ben hackbarth composer
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biography

The music of Ben Hackbarth is focused on combining instruments and electronic sound in new and unexpected ways. His electro-acoustic compositions revolve around the timbres, gestures and acoustical properties of western instruments. Through mapping notions of instrumental identity, tradition, technique and virtuosity onto electronic sound, he seeks to engage and enlarge our semantic understanding of instruments, emphasizing the perception of boundaries and limitations to create friction and form.

He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, San Diego where he studies composition with Roger Reynolds. At UCSD he has also worked with Philippe Manoury, Miller Puckette and obtained a master's degree while studying with Chaya Czernowin. He has a bachelor's in composition from the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Allan Schindler, Bob Morris, Martin Bresnick, Steven Stucky and Christopher Rouse. Ben is also a composer and researcher at the Center for Research and Computing in the Arts. At CRCA, he has collaborated with other artists to create multimedia installations with realtime graphics, sound, computer vision and motion tracking.

He has had performances by the Arditti String Quartet, Ensemble InterContemporain, Ensemble SurPlus, the Collage New Music Ensemble, the Kenners and the Wet Ink Ensemble. His music has been presented at Cité de la Musique , Akademie Schloss Solitude , the SEAMUS festival , SIGGRAPH , the Florida Electro-acoustic Music Festival , the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival , E-Werk , the Pelt Gallery , the Festival of New American Music , the San Diego Museum of Art , the Ingenuity Festival , the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery , and the Roulette Concert Space . Ben's music can be heard on CD releases by SEAMUS, UCSD and Carrier Records.


UPCOMING/RECENT
· 3/6/2011 — video interview for accents online, the web mag of the ensemble intercontemporain.

5/6/2011 — open end will be performed by Melanie Sehman at the Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival in WA.

4/23/2011 — open end will be performed by Melanie Sehman at the Wayward Music Series in WA.

4/19/2011 — open end will be performed by Melanie Sehman at Portland State University in OR.

3/12/2011 — open end will be performed by Melanie Sehman in NY, NY.

· 2/25/2011 — Crumbling Walls and Wandering Rocks will be performed by Ensemble InterContemporain as part of their 2011 season at Cité de la Musique in Paris.

·11/11/2010 — open end will be performed by Brian Archinal at PASIC in Kentucky.

·7/6/2010 — article and video interview by Trevor Hunter at NewMusicBox.com.

· 6/5/2010 — open end will be performed by Andrea Moore at People Inside Electronics in Pasadena, CA.

· 5/27/2010 — Crumbling Walls and Wandering Rocks will be performed by the Wet Ink Ensemble in New York, NY.

· 4/14/2010 — open end will be performed by Melanie Sehman in NY, NY.

· 4/1/2010 — open end will be performed by Brian Archinal in San Diego, CA.

· 3/11/2010 — open end will be performed by Brian Archinal in Tempe, AZ.

· 12/9/2009 — String Quartet no. 1 will be played by Ensemble SurPlus in E-Werk, Freiburg.