dBâle electronic music festival basel

interfaces-instruments-installations

30 may - 1 june 2008

Imprimerie

St. Johanns-Vorstadt 19-21

4056 Basel

Mark Applebaum

Mark Applebaum (b. 1967, Chicago) is Associate Professor of Composition and Theory at Stanford University where he received the 2003 Walter J. Gores Award for excellence in teaching and served as John Philip Coghlan Fellow.  He received his Ph.D. in composition from the University of California at San Diego where he studied with Brian Ferneyhough, Joji Yuasa, Rand Steiger, and Roger Reynolds.  He received his baccelaureate, magna cum laude, from Carleton College where he studied composition with Phillip Rhodes and completed a senior thesis that took him to Mexico City to interview Conlon Nancarrow.

Since 1990 Applebaum has built electroacoustic instruments out of junk, hardware, and found objects for use as both compositional and improvisational tools.  This research is described at length in his article for New Music and Aesthetics in the 21^st Century, volume 4. 

His solo, chamber, choral, orchestral, operatic, and electroacoustic work has been performed throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia with notable performances at the Darmstadt Sessions, NIME at IRCAM, the American Composers Orchestra’s OrchestraTech, Stockholm New Music, the Bourges Festival, and Belgium’s TRANSIT Festival.  He has received commissions from Betty Freeman, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Fromm Foundation, the Vienna Modern Festival, the Paul Dresher Ensemble, the Meridian Arts Ensemble, Zeitgeist, MANUFACTURE (Tokyo), the Quiet Music Festival in Cork, Ireland, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, duo runedako, Belgium’s Champ D’Action, Festival ADEvantgarde in Munich, the Third Practice Festival, the sfSound Ensemble, the Jerome Foundation, and the American Composers Forum, among others.  Performances of his music can be heard on the Tzadik, Innova, Capstone, SEAMUS, and Everglade labels. 

In 1997 Applebaum received the American Music Center’s Stephen Albert Award and an artist residency fellowship at the Villa Montalvo artist colony in Northern California. He has engaged in numerous intermedia collaborations, including That Brainwave Chick (with neural artist Paras Kaul), Archittetura Redux (with film-maker Iara Lee, Caipirinha Productions), Concerto for Florist and Ensemble (with florist James DelPrince), The Bible without God (with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company), Aphoristic Fragment (with animator Anna Chupa), Interactive Sound Pavilion (with architect David Perkes), Spring Migration (with choreographer Brittany Brown), and projects with the laptop DJ ensembles Digital Cutup Lounge (Hong Kong) and Tricky OL (Japan).

Applebaum is also active as a jazz pianist.  He has concertized from Sumatra to the Czech Republic, most recently performing a solo recital in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso sponsored by the American Embassy.  At present he performs with his father, Bob Applebaum of Chicago, in the Applebaum Jazz Piano Duo.  Their first studio recording, The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree, is available on Innova.

At Stanford Applebaum also serves as the founding director of [sic]—the Stanford Improvisation Collective.  Prior to his current appointment, Applebaum taught at UCSD, Mississippi State University, and Carleton College where he served as Dayton-Hudson Visiting Artist.  He has been invited to give lectures and master classes at various institutions, including Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Wesleyan, Oberlin, Duke, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the Eastman School of Music, the New England Conservatory of Music, Hong Kong University, the JML/Irino Foundation in Tokyo, the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz, Austria, Queen’s University in Belfast, Ireland, the Banff Center in Canada, the Janacek Akademie, Czech Republic, and at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club.