John Drumheller
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The View From Dead Horse Point - for solo viola and computer
 Composed for Erika Eckert

The horse stood motionless as a rock. He looked like part of that burnt-out landscape. He looked like the steed of Don Quixote carved out of wood by Giocometti. I could see the blue of the sky between his ribs, through the eye sockets of his skull. Dry, odorless, still and silent, he looked like the idea-without the substance of a horse.
- Edward Abbey, Desert solitaire

 
 
 
 
Wild Orphan - for woodwinds, narrator, and computer
 Collaboration with John Gunther, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, flute, and narration.

And the father grieves
 in flophouse
 complexities of memory
a thousand miles
away, unknowing
of the unexpected
 youthful stranger
 bumming towards his door.”
- Alan Ginsberg
Collage, Here 和 There - digital sound
 Commissioned by So Young Lee for the Mad Cow Arts Festival

 This a remix of sound and music from the short documentary, Here å’Œ There, winner of the first person genre at the Hot Docs International Documentary Challenge in Toronto, 2007.
Cloud Peak Fantasy - for trumpet and Piano
Commissioned by Terry Sawchuk
 
Inspired by the highest peak in the Cloud Peak Wilderness area in the Big Horn mountains, Cloud Peak Fantasy is a reflection on the sublime landscapes of the area of central Wyoming where the rugged plains meet the jagged mountains. These kinds of wild places have always evoked, in me, a sense of awe and spirituality that is reflected in my music.

Recording available at Equilibrium Records:
   http://www.equilibri.com/recordings/rec_83.eq
Laughter Remix - digital sound Variations on a theme by Paul Rudy “I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, ‘Ain't that the truth.’ “  - Quincy Jones
Where the Plains End - Western Sketches - for piano solo
 Commisioned by Robert Spillman

I. Ice Crystal Rainbow - Tobacco Root Mountains, Montana
II. Trailer Park: Lost Hopes - Chugwater, Wyoming
III. Island In the Sky: Psychedelic Sunsets - Canyonlands, Utah
IV. Froze to Death Plateau - Beartooth Mountains, montana
V. Storm Clouds: Pawnee Pass - Indian Peaks Wilderness, Colorado

The meaning of a word - to me - is not as exact as the meaning of a color. Colors an shapes make a more definite statement than words
- Georgia O'Keefe

Ragged Tree at Olive Ridge - for string quartet

The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable, together.”
- Walt Whitman

Recording available at the Contemporary Record Society:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeeewvp/contemporaryrecordsociety/id6.html
 
 
Short Biography:

John Drumheller is Instructor of Music Technology and Composition at the University of Colorado College of Music. He received a BME from Montana State University and an MM and DMA from the University of Colorado at Boulder.  He has had further studies in algorithmic composition and sound synthesis in LISP at Stanford University as well as studies in digital synthesis and signal processing in the SuperCollider environment at the University of California at Berkeley with James McCartney.
Dr. Drumheller is the Director of Music Technology at the University of Colorado where he teaches composition, electronic music, and music theory. His performance experience includes classical, jazz, and commercial music. Dr. Drumheller's compositions have won several awards including the 1994 Quinto Maganini Award. His piece Five Landscapes was selected from over 100 compositions from around the country and was premiered by the Norwalk (CT) Symphony Orchestra.
Holland Lake, Dawn - for flute, oboe, bass clarinet, percussion, piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass
Commissioned by Alan Yamamoto and The Modern Chamber 
 Players

Wild geese lead away a mournful heart,
But mountains bring back a full moon in their teeth.
- Li Po
Wednesday: I must not be afraid - for saxophone quartet
 
* from the diary of Antoine Roquentin

...Saturday the children were playing ducks and drakes and, like them, I wanted to throw a stone into the sea. Just at that moment I stopped, dropped the stone and left.

 Monday:
...just as I was coming into my room, I stopped short because I felt in my hand a cold object which held my attention through a sort of personality. I opened my hand, looked: I was simply holding the door-knob.This morning when the Self-Taught Man came to say good morning to me, it took me ten seconds to recognize him. I saw and unknown face, barely a face. Then there was his hand like a fat white worm in my own hand.
 There are a great number of suspicious noises in the streets, too.
 Tuesday:
...Objects should not touch. because they are not alive. You use them, put them back into place, you live among them: they are useful, nothing more. But they touch me, it is unbearable...
 ...Now I see: I recall better what I felt the other day at the seashore when I held the pebble. It was a sort of sweetish sickness. How unpleasant it was! It cam from the stone, I’m sure of it, it passed from the stone to my hand. Yes, that’s it, that’s just it, - a sort of nausea in the hands.

 Wednesday:
I must not be afraid.
- Jean Paul Sarte, Nausea
Spring Hill Variations - for flute, clarinet, trumpet, percussion, piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass.
Commissioned by Alan Yamamoto and the Modern Chamber Players

for Linda
LLanto  - for guitar, flute, violin, viola, and cello
 Commissioned by Kevin Garry

in memorium Derek Hersey
Five Landscapes - for orchestra

 Inspired by five paintings of the American west by artists Georgia O’Keefe and Russell Chatham.

I. From the Plains
II. Still Day In January
 III. Red Hills and Bones
 IV. Winter Evening
 V. Gerald's Tree

The unexplainable in nature that makes me feel the world is big far beyond my understanding - to understand maybe by trying to put it into form. To find the feeling of infinity on the horizon line or just over the next hill.
- Georgia OâKeefe
Selected works (sounds coming soon):
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