We are excited to share a little bit about Brendon Randall-Myers. We commissioned a new piece from Brendon and are looking forward to performing it in the 2015-2016 season.
VIDEO SELECTION:
Q&A TIME WITH BRENDON RANDALL-MYERS:
A/B: Any pre/during/post composition rituals?
Brendon: During: being good to myself (runs everyday, good nutrition and good sleep). Post: crash and treat body like a trashcan (b-movies and frozen pizza. Anything that lets me turn my brain off).
A/B: Favorite drink after finishing a composition?
Brendon: Something hoppy and drunk-inducing.
A/B: Stay-cation or vacation?
Brendon: Don't leave the apartment unless dragged
A/B: Rom-com or Action-Thriller?
Brendon: Self-aware genre flicks...uh but definitely a penchant for action/martial arts/scifi/horror/thriller/etc.
A/B: Nsync or Backstreet?
Brendon: No
A/B: Cake or Pie?
Brendon: Pie
A/B: Favorite live musical moment?
Brendon: First moshpit at a Converge show in Worchester, MA. I've never really gotten over it.
A/B: Apple or Microsoft?
Brendon: Apple computer/Microsoft phone
A/B: Sibelius or Finale?
Brendon: Sibelius
A/B: Favorite Artist?
Brendon: Too many. Lately listening to lots of Ravel and Grisey, Deerhoof's Offend Maggie, Shellac's 1000 Hurts, and Matt Weston's not to be taken away. This summer I listened to Melt Banana's Fetch so many times I thought I was going crazy.
A/B: What was your first Instrument?
Brendon: Trombone
A/B: Guilty Pleasure?
Brendon: lparchive.org
A/B: Favorite breakfast food?
Brendon: 2-egg omelette, half a bagel, kiwi+berries, water. I'm a creature of habit.
A/B: Vinyl, cassette tape, compact discs, or mp3?
Brendon: ugh mp3s I guess
A/B: Your first LP, tape, CD, etc. purchase?
Brendon: Beck - Mutations
A/B: What was your first composition?
Brendon: 4-chord post-Metallica folk metal emo (I was an angsty homeschooled 12-year-old in rural West Virginia, what do you want from me)
BIO
Brendon Randall-Myers
Praised as "a unique musical voice" (Dustin Soiseth, The Loose Filter Project), Brendon Randall-Myers is a composer and guitarist working in experimental rock, classical music, and free improvisation. His music is viscerally direct, and challenges audiences to consider their boundaries and expectations by creating unstable, physically charged performances.
Brendon has received commissions from the Guitar Foundation of America, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Norfolk Summer Festival, and the Guerilla Composers Guild, and from performers such as The Living Earth Show, Bearthoven, New Keys, Friction Quartet, clarinetist Gleb Kanasevich, Mobius Trio, Nonsemble 6, and violinist Todd Reynolds. His work has received support from the American Composers Forum, and he was the recipient of an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Award in both 2013 and 2014.
An active guitarist, Brendon is a co-founder of the punk- and math rock-inflected composing/improvising groups Grains and Marateck, and a frequent performer of contemporary music. He has appeared with Dither Quartet, on the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the Switchboard Music Festival, with Experiments in Opera, and on the Flea Theater's Music with a View series, among others.
Recent music includes East for keyboard ensemble New Keys, which was premiered in May 2014 at the group's 10th anniversary concert, Indefatigable Optimism for orchestra, which was premiered by the Yale Philharmonia in December 2013, and Inside Out for mixed sextet, which was premiered at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival at MASS MoCA in the summer of 2013. Gladwell, an exploration of music as a virus scored for 100 guitars, was premiered in 2012 by David Tanenbaum and the Guitar Foundation of America Bay Area Chapter guitar orchestra.
Current and upcoming projects include Juiced for Friction Quartet, new pieces for New York- based trio Bearthoven and the bi-coastal A/B Duo, the launch of a new composer/performer ensemble, and Marateck's debut album.
Brendon grew up home-schooled in rural West Virginia, and holds degrees from Pomona College and the Yale School of Music, where he studied with David Lang and Martin Bresnick. When not coaxing notes of his brain or guitar, he enjoys running, eating burritos, and consuming questionable sci-fi.
Visit Brendon's website for the latest news: www.brendonrandallmyers.com