Christopher Adler

[audio:ThreeLaiExcerpt.mp3|titles=excerpt from Three Lai (1996)|artists=Christopher Adler, khaenEric Pritchard, violin, Jonathan Bagg, viola]Christopher Adler is a composer, performer and improviser living in San Diego, California. His compositions encompass cross-culturally hybrid forms drawn from contemporary concert music and traditional musics of Thailand and Laos, the application of mathematics to composition, and the integration of improvisation into structured composition. His works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Chicago Symphony Center, Tanglewood, Merkin Hall, Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo and at music festivals and universities across the U.S. and Canada by ensembles including the Silk Road Ensemble, red fish blue fish, Ensemble ACJW, Ensemble 64.8, pulsoptional, and the Seattle Creative Orchestra. His 2009 composition Pines Long Slept in Sunshine was commissioned by an international consortium of ten percussion ensembles led by the University of Kentucky. His compositions have been released on the 2008 CD Ecstatic Volutions in a Neon Haze (Innova) and the 2004 CD Epilogue for a Dark Day (Tzadik). His retrospective analysis of his own cross-cultural compositions has been published in John Zorn’s Arcana II: Musicians on Music (Hips Road, 2007). Christopher Adler is the world’s leading innovator in contemporary concert music for the khaen, a free-reed mouth organ from Laos and Northeast Thailand. He has performed at the Bang on a Can Marathon, MATA, the Cultural Center of Chicago, and across the U.S. and Asia. This spring, he will premiere new works by Jeff Herriott, David Loeb and Sidney Marquez Boquiren on a concert tour entitled New Musical Geographies. As a pianist, he performs with the ensemble NOISE and co-directs the soundON Festival of Modern Music. This June, he will be composer-in-residence with the nief-norf Summer Festival. He has recorded for Tzadik, Innova, Centaur, and Vienna Modern Masters. Christopher Adler studied with Evan Ziporyn, Scott Lindroth and Steven Jaffe and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of San Diego. www.christopheradler.com