Here is the proposal that Melvin Backstrom and I submitted to the Society for Music Theory that was accepted for the November conference in San Antonio – “The Grateful Dead’s ‘Blues for Allah’: Syncretic Composition in Mid-1970s Rock Music”. This includes the abstract and supplementary diagrams.

Video of my composition Needing Space for 10-string classical guitar, performed by Julian Bertino in his Master’s Recital at University of Ottawa (Apr 27, 2018):

Videos of my MusCan performance can be seen here:

Broken Refraction at -36:45 (36:45 left in the video)
Randomly at -20:45
S(h)immer at -12:35

I’ll be playing Broken Refraction, Randomly, and S(h)immer on electric guitar with real-time digital processing at the MusCan conference at around 2:45 MDT (4:45 EDT) on Wednesday at the Betty Andrews Recital Hall on MacEwan University campus in Edmonton. The event is open to the public and will be livestreamed on MusCan’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MusCanSoc/

After three great years at Clark, I have made the decision not to renew my contract this fall. I will be returning to Ottawa for at least a year at the end of May to attend to personal responsibilities. I look forward to the musical and teaching opportunities available there over the next year.

We just got word that Melvin Backstrom (VAP at UC Santa Cruz; PhD, McGill) and I have been accepted to give an analytical presentation on the Grateful Dead’s “Blues for Allah” at the annual conference of the Society for Music Theory (held in conjunction with the American Musicological Society) in San Antonio from Nov 1-4.

Here is a video clip of Boston’s Hub New Music performing my Songs of Friction at Clark on Feb 4, 2018. The recording clips a couple of times but the musicians put commitment and enthusiasm into it:

Julian Boolean Bertino is an accomplished and dedicated guitarist who will be playing a whole programme of new Canadian works for 10-string classical guitar in his Master’s recital at University of Ottawa today, including a new piece of mine called Needing Space. It has been great to work closely with him on this.

Public Facebook page with all the information about the recital: https://www.facebook.com/events/191298208146461/

Some other pieces he will play:
John Armstrong – The Space Within:

Amy Brandon – Intermountainous:

His own Headspaces ii:

I just received word that I was accepted to give a mini-concert of solo guitar/laptop music at this year’s conference of MusCan (Canadian University Music Society) at MacEwan University in Edmonton at the end of May.