Video History Project

People

Matt McBane

Matt McBane is a multimedia composer whose works range from experimentations in projected image and sound to minimalist electronic compositions. As composer, he draws from a wide array of influences, including experimentalism, European classical music, jazz, film music, and electronic music. He has been described as "of the new breed of contemporary classical musicians eager to integrate new technology and a wide range of musical influences" by the San Diego Union Tribune, and Kyle Gann (formerly of the Village Voice) noted his music's "fanatically detailed sense of slow textural transformation" while the San Diego City Beat praised his work's "depth and mystery." McBane's compositions and performances are celebrated internationally, with recent presentations at The Whitney Museum of Art and New York's Carnegie Hall.

McBane pursues multimedia collaboration with interdisciplinary projects that stretch the boundaries between musical and visual composition. His experimental performances and screenings include "Ghost in the Machine," a half-hour long piece for amplified and processed string quartet and live video composed in collaboration with Lucy H.G. Other collaborations include several independent films and "A Wagner Matinee," a multimedia dance theater performance of a Willa Cather short story.

McBane has recorded at notable scoring stages such as Paramount Studios' "Studio M", and Fox Studios' "Newman Scoring Stage." McBane is the composer and violinist for his New York-based experimental band, Build, which Time Out New York describes as "a new quintet that straddles the increasingly permeable line between chamber music and instrumental rock." While based in New York, McBane is active coast to coast. He is the Director of the Carlsbad Music Festival, an acclaimed alternative classical music festival featuring the next generation of world-class musicians and cutting-edge new music since 2004 that has been praised by the Los Angeles Times as "magnificently enlightening".

McBane has been commissioned by and worked closely with some of the country's most exciting ensembles including the Calder Quartet, NOW Ensemble and Real Quiet and he has performed or had his music played at venues including Carnegie Hall, the Bang on a Can Marathon (NYC), Grand Canyon Music Festival, Viana do Castelo International Music Festival (Portugal), Zipper Hall (LA), the Whitney Museum of Art, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, LA Design Center, Tenri Institute (NYC), Tonic (NYC), Yale, CalArts, University of Cincinnati, and USC. McBane's many musical activities have been frequently praised in the press and he has recently been the subject of profiles on the cover of the Los Angeles Times Sunday Calendar section, in the San Diego Union-Tribune, the North County Times (San Diego) on LA's NPR-affiliate KUSC, and in the LA Weekly where Alan Rich wrote: "his life since graduation is a pretty good paradigm for making it as a serious musician these days." McBane studied composition at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music with Donald Crockett.

In 2007 he was an Associate Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and he has participated in several music festivals including the Bang On A Can Summer Institute, the Aspen Music Festival, the Bard Conductors Institute, and Music03 in Cincinnati. McBane and his projects have been the recipients of numerous grants, awards, and prizes from organizations including: the Arts Ministry of New South Wales, the Norwegian Consulate, the city of Trondheim in Norway, the American Music Center; ASCAP, Meet the Composer, American Composer's Forum, and the International Music Products Association (NAMM). https://www.mattmcbane.com.

Cite this record

"Matt McBane." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/matt-mcbane.

Download RIS citation
Summary

Matt McBane is a multimedia composer and violinist whose work spans projected image and sound, minimalist electronic composition, and amplified/processed string quartet with live video; his pieces have been presented at The Whitney Museum of Art and Carnegie Hall. He composes interdisciplinary works including the half-hour Ghost in the Machine (with Lucy H.G.), leads the New York-based experimental band Build, and directs the Carlsbad Music Festival. He studied composition at USC Thornton with Donald Crockett, was an Associate Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in 2007, appeared at festivals including Bang On A Can and Aspen, and has received grants from organizations including the Arts Ministry of New South Wales, the Norwegian Consulate, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, American Composer's Forum, and NAMM.

Submit a change or correction

If unchecked, this will appear as a public note on the site immediately. Spam filters may delay publication, but all submissions are reviewed by staff.

Changes will be reviewed and integrated as time permits. For major changes, feel free to email [email protected].

Last modified 18 June 2011

Related records

  • Hans Tammen People

    Hans Tammen is a guitarist, composer and improviser whose 30-year career developed a personal style drawing on contemporary electronic composition, the free jazz pulse and European improvisational strategies; he performs site-specific works and collaborates with dance, light and video. His works have been presented in the US, Canada, Mexico, Russia and throughout Europe; he is documented on over a dozen CDs on labels including Nur/Nicht/Nur, Leo Records, Potlatch, Cadence and Hybrid. As a composer and improviser he focuses on mechanically and electronically manipulated guitars and rhythm as pulse or polyrhythmic structure; ensembles include the trio Shadow Puppies with Nick Didkovsky and Kurt Ralske, the Extended Guitars quartet, mechanique[s] with Martin Speicher and Dafna Naphtali, and a trio with Ricardo Arias and G¸nter M¸ller.

  • Pete McPartlan People

    Pete McPartlan is an artist and experimental musician who graduated from Hull School of Art in 2004 and has lived and worked in Hull, UK since then; he works with generative music software, soldering iron, vhs tapes, a pen and scraps of paper and records and performs under various aliases. He has installed paper-based work Interconnected Monkey Typing Chambers at RED gallery, Hull, performed live video work Whitebalance at Gage05 festival, Hull and Flicker Festival, Bristol, improvised with Hull collectives and publishes a nano-circulation fanzine The Pitchforke. He produces live video performances by picking up and amplifying the em field from CRT TVs, curates low-budget screenings under the name The 2 Mile Quadruplex and is documenting old independent video shops; web presences include www.quadruplex.co.uk and www.petemcpartlan.co.uk.

  • Kurt Schultz People

    Kurt Schultz holds a BFA and MFA from Northern Illinois University; he is presently Assistant Professor in the School of Art at NIU, specializing in Time Arts. He has exhibited at the Not Still Art Festival (Brooklyn), the International Festival of Electronic Art (Washington), the International Electroacoustic Music Conference (Havana) and at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music (China).

  • Matt Underwood People

    Matt Underwood holds a BFA from the School of Art and Design at Alfred University; he works across print, video, sound, installation and performance. He collaborated with Richard Kostelanetz, creating a soundtrack for one of Kostelanetz's video poems; his videowork was included in the 2003 International Digital Arts Exhibition at Shangai University, and he has served as an instructor with the International Summer Workshop.

  • Phillip Stearns People

    Phillip Stearns (AKA Pixel Form) is a sound and visual artist and composer who graduated from California Institute of the Arts music composition department. His practice centers on electronics, media technologies and procedural processes and frames the circuit as a site for composition, performance, installation, sculpture and interaction. He employs custom and handmade electronics, feedback systems, hacked and circuit-bent devices and custom software; he performed at ISIM 2006 and Darmstadt 2006, presented work at Soundwalk 2006, Machine Project (LA), Telic (LA) and Bent Festival 2006–2007, and continues to perform in Los Angeles.

  • Bryan Wolf People

    Bryan Wolf (born Detroit 1960) is a composer, sound projectionist, sound artist and live-electronics specialist who studied organ and composition at Kalamazoo College and continued composition studies at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart in 1987. He has performed across Europe, North America, Asia and South Africa with orchestras including Staatsorchester Stuttgart and the Dutch Radio Symphony Orchestra. He worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1989 and has been Stockhausen's personal sound projection assistant since 1998; he heads the class for sound and spatial design at Pforzheim University.