Happy Teacher Appreciation Day!

THANK YOU EDUCATORS

 

“Finding the Boxmaker”

Tom Luther’s album released

Finding the Boxmaker album cover

On May 1, 2019 composer/performer Tom Luther released his newest album, “Finding the Boxmaker”. The album has been released in digital-only format on Bandcamp, and can be found at THIS LINK.

“Finding the Boxmaker” is an instrumental work that was inspired by William Gibson’s Count Zero and the art of Mark Kelly. The music combines acoustic performance with electronic, improvised material with algorithmic/systems based material, and a layering of “found” sounds. The music explores different combinations of all three and alternates between “Tableaus” and “Assemblages”.

There are five “Assemblages” of slowly evolving soundscapes surrounded by six “Tableaus” of more traditional musical narratives. Like chapters in a novel, there are over-arching relationships between the Tableaus that “nest” the work together.

Much of the work is driven by the idea of assemblage, this being the collecting or curating of seemingly unlike (and often ordinary) found objects and arranging them in compelling ways. The work of Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) stands out as exemplary, and is a key narrative element in Gibson’s novel. Mark Kelly also works with assemblage in addition to working with some systems driven art which is the second primary driver of the work.

Despite the influence of Count Zero, “Finding the Boxmaker” is not a retelling of Gibson’s novel. “It is an exploration of systems, a merging of acoustic and electronic aesthetics, and a restructuring of how I think about music and art and my relationship to both”, says Luther.

Tom is on the Maine Arts Commission Teaching Artist roster and a member of the Maine Arts Leadership Initiative as a Teaching Artist Leader. Tom will be facilitating on June 17 at the Teaching Artist professional development workshop. When Tom isn’t writing music he is teaching at the Midcoast Music Academy. Not to mention Tom is a great guy and musician that you should meet if you don’t already know him and his work.