My transliteration project is a book series that visualizes digital audio using different representations, such as waveforms, binary data, or fourier transformations. These images feel like a microscope and a pause button, allowing us to sit with one moment in time, look at it very closely, in a new way, and appreciate the specificity, detail, and care it can convey.

created with the [Switch~ Ensemble]: Zach Sheets, flute T.J. Borden, cello Wei-Han Wu, piano Megan Arns, percussion quartet is a remote collaboration between myself and the [Switch~ Ensemble] designed to engage with the added technological mediation at play during the pandemic. The sonic source material of quartet is about two minutes of eurorack synthesizer recordings transcribed for the [Switch~ Ensemble] to record. These recordings were then subjected to data analysis using audio descriptors and machine learning algorithms using FluCoMa.

Composed for Giacomo Piermatti of Ensemble Suono Giallo for ilSuono Contemporary Music Week 2021. Città di Castello, Italy. full score

Commissioned by National Sawdust as part of the Live@NationalSawdust Digital Discovery Festival ​premiered by JACK Quartet ​full score

hold is a tape composition commissioned by Chicago Civic Orchestra for their 100 year anniversary live stream, March 29, 2020. It was created using samples of individual orchestra members playing their part to Tchaikovsky’s 5th symphony along with other electronic sounds, including feedback bassoon sounds made with collaborator Ben Roidl-Ward. This work is not only to celebrate Civic’s 100 year history, but is also a reflection on the COVID-19 crisis, which is the reason the event was changed from a live performance to a live stream.

My friends at line upon line percussion asked me to come up with an idea for a short piece that could be created collaboratively with them during the COVID time of physical distancing. In turn, I asked for videos of them making a collection of sounds that I could then combine into some groovy video thing. The videos are played using custom software in c++ created with openframeworks, however all of the sequencing was done with patterns in SuperCollider.

Commissioned by HOCKET for #What2020SoundsLike full score

Commissioned by line upon line percussion recorded at UT Austin, January 12, 2019 Composing tap began by recording many sounds, gestures, and passages on my eurorack modular synthesizer and then organizing these recordings into a tape part for the piece. I then transcribed the rhythms and timbres of the tape part to create a tight synchronization between the the tape and percussion parts played by the ensemble. The video and lights were then composed to add to the intense synchrony.

shadow exists as both a solo version for no-input mixer and lights (performed at Omaha Under the Radar in 2018) and as a duo with saxophone. In this video, shadow was played as one movement of a longer performance on the Frequency Series at Constellation in Chicago. The sounds of the no-input mixer are analyzed in real-time using timbral descriptors, which are then sent to a neural network for classification into one of four categories: distorted noise, high squeal, low impulses, or quiet sustained noise.

patina is about memory and metal. Sounds in the work are inspired by recordings of different metals sounding in different ways, including a cymbal resonating with audio feedback and a no-input mixer. These sounds were transcribed both using computer analysis and by ear and then orchestrated manually.

hollow was created in collaboration with saxophonist Kyle Hutchins and is featured on Binary Canary’s album iterative systems out on Carrier Records. Three large PVC tubes (4 inches in diameter and between 7 and 10 feet long–they can be seen in the video) are amplified by placing a microphone on one end and a speaker on the other. The feedback this creates is stable only at the resonant frequencies of the tube.

feed was created in collaboration with bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward for Experimental Sound Studio’s Oscillation Series. feed integrates multiple modes of real-time lighting control using custom tools that implement DMX parameterization, machine learning, music information retrieval, and Reaper sequencer integration. My DMX parameter control system is a family of OOP classes written in SuperCollider that can be implemented with any DMX compatible lights. It allows for user-defined parameter naming and contains built-in timed fades, LFO modulation, control bus following (for audio reactivity), and user-defined function control of individual parameters.

The spatialized sounds used were designed using custom spatialization algorithms (tuned to the space) and custom sound design software created in SuperCollider. The DMX lights were composed and sequenced using a custom protocol between Reaper and SuperCollider. This is a stereo mixdown.

live performance recorded on April 5, 2018 by Spektral Quartet University of Chicago Chicago, IL full score

still motion b uses live audio and video sampling of the performer’s mouth, the projection of which creates a counterpoint to the live performance. All of the sampling is done with an openFrameworks program coded in C++. Contact me for the software download.

Commissioned by and composed for percussionist Patti Cudd with support from MacPhail Center for Music and the McKnight Foundation. still motion uses live audio and video sampling of the performing percussionist, the projection of which creates a counterpoint to the live performer. All of the sampling is done with an openFrameworks program coded in C++. full score Contact me for the software download.

Music composed by Scott Miller: Solstice Orrery on Raba (New Focus Recordings fcr198) Video design by Ted Moore Scott asked me to create a video design for this track (Solstice Orrery) on his New Focus release, Raba. An “orrery” is a mechanical model of the solar system (as can be heard in the music). I took inspiration from the title and used/created images of the sun in various renderings.

Created in collaboration with theater artist Charles Campbell of Skewed Visions. ​APPETITE uses the principle of feedback (audio, video, and cultural) to create environments that, while structured and intentional, are open, unpredictable, and greater than the elements used in their construction. The texts in APPETITE use Chris Marker’s influential 1962 sci-fi/experimental film, La Jetée as a starting point. Marker’s time-travel love-story film is almost entirely made up of a sequence of still images with voice-over narration.

commissioned by percussionist Jeremy Johnston it teaches us that it doesn’t exist creates an audio feedback loop by attaching a transducer to a suspended cymbal. The transducer agitates the cymbal with whatever audio signal is coming in through the microphone, which, when placed over the cymbal amplifies the sounds of the cymbal, agitating it further, creating a positive feedback loop. Moving the microphone over different parts of the cymbal and at different distances and angles creates different feedback tones and dynamics.

composed for and premiered by Strains New Music Ensemble performance score The video design was created mostly using Processing

FEATHERMUCKER by Ted Moore featuring The Dream Songs Project with text by Timothy Otte text by Timothy Otte Commissioned by The Dream Songs Project Over the work’s 50 minute duration, Timothy Otte’s text sets a crumbled, post-apocalyptic world in which he describes the creative process of making idiosyncratic meaning where objective meaning cannot be found. Musically, FEATHERMUCKER is a combination of folk, experimental, and electronic music; cinematic sound fx; and sound art installation.

samara piece captures the calming stillness of samara seeds (aka. helicopter seeds) that fall in my neighborhood every spring. Premiered by the Spektral Quartet and Tim Munro during their residency at The Walden School in July 2014.

PERSEPHONE was created in collaboration with theater artist Hannah K. Holman and tells an interpretation of the Greek myth of Persephone, the daughter of Zeus who became the queen of the underworld after being abducted by Hades. Our retelling explores the themes of fear, curiosity, rebirth, and growth. The music and sound was composed by Ted Moore and the story and movement were devised in collaboration with the cast.

Commissioned by The Poem is Done Ensemble. full score

eclipse was commissioned by Skewed Visions, an experimental theater company in Minneapolis. The piece includes live audio processing using SuperCollider, as well as live visuals created with Processing. The visuals are controlled by the audio of the performer, giving the freedom to improvise within the structure specified by the composer, but keeping the visual and musical elements intimately connected through gesture.

Commissioned by the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis.