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Shown here is a Gangsa duet written by I Ketut Gede Asnawa. This is the premiere performance and features Matt Plaskota along with Cody.

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Gangsa Ro – I Ketut Gede Asnawa. Cody Jensen and Matt Plaskota, Gangsa

You can view more of the recital at:
Cody’s YouTube channel

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Verses That Hurt is a Poetic/Theatrical/Musical performance that took place March 5th and 6th, 2010 at the Armory Free Theatre on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  I collaborated primarily in the area of sound, but also contributed in the original development of the performance, along with the project’s originator, Grant Bowen.

A main element of my sound design for Verses That Hurt was the subway atmosphere.   A main idea of the treatment of the performance space was that we wanted to place the audience actually in a subway station.  The main environmental element of the experience of being in a subway station is its sound (or maybe its smell, depending on which city…).

Here is a short clip of the subway atmosphere and a train arrival that I created for this show.

More details on the show and sound design can be found in the documents and photos below:

Verses_That_Hurt_Documentation

Verses That Hurt System Diagram

On April 23rd and 24th, I had the opportunity to record the orchestra myself, which was a great learning experience.  This example is from one of the concerts from that weekend:

This is the documentation for the concerts I was involved in recording:

New_Philharmonic_Recording_Documentation

New Philharmonic Recording System Diagram

The following photos are from the January concertized opera performance of Puccini’s Turnadot.  The orchestra mic’ing was supplemented by microphones on the front edge of the stage to highlight the solo singers, and mics were placed in front of the choir and on the organ loudspeakers.

Soloist Mic Placement

Choir Mic Placement

Organ Mic Placement

Below you will see video of the premiere performance of his Little Puppets’ Symphony, a chamber work involving collaboration between music, dance and theatre, a feature of many of Deraco’s works.

The piece offers a peak in to the mysterious (and sometimes absurd!) process of creative invention, and is a bit of a wink of the eye in self-acknowledgement  of the composer’s own eccentricity.

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That’s my friend from Truman State University, Scott Quade performing on a set we made.  Scott, like many others at the school, is a fantastic percussionist.

Anyway, James had some sketches of a set of blocks which belonged to a former teacher.  Along with this, Kolberg makes “Power Blocks”, which are often used for the piece.  There is a great video of percussionist Pedro Carniero playing Rebonds B.  Carniero’s blocks are cool, but of course I’m partial to “XenakibloX”!

…next up will be designing and building a mounting system for the blocks.

Matt_Jacklin_Recording_Project

We recorded three pieces:

Session 1 (4.11.2010):  Bernard-Francois Machet – Phenix (for vibraphone and 9 tom-toms)

Session II (4.18.2010): Andrew Thomas – Merlin (for marimba),  Jacob Druckman – Reflections on the Nature of Water (for marimba)

Session I Photos:

Session II Photos: