Media Archive

MUSICAL SCORES and MANUSCRIPTS
Download at the links below

'Reveria Im Neuen Stil' (1994) solo piano - facsimile of manuscript, 17 pages
Download ZIP Folder (10.4meg)


'Faultlines' - 2009 - rough draft score Ensemble version
Download Score PDF


'Faultlines' - 2009 - rough draft score Piano reduction
Download Score PDF


'Composites' - 2009 - piano solo
Download Score PDF


'Data Is My Image' - organ solo
Download Score PDF


'Air Reliquary'
Download Score PDF


'Chorale' - 2009 - piano arrangement
Download Score PDF


'Chorale' - V1 chordal version
Download Score PDF


'Chorale' - 2009 - violin and piano arrangement
Download Score PDF


'Nocturne' - 2009 - piano
Download Score PDF




'Modules For Piano' book one - 2006-07 - Download score PDFs below.
Note for musicians : the marked tempos in the Modules scores are generally
much too fast - please proceed at your own leisurely pace through them!

Scherzo
Transversal
Reptilian Patterns
Leaf
Crescent
Alphamirrar
Alphamirrar - two-pianos arrangement

PROJECT NOTES & ABSTRACTS

MAS PROJEKTOR

(2016 - 2020)

Mas Projektor is a futuristic musical odyssey and multi sensory landscape conceived & developed by composer & producer James Gordon Anderson.

In its final form, Mas Projektor has been distilled into 10-15 sets lasting between 75-90 minutes each.

Each set utilises distinct soundworlds and musical approaches These range from sustained and atmospheric instrumental meditations, massive experimental electro-acoustic collages and maximalist improvisations, hybrid dance and electronica, and intimate post-classical minimalism

The project is the culmination of composition, recording and production begun in 2008, and integrates earlier musical material from as far back as 1995.

project website: Mas Projektor

STAIRS TO THE MIDNIGHT CITY - VOLUME ONE

(2010)

A musical travelogue encompassing the spectrum of contemporary musical practice, and a visionary synthesis of past, present and future forms, Stairs To The Midnight City is one of the most significant large-scale productions undertaken by a 21st century composer.

Volume One of a projected five volume series, subtitled 'Dream sequences and catalysts for synaesthetic modalities...', draws together a raft of techniques, approaches and elements - minimalism, maximalism, polymodality, dodecaphony, polyphony, atmospheric collage, overlaid transparencies, found sounds, decayed materials, improvisation, dance-electronica, meta-musical fractals-fractures-ellipses-isotopes-tropes, and happy acccidents of chance - in the formation of unique and unified modular spectra in an overarching musico-phenomenological matrix.

BIOCENTENARY - AFTERIMAGE
Retrospective Notes

(2005-06)

In retrospect, the title itself alludes to a number of ideas which were formative in the genesis and development of the project - some brief notes in regard to a few of these! : the magnification of human-historical time into the larger perspective of evolutionary time ; a recognition of universal generative structures found in natural, biological, technological, human and cultural forms ; a sense of interrelated structures and developments within different fields and aspects of reality, and the exploration of germinal, or 'genetic' , materials - and the way in which these 'universal building blocks code and instruct, proliferate, develop, morph and mutate in all kinds of contexts and structures ; the non-linear nature of reality, time and consciousness (and their peculiar relationship to each other) ; and perhaps - although this is a longshot - the idea of our real self being an independent consciousness linked into a larger universal fabric.

Moving from a human, to an evolutionary and then cosmic, timescale, the 'afterimage' is a continuous projection and evolution of real and imagined forms into the future ; the history of all forms survives in evolving and re-imagined structures. The 'afterimage' of history is the mirror, reflection, refraction and decay of a 'primal' image and its proliferating structures; the 'ghost' of all things; the memory of all moments in time, their mirror and decay : 'time is the moving image of eternity' - Plato

MODULES FOR PIANO

(2006-07)

Commissioned through Arts Victoria for pianist Michael Kieran Harvey
and the Stuart & Sons Piano

::::: Premiere - Oct 19.2008, St Matthew's Church, Albury NSW Australia :::::

MODULES FOR PIANO is a set (or suite) of modular - or mobile - variations. The pieces in the set are derived and constructed from several main 'cells', which constitute the source material for nearly all of the key melodic, harmonic and rhythmic material. These proto-materials helped form more traditional melodic and harmonic motifs - albeit via experimental, non-linear and extra-musical techniques.


The idea of modular and non-linear forms extend all the way from the generation of micro 'cellular' material, to the form of individual pieces, and even beyond : to the splicing together (and omission) of individual movements to form macro-structures which change the views and dimensions of the material, opening up the possibility of forming new larger 'pieces' or structures, - in the first place simply by altering and 're-splicing' the sequence of events. The open-ended nature of the harmonic material in particular makes this kind of choose-your-own-adventure possible.


While the listener will note the pieces display a recognisable tonal idiom (and perhaps neo-classical or pseudo-classical characteristics and stylisms) - it's been interesting for me as part of the compositional experience to note that the techniques employed in putting the music together have been much more experimental and non-linear than some of the material might otherwise suggest.

BLUE SECTOR

(2004)

Commissioned through the ABC Regional Production Fund (2003-04)

The pieces in blue sector were constructed via digital processing and manipulation of field recordings gathered in north east victoria, january and february 2004.

All share similar material and formal elements ; re-framed/re-shot/re-focused via discrete addition and subtraction of layers of acoustic 'film'/or transparencies - vignettes open into vistas and vice versa.....

My grandmother's old bluthner piano ringing out against the evening cicadas, the hum of a local quarry, a dawn cacophony of birds, splashingin the creek on a sunday morning... found sound objects and organic
materials exist in symbiotic relationship with each other; as an observational, aural and formal experience, the barriers between natural and machine environments become increasingly arbitrary in a sonic sense - formally distinct integrities become interchangeable with those of the other.

Blue Sector attempts to synthesize various aspects of these diverse environments via 'organic' forms and structures suggested and partially determined by the flow of natural events in time - simply by listening and observing the goings-on of reality in a temporal scheme.

Echoes of stockhausen, musique concrete, gavin bryars, b-grade horror films, harold budd, ryuichi sakamoto, wagner's 'parsifal' - they're in there somewhere, a segment of an old piece 'reveria im neuen stil' appears in the blue sector 2 remix piece. everything else happened in real time, and I tried not to get in the way too much.

Thanks to Anthony Burgess and his book 'Earthly Powers' which I read while doing the piece. And finally, thanks to everyone at the ABC and the Regional Production Fund for making this work possible.

BIOCENTENARY - AFTERIMAGE

(2005)

Commissioned through the ABC Regional Production Fund (2005)

An evolutionary and aesthetic theme park of the digital world, Biocentenary-Afterimage explores differing cultural and perceptual modes of experience via abstract musical representations and textual interpolations. Blurring the bouundaries between art, science, technology and the media, and utilising (for its inspiration and content) texts as diverse as Marshall McLuhan's 'The Gutenberg Galaxy', Terence Mckenna's 'New Maps of Hyperspace' and 'The Geometric Model of Consciousness' ; newly-posited futures across all areas of next-stage human evolution - scientific, aesthetic, biological, technological, perceptual and conceptual - are embraced in a genre-defying voyage of discovery < in non-linear and modular, technological-aesthetic forms.

TRANSTEMPORAL EMPIRES

(2007)

Commissioned with assistance from the Australia Council for the Arts -

'the audio object article Transtemporal Empires contains the following discrete and indiscrete object-elements :

entropied spherical implosions
dub and modified enviroments
hyperdimensional acoustic re-fractions
modal transparencies and reflections
a fulcrum of equidistant dodecaphony
the multiplication and extension of homophony into space
quantum-aesthetic dilemnas
an undersea orchestra
rehabilitated meta-acousticians testing sand particles from the beach at eternity
interstellar emotional migrations
mixed media messages
the virtual hokum baroque ensemble
disembodied rhythmic dissension "

MUSIK FOR 10 PIANOS

(2004-05)

Like arctic water coursing through a glacial monolith, or a balloon trip across an ancient countryside (without Richard Branson), Musik for 10 Pianos is a work of polymath depth and beauty. Fusing minimalism, modality and counterpoint, 'MUSIK....' draws on the influences of Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Brian Eno, the music of Palestrina and Victoria, musique-concrete and the avant-garde - to forge a new hybrid from the chrysalis of these soundworlds. Myriad piano lines morph into melodic textures, shifting continental plates of harmonic rhythm into new temporal dimensions, across an expanse of evolving sonic euphoria. The novel instrumentation and arrangement features piano, strings, guitar, mandolin, dobro, harmonium, miscellaneous kitchen percussion and other sequenced found sounds, drawn from field recordings - and used in the special enviromental remixes included as part of the release.

Apple Music Discography

© 2024 James Gordon Anderson