The Digital Honk Box Revival is a new Kansas City-based chamber music ensemble performing 21st-century art by 21st-century artists.The Digital Honkbox Revival delivers a dazzling display of techno-wizard-y music with entrancing video featuring riveting performances by Rebecca Ashe, Brad Baumgardner, Blasco, Robert Burke, Katie Crawford and Andrew Seager Cole. Performing music by Brad Baumgardner, Scott Blasco, Andrew Seager Cole, Adam Hardin, and Peiying Yuan, Stamos Martin and John Chittum.
Bios:
Brad Baumgardner (Bass Clarinet, Invented Instruments)
Composer and Bass Clarinetist Brad Baumgardner earned a B.A. in music from Western Kentucky University in 2003, a M.M. in composition from the University of Louisville in 2006, and is currently pursuing a D.M.A. as the graduate teaching assistant in composition at the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance. Brad’s music has been featured all over the United States, most recently by the Trio Bel Canto, the Liberace Winds, and the avante garde ensemble thingNY. Brad remains active as a performer both as a solo artist and as a member of prominent area ensembles. His playing has been described by the Kansas City Star as “effortless” and “unearthly”. Recent engagements include performances of Adam Hardin’s Echolalia at the Electronic Music Midwest and SPARK festivals, multiple featured performances with the Kansas City Electronic Music Association, performances for the Charlotte Street foundation at Kansas City’s fabled Blue Room, and a performance as a soloist with the UMKC student orchestra on the premiere of his own concerto for bass clarinet and orchestra.
Brad also remains active as an educator. Recent teaching positions at UMKC include, listening lab, ensemble for composers, and advanced orchestration. Brad also serves as the assistant director for the UMKC new music ensemble, Musica Nova. His creative programming and leadership was rewarded with the Kauffman Foundation Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award in 2010. Prior to relocating to Kansas City, Brad was an adjunct professor at the University of Louisville and taught orchestration in addition to working for the department of bands.
Brad continues to foster the development of contemporary and experimental art music both as a composer and as a performer. In the fall of 2007, he commissioned seven local composers to create new works featuring the bass clarinet. These works were presented as a part of the (De)Constructions concert series. He co-founded the University of Louisville Improv ensemble in the fall of 2007, plays with the Blackhouse Improvisor’s Collective, and continues to explore improvisatory and experimental music, often creating his own hybrid instruments. During his time in Kansas City, Brad has played on the premiere performances of over thirty new works. Brad is currently forming an experimental music group, Digital Honk Box Revival, that will focus on music that features electric and acoustic influences and open collaborations with multidisciplinary artists.
His recent awards include an individual artist grant from the Kentucky Arts Council, a residency as an associate artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and the Kauffman Foundation’s 2010 excellence in graduate teaching award.
Scott Blasco (Electronics, Percussion, Guitar)
Scott Blasco is a composer and sound artist currently residing in Kansas City, Missouri. His music has recently been performed at the Electronic Music Midwest Festival, the Society of Composers Region VI conference, and in the Kansas City Art Institute’s ArtSounds concert series. Recent commissions include the piano and electronics work Queen of Heaven for pianist Kari Johnson, and Rondo alla Smirk for violinist Piotr Szesczyk’s Violin Futura series. In summer of 2010, Scott and composer Paul Rudy presented an interactive sound-art exhibit, Reliquary, commissioned by the UMKC Friends of the Library.
Scott is treasurer and a board member of the Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance (KcEMA) and a founding member, composer, and performer in the Kansas City-area electroacoustic new music ensemble The Digital Honkbox Revival. He holds degrees in music from Western Michigan University and Calvin College, in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, where he studied theology and the arts, and is currently a doctoral candidate in music composition at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance.
Robert Burke (Percussion)
Robert Burke has enjoyed an eclectic carrier performing, studying and teaching throughout Canada, The United States, Japan and Europe. He is originally from Alberta, Canada although for the last decade has hailed New Orleans as home. A strong advocate of new music, Mr. Burke has commissioned and performed countless solo percussion works in recital and held member ship in New Works Calgary, Syncronia (St. Louis) and Conundrum New Music Ensemble. He has also been a regular member of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, The Calgary Philharmonic and The Louisianna Philharmonic. As a drumset player, Mr. Burke has performed and toured with a remarkable number of New Orleans recording artists in clubs and festivals throughout the United States and Europe. Artists include Brian Lee, Johnny Sansone, Preston Hubbard, Frankie Ford, Cyril Neville, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Peter Nero, Marvin Hamlish and Robert Goulet to name a few.
Robert Burke holds degrees from University of Alberta, the University of Calgary and is currently completing his DMA at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. He has studied with Keiko Abe in Tokyo Japan, Leigh Stevens, Ken Watson of MGM Studios, Jerry Steinholtz (Dianna Ross) and the late Forrest Clark, past principal of LA Philharmonic. His world music studies include Berimbau, Riq, Tabla, Djembe and Bendir and percussion of the Cuban and Brazilian tradition. Mr. Burke Has been on faculty at the University of Calgary, Mount Royal College, the University of Missouri – Columbia and Central Methodist College. He currently lives in Kansas City with his wife and one year old daughter.
Andrew Seager Cole (Electronics, Video, Guitar)
Andrew a composer, guitarist, and media artist splitting his time between Appleton, Wisconsin and Kansas City, Missouri. He has written contemporary acoustic and electro-acoustic music, collaborated with film makers, directors, artists, dancers, and taken part in a number of interactive instillations. He is a founding member of the Baltimore based new music group AfterNow and the vice president of the Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance.
Andrew is currently a Chancellor’s Doctoral Fellow at the University of Missouri Kansas City. He has a BA in philosophy and music at Goucher college, and MM’s in both Computer Music and Composition at Peabody Conservatory. Until the summer of 2008 he worked as the Johns Hopkins Unversity Digital Media Center’s Digital Audio Specialist and taught digital media at Johns Hopkins University and electronic music at Loyola College of Maryland.
He is the recipient of several awards including first place in the 2008 National Association of Composers USA Young Composers Compeition, the Otto Ortman award, the Robert Hall Lewis award, a computer music graduate assistantship at the Peabody Conservatory, and First Place in the 2006 Prix d’ Ete competition. In 2001 he received a Strategic Planning Grant from Goucher College for the Perpendicular Dialogues multimedia exhibition. The dance and music elements of the exhibition were eventually taken to the Edinborough Dance Festival.
His works have been performed throughout the world at events and festivals such as June in Buffalo, The International Compture Music Conference, the University of Cincinnati Music 08 Festival, Connecticut College’s Symposium on Art and Technology, Brooklyn College’s International Electroacoustic Music Festival, the North American Saxophone Alliance Conference, the National Flue Association Conference, the Mer!Klang Festival in Frieberg Germany, the San Francisco Contemporary Festival, the Society of Electro-Acoustic Music United States Conference, the International Computer Music Conference, Baltimore’s Artscape Festival, Electronic Music Midwest Festival, and the Florida Electronic Music Festival. His works have been performed by The Da Capo Chamber Players, Ensemble Surplus, the Hopkins Symphony Orchestra, Stanley Alexandrowicz, The University of Nebraska Omaha Ensemble Artifical Music Initive, the Duke New Music Ensemble, Jeremy Bagoyus, Brian Sacawa, and many others.
Katherine Crawford (Voice)
Katherine Crawford, mezzo-soprano, is a graduate of St. Olaf College and is currently a Master of Music candidate at the Conservatory at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. She was most recently seen as “Lucy Lockit” in The Beggar’ s Opera with the Kansas City Metro Opera, as “Hänsel” in Hänsel und Gretel,” “Dorabella” in Così fan tutte, and “Nancy” in Albert Herring with the UMKC Conservatory Opera. She has also taken part in productions with the Twin Cities Lyric Theatre, University of Minnesota Opera Theatre, Skylark Opera, The Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera Company, and the Theatre in the Round Players in her beloved hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
