Invention on Invention: the Compositional Opportunities and Challenges of Writing for a Trimpin Installation 

Date Saturday, April 21, 2012, at 2:00 p.m.

Open Space hosted a talk presented by Darren Miller.

The vast majority of training that young composers receive during their education involves learning the characteristics and abilities of musical instruments from the Western tradition. Given Trimpin's habit of inventing new instruments with every installation, the prospect of writing music for one of his works is both incredibly exciting and incredibly daunting. Darren Miller's talk focused on both aspects of this dichotomy through a discussion of 1) his past compositional output in general; 2) his compositional approach to robotics, including a work for one of Trimpin's previous inventions; 3) Trimpin's overall approach to questions of interface; and 4) specific characteristics of the (CanonX+4:33=100) installation.

Bio:

Darren Miller was born and raised in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. In 2005 he received his B.Mus. with great distinction from the University of Saskatchewan. In 2008 he completed an M.Mus. at the University of Victoria and attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, Germany. Darren then spent a year at the Banff Centre on a self-directed creative residency before embarking on a course of PhD studies under Cort Lippe at the State University of New York in Buffalo. In 2010 Darren transferred to the University of Victoria, where he has completed his PhD studies and exams under Dr. Dániel Péter Biró and has begun work on his dissertation research and composition on the subject of musical and audio morphology.