BLOSSOM « drewschnurr.com

Drew Schnurr is a composer, sound artist, and performer from Los Angeles whose work blurs traditional lines in music, media, and sound.

As a composer for media, Drew has produced music and sonic branding for numerous world brands and media conglomerates. He is also an active concert composer and sound artist with a diverse range of international commissions and exhibits.

Revered by his peers, industry professionals, and critics, his work has been called both “rare” and “remarkable.”

“This composer bends and stretches rules within his own aesthetic, weaving his musical ideas in harmonious waves that threaten to drown, yet gently tumble the listener forward with intrigue and anticipation.” -Adam Rosenthal review for Persee: Orchestrated Perception

VISUAL MEDIA PORTFOLIO
CONCERT PORTFOLIO
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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.

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watch HYPERVENTILATIONS

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BLOSSOM

04/17/06

Spring is in the air…or so that’s what my friends and family out east tell me. One of the things I was glad to leave back home was late winter gloom. January and February in southern Michigan are nearly unbearable to me. Those months are laden with endless days of ambiguous weather – never cold, warm, sunny, rainy, or snowy; just cloudy and “blah.”

There is a nice thing about enduring “blah” for a period of time though – deliverance. My favorite seasons back home are the “in between” seasons. I do continue to miss the coloring of leaves in September, and the blossoming of flowers in April.

California is an amazingly beautiful state. The weather here is consistently spectacular. I love living here. However, there is a liability to living in paradise – loosing track of pleasure. In California the seasons come and go with little articulation, and so time goes floating on with the sunshine without ticking. The thing is when you always have sunshine, it can loose its gleam.

It’s a good reminder. Experiencing the “blah” and the “in between” every once and awhile is not such a bad thing. It does make the sun shine a little brighter.

Drew Schnurr

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