Computer Music and Augmented Reality
I have an Interdisciplinary PhD in Computer Science and Fine Art (I graduated from the University of Regina in 2021), specializing in the design and development of interactive computer music systems.
My PhD thesis explored the impact of such systems on humans' capacity to express themselves creatively - what happens when we compose through acts of coding?
I am an experienced programmer and software designer in Unity, MaxMSP, and Pure Data. I focus my development on audio engines and augmented reality systems.
Other projects have included a software-driven soundscape for a museum that used motion sensors to determine the locations of patrons in the exhibit, triggering and adaptively remixing audio content accordingly.
The following video showcases some of my recent AR/Music work:
AR Music Example
This demo showcases "Mind's Ear," an Augmented Reality based installation I created as part of the Small New Universe exhibit for the Tangled Art + Disability gallery in Toronto, ON, 2024.
I designed, coded, composed, and drew the content for the app. The experience centres around how music is like a prism that can take painful feelings like fear or traumas and refract them into something beautiful.
People using the app actually create music to dispel uncomfortable feelings, represented by three floating apparitions which I drew to represent my own experience of fear and trauma.
Locative Music Example
This demo showcases the 2020 and 2023 versions of my locative music app, "Shards of Memory."
A soundtrack for real-world sites, "Shards of Memory" allows users to travel a familiar or unfamiliar location, and encounter memories contributed by strangers. The persistent score shifts in its emotional expression to fit the emotions that the memory contributor associates with their memory, with the effect getting stronger as the user gets nearer to the site of a memory's formation. This is a site-soundtrack, governed by GPS.
Composition
I have had a long career as a composer of film scores, theatre scores, and concert music for orchestra, chamber ensembles and choir.
My albums of original classical music have won two Western Canadian Music Awards, I have been nominated for a Gemini, and I have received music project funding from the Canada Council, Saskatchewan Arts Board, FACTOR, the SOCAN Foundation, and SaskMusic.
I have won prizes in major international songwriting competitions for my instrumental music, electronica, and jazz.
My orchestral music has been performed by the Winnipeg, Victoria and Regina Symphony Orchestras, and numerous chamber ensembles and choirs.
The following video showcases some of my original compositions:
Film Music Example
The video to the left shows two clips from “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, a 1920 silent horror film for which I wrote a new score.
The score was performed in concert in 2016 by an ensemble of eight performers, in sync to a screening of the film.
The performance was very well-received, and was a successful conclusion to the Caligari Project, a festival of new art, music, film, and scholarship inspired by German Expressionism, that proceeded over several months in Southern Saskatchewan, Canada.
The tracks below are representative of my approach to concert music, soundtracks, and electronic music composition.
I have composed classical music since my youth. Since then, I have become an expert in the use of digital audio workstation software and contemporary sample libraries and software synths.
While all of the compositions on this page were rendered using such software, my works have also been performed by several Canadian orchestras, chamber ensembles, and choirs. I consider the computer to be my primary musical instrument, and love to engage in creative processes where the computer and its capabilities are an inspiration as well as a tool.
Digital Art
I am an avid digital artist with a distinctive, surreal style influenced by H.R. Giger and fantasy artists of the 1970's such as Roger Dean. I specialize in depicting monstrous creatures and alien landscapes, reflecting my interest in speculating about worlds existing beyond our own.
My art has been exhibited in Regina's Fifth Parallel Gallery and at an event at the University of Reginas Congress 2018 conference.
See the gallery below for some of my original artworks:
Education
In addition to my Interdisciplinary PhD from the University of Regina (grad. 2021), I have a Master's degree in Psychology (specializing in Music Psychology) and a Batchelor's degree in Biology, both from Queen's University. My graduate studies were funded both by SSHRC and NSERC, and I received numerous scholarships across the three degrees.
I have developed and taught two undergraduate courses, in Music Psychology (through Luther College) and Computer Music (at the University of Regina).
I recently completed a residency for the Toronto Public Library (2022), during which I taught workshops in composition and computer music design, gave lectures, and ran various educational events and mentorships. I have also taught at at the Collaborative Learning College in Toronto (2021-present), where I present courses on music and its healing potential, film music, video games and culture, and music technology.
My interdisciplinary PhD research at the University of Regina merged my established compositional practice with computer science-based methods. I designed interactive, software-based musical experiences using digital platforms such as Unity, Max, and Arduino. Programming code became a compositional medium. My interactive scores have taken the form of site-specific installations, mobile locative media apps, and standalone software applications.
I received funding and scholarships from SSHRC (a Bombardier Scholarship), NSERC Engage, and the University of Regina. I also attended and presented my work at conferences and symposia including the SSHRC Fall Forum (Ottawa, Canada, 2018), a meeting of the American Musicological Society (Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, 2017), Critical Studies in Improvisation workshop (St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada, 2015), and ICMC/SMC (Athens, Greece, 2014). I also organized a special event at Congress 2018 at which I introduced my app-based score for the University of Regina campus.
Biography
I was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. I began composing and programming in earnest in high school, with my first compositions recorded on my computer.
I earned a B.Sc. in biology and an M.A. in music psychology from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. During those degrees I scored local theatrical productions and student films.
When my studies concluded, I returned to Regina, where I began working as a composer within the thriving artistic and film communities in the city. These connections afforded me opportunities to write concert music, soundtracks, and album works that won awards and helped me to develop a successful professional composing practice.
In the 2010's, I embarked upon a new challenge, an Interdisciplinary PhD in computer science and fine arts. Through that program, from which I graduated in 2021, I combined my compositional practice with a new practice of coding in Unity, Max, Pure Data and Arduino. I developed original algorithmic music based machine learning applications and interactive scores which pushed my composedly activities into exciting new directions. I created an interactive museum soundtrack, a location-governed score for the University of Regina campus in augmented reality, and a machine learning based chord pattern generator.
After graduating, I moved to Toronto, Ontario, where I am developing my career scoring films and building an app-based interactive opera with support from the Canada Council.