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Hyperventilations

for Piano with Four Hands [cat. sc26]

Hyperventilations of a Fire Dragon harnesses music from my early career as a performer in latin bands, jazz ensembles, funk bands, and rock and metal bands. The underlying fervency of these influences is felt throughout the work, leveraged by the power and agility of the piano, driving the performance often to the edge of playability. This piece initiates a compositional renaissance, a drilling down into the musical cores of “fire” that constitute the music of my youth. It comes from the gut—quite literally, was breathed into life. The melodic and rhythmic motives are all derived from vocal inflections (and hyperventilations) improvised, recorded, transcribed and re-composed by the composer.

DREW SCHNURR (2015)

Premiered by Vicki Ray and Aaron Kallay — Hear Now Festival, Los Angeles, May 2015.
Video performance by pianists Kookhee Hong and Minji Noh.

watch HYPERVENTILATIONS

IN MEDAIS RES AT SCHOENBERG

05/11/12

IN MEDIAS RES for Clarinet, Cello, and Amplified Guitar was premiered at UCLA Schoenberg Auditorium on May 9, 2012.

Performers:
Bass Clarinet – Phil O’Connor
Cello – Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick
Amplified Guitar – Justin Smith

Program notes:
The composition in five movements, each one is inspired by a sculpture by the great artist Rodin. I love the movement in Rodin’s work. It may seem strange to describe statues as having “movement,” but I think it applies. Rodin’s works seem alive to me – reaching, breathing, groaning, and also in a state of suspended life. It is this feeling that inspires the music. It also inspires the title for the piece, which is a Latin expression meaning “…into the middle of things.” The phrase IN MEDIAS RES denotes a Greek literary technique where a dramatic tale is told starting not from the beginning, but rather from the middle or end of a story. This is just as Rodin’s statues seem to me. They are frozen in time, but alive in the midst of their own narratives.

This piece was a commission by clarinetist Phil O’Connor, and is dedicated to him with sincere gratitude for his friendship and inspiring musical collaboration.

May, 2012 by Drew Schnurr

REVIEW: APOCALYPSE NOW

05/03/12

Apocalypse Now (1979) directed by Francis Ford Coppola is considered by many one of the greatest films in history. It’s a story about a Vietnam War Captain (played by a young Martin Sheen) who is sent deep into Cambodia to assassinate an out of control renegade American Green Beret Colonel (played by Marlon Brando) who has taken over an indigenous native tribe and is reigning as a kind of cruel and murderous deity.

This film has a powerful and surrealistic feeling to it. And that is due in no small part to it’s sound and music score. It was revolutionary on a number of levels. It utilized the largest team of expert electronic synthesist-composers ever assembled for a film at that time. And the overall relationship between sound and music is something that is artfully blurred throughout the film. This is somewhat more common today, but was pretty revolutionary in 1979. The film pushed industry technical sound standards as well, being the first film commercially released and advertised with stereophonic rear sound channels. Most importantly, the unique conceptual intention by Coppola and his team to use music and sound to create obscured juxtapositions of powerful moods and places helps to make this film one of the best in history.

CONFESSIONS U.S. PREMIERE

04/26/12

CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST, an environmental documentary produced and directed by Peter Brown with music by Drew Schnurr, premiered in the U.S. on Hulu, iTunes, Amazon VOD, and Cable Video-On-Demand on Earth Day, April 22.

http://confessionsfilm.com/

PAUL CHIHARA INTERVIEW: PART 2

04/20/12

Paul Chihara has had a long and distinguished career as a composer for film and concert stage. He is currently a Professor of Composition in the UCLA School of Music and Chair of the Visual Media Program. In this video interview I sit down with him to learn more about his life, garnish some advice, and to get his ideas about music in the 21st century. Recorded at UCLA on November 11, 2010.

watch part 1
watch part 3
watch part 4

HYUNDAI INTERACTIVE

03/02/12

Hyundai premiered their new Sonata Hybrid at auto shows in Los Angeles and Detroit in November 2011 and January 2012. Drew Schnurr collaborated with visual design firm WILDLIFE to create the interactive “UI” presentation for Hyundai.

Music and sound design elements for interactive interface composed and produced by Drew Schnurr.

http://wildlife.la | http://www.hyundaiusa.com

AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT

01/11/12

AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT by Rebeca Mendez with sound and music by Drew Schnurr was exhibited at Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO) on August 5th to October 3rd 2011.

http://www.museomaco.com
http://www.rebecamendez.com

LUNE AT POPPER

11/17/11

LUNE for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano was premiered at UCLA Popper Auditorium on November 15, 2011.

Performers:
Clarinet – Phil O’Connor
Violin – Searmi Park
Cello – Giovanna Moraga
Piano – Randy Kerber

Program Notes:
This piece represents the sequential progressions of tension and harmony found in dialogue. In experiencing the piece the listener with an affinity to metaphor can choose one of their choice: dialogue between lovers, dialogue between parents and children, dialogue between humanity and nature, dialogue between intellect and instinct, dialogue between body and sprit, or any other binary relationship that requires dialogue and synthesis. Whatever the context chosen for listening, the musical composition is structured by motivic interaction between “characters” in the piece forming points of musical tension and subsequent syntheses of new meanings or “LUNES.”

LUNE: “…a crescent-shaped figure formed on a sphere or plane by two arcs intersecting at two points.”

November, 2011 by Drew Schnurr

THE BRIDGE PREMIERE

07/05/11

THE BRIDGE, written and directed by Andrés Torres-Vives with music by Drew Schnurr premiered at the Los Angeles International film festival on the evening of Friday, June 24 with much acclaim. The film was one of seven short films sponsored by Film Independent and Project: Involve.

“Project:Involve is Film Independent’s signature diversity program, dedicated to increasing diversity in the film industry by cultivating the careers of under-represented filmmakers. The program, which runs from October through June, selects filmmakers from diverse backgrounds and filmmaking tracks. During the nine-months, the Fellows are paired one-on-one with a mentor from the film industry, assigned to a team to make a short film incorporating a given theme, and attend monthly filmmaking workshops and other educational seminars.”

http://www.filmindependent.org

LA TIMES: GREENSPACE

04/13/11

Peter Brown’s CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST with music by Drew Schnurr was featured in the LA Times on April 12. Interviewed by Dean Kuipers, Peter Brown discussed the film and his 30 years of work as an environmental activist:

“I’m a guy who likes to act a little crazy, poke fun at everyone. But…I want to see real change.”

http://latimes.com/

ROGER EBERT REVIEW

03/04/11

Peter Brown’s CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-TERRORIST was reviewed by Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times on Feb 7. Ebert reviews a number of films from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival giving special praise to CONFESSIONS.

“…provocative, informative, laugh out loud funny.”

http://suntimes.com/