a song cycle just a concept album? In this course we’ll play through and recompose the literature about song cycles, from Schubert to Joanna Newsom’s Ys to many others. We’ll start by radically recomposing a

Pioneering artist Maryanne Amacher kept her innovative sonic compositions in just two suitcases.  Wherever she went to set up her "Sound Joined Rooms" exhibitions, she brought with her these two suitcases to probe and test the architecture with sound.