Sample Media
A Few Concerns
“A Few Concerns” is my third full-length album and my first full album with The Rhythm Method, out 1/15/21 on Gold Bolus Recordings.
Feel free to follow along with the lyrics and additional texts here.
Performed by: Meaghan Burke, cello, vocals, guitar; Marina Kifferstein, violin, vocals, objects; Leah Asher, violin, vocals, things;Wendy Richman, viola, vocals, stuff
Recorded and mixed by Bernd Klug (Brooklyn)
This album is a collection of songs and pieces which grew out of the complex emotional landscape of the past four years, as well as the culmination of my collaborative relationship with The Rhythm Method and my ongoing search for a way of writing which combines songwriting, improvisation, and contemporary classical music. You’ll hear a 12-tone pop song about the death of Webern (Coda), a grungey math-rock rendition of catcalls (Smile), a party-ready protest song (Superpower), a gentle singalong tribute to subway crying (Cry), a series of questions about the apocalypse (A Few Concerns…), and lots more.
Siren Song
This 2018 composition for The Rhythm Method (senza viola) uses an original text inspired by Margaret Atwood’s eponymous poem, and will form part of my upcoming large-scale work “The Wandering Womb.”
Live performance at String Theories Festival, Roulette in March 2018
Marina Kifferstein and Leah Asher, violins/voice; Meaghan Burke, cello/voice
The score, text, and additional program notes can be found here.
Sleeping Beauties
This recent composition for The Rhythm Method string quartet with James Moore on electric guitar and myself as vocalist was recorded live for the TriBeCa New Music Festival in December 2020 and will be virtually premiered in February 2021.
This piece began taking shape in June 2020, at the height of the Black Lives Matter uprisings across the country and around the world. It is a reminder to White people, myself included, to remain vigilant and to stay in the struggle for justice and equity - not just when it’s convenient or trendy, but as long as Black lives are under threat.
The full text, program notes, and score can be found here.
This is a rough mix of the live recording by: James Moore, electric guitar/vocals; Marina Kifferstein and Leah Asher, violins and vocals; Carrie Frey, viola and vocals; Meaghan Burke, cello and lead vocals
Che si può fare?
This 2019 composition for The Rhythm Method is a slowed-down de- and re-construction of Venetian Baroque composer Barbara Strozzi’s breathtaking aria, which asks “What is to be done?”
Live performance at Arete Gallery in Brooklyn, NY: Leah Asher and Marina Kifferstein, violins; Wendy Richman, viola; Meaghan Burke, cello
Score and program notes can be found here.
Additional Listening and Reading Materials
Forever House, “Eaves”
This is the 2018 debut album from my avant-grunge band Forever House, with fellow composer-performer-improvisers James Moore (guitar), James Ilgenfritz (bass), and Peter Wise (drums). I co-wrote all music and lyrics on the album.
Care Pieces
These are a series of brief text scores in the tradition of Pauline Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations, handwritten and snail-mailed to friends over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here is a link to a compilation of several scores; you can also view two select images from the collection below.
This is the “full score” for my Care Piece Fenster, for Marina and Leah. The parts are divided halves of the heart, to be performed from the players’ windows.
And then one day… (you realized that Jack Kerouac was an a$$hole)
This playfully theatrical piece, for a quartet of readers, was premiered at The Rhythm Method’s Broad Statements Mini-Festival in March 2020 (on the eve of the Coronavirus lockdown). “And then one day…” will also form part of my large-scale work The Wandering Womb.
(N.B. This piece begins with the quartet reading silently for a while - more musical action starts at 0:38.)
Everyone sleeps alone in the funhouse.
This is a music video from my second album, Creature Comforts, and one of my favorite tunes from my solo repertoire (performed on the album with avant-garde rock drummer Didi Kern and many Meaghans).
The full album can be heard here.
The Gene, Thanks Dad
This is my living-room-rock project with Austin-based guitar heroine Dani Neff of the band Megafauna. It’s an EP we recorded in 2017 in a time that felt like quarantine, and released in 2020 in a time that actually was a quarantine. All songs co-written by Meaghan Burke and Dani Neff; co-produced by Bernd Klug.