Jonathan Guillen Music blog

Trupiak teaser

2011-12-22T21:49:00.000-08:00

This year has brought many interesting projects. One that I am very excited about (and currently writing the music for) is Trupiak directed by Michal Janicki. It's a Polish fairytale-noir shot entirely on green screen and it is going to look amazing. Think Sin City meets The Little Mermaid. Here's a trailer giving you a little taste of the magic that will be unleashed in 2012. Happy Holidays y Feliz Ano Nuevo! Enjoy!
Trupiak – teaser from michal janicki on Vimeo.

he is the god of love

2011-10-11T16:55:00.000-07:00

Hey Chicago Theatre fans, I recently completed the sound design for Henrik Ibsen's Brand at Red Tape Theatre, directed by Max Truax. It has been receiving some good reviews and my sound design was mentioned, which is always flattering. It was great to work with Red Tape and I have signed on to write all new music for their spring production of Elephant's Graveyard by George Brant. I'm looking forward to creating a new vocal work (and follow-up to Hamletmachine) and to working with Red Tape again. Here are two promos made for Brand by film maker extraordinaire Don Markus. Enjoy!

behind the curtain at the Fulton Street Collective

2011-08-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

I am "unveiling" my latest piece, behind the curtain, at the Fulton Street Collective in an experimental film and music festival, the Really Reel Film Fest. I am creating an "on-the-fly" soundtrack to an "on-the-fly" film created by Bryn McCoy (she likes fish, and so do I). The audio will be generated by audience members playing mbiras, music boxes, and tinker-toys all manipulated in real-time using Ableton Live by Yours Truly. The video will be generated by Mrs. McCoy, manipulating video of sea creatures, ballerinas, and pixels using Resolume. It is going to be some impromptu fun, and afterwards there will be a dance party by PepePiano. If you're in Chicago on the weekend of August 20th you should check it out!

Tilt

2011-07-22T07:22:00.000-07:00

I have recently completed the music for the short film Tilt, written and directed by Michal Janicki starring Nicole Wiesner. This is the first film collaboration with Michal, having worked with him on several theatre projects in Chicago (most recently Hamlemachine). You can watch Tilt and see some of Michal's other visually stunning projects at studiobema.com.

The music for Tilt was created with Felix Salazar through a process of real-time improvising, looping, and sampling. Felix created the source material by improvising on a microKorg and sent one signal to Pro Tools and another signal to my computer running Ableton Live. With Live I captured segments of his audio and looped, duplicated, stretched, pitch-shifted, chopped, and sliced to create a sound texture to accompany his improvising, sending that resulting signal to Pro Tools as well. What you hear is the final Pro Tools session, neatly edited to fit the dramatic structure of Michal's film. I will be in a film festival in Chicago this August where I will create the soundtrack to a 15 minute film by improving from source material supplied by participants from the audience. It should be fun and interesting; more details to come soon.

Imagined Overtures

2011-05-18T20:56:00.000-07:00

The final project I completed in Los Angeles before my Chicago relocation in now available. It was for the electric guitar octet Los Angeles Electric 8, of which I mixed and mastered their second full-length recording. There are some really great performances and the most beautiful orchestration of Olivier Messiaen's Louange a l'Eternite de Jesus I've ever heard. It was a difficult and laborious process but it was well worth the time, dedication, and restless sleep. You can purchase a limited edition CD here, which features hand silk-screened artwork by Josh Nimoy.

East Coast tour

2011-05-05T22:41:00.000-07:00

I have just returned to Chicago from visiting Maryland and New York, honored to have my chamber piece The Fog premiered by Los Angeles Electric 8. The Strathmore performance, just outside of Washington, D.C., was indeed electrifying, as well as The Tank performance in New York. While in New York I spoke with Frank J. Oteri about his microtonal suite Imagined Overtures and the Los Angeles Electric 8 album of the same name. It was a great time and I hope to see more LA 8 shows on the East coast.

HAMLETMACHINE extended run and music now available

2011-02-12T15:28:00.000-08:00

The current run of the Guillen/Truax operatic treatment of Hamletmachine at Trap Door Theatre has been extended until Feb. 26th. It has been getting great reviews and press, and I couldn't be more thrilled. This really is a show to experience, so tell your friends and neighborhooders that you get a few more chances to see and hear this spectacularspectacular.

For those of you that do not live in the Chicago area, the opera is now available on the music audio page of jonathanguillen.com as a stream or download under a "donate-what-you-want" model. I am also currently working on a video of the show taken from two performances which will be available as highlights. The video will be an opportunity to demonstrate the cast's gorgeous voices and the beautiful visual element of the show. In the meantime, enjoy the music and have fun Hamletmachining.

something is rotten in this age of hope

2010-12-29T13:21:00.001-08:00

Something is rotten in this age, indeed. We're one week to go before the opening of Hamletmachine at Trap Door Theatre. It is my first attempt at the operatic form and I am excited to premiere it. I am putting the finishing touches on orchestration, along with the aid of master orchestrator Felix Salazar. Check it out if you are going to be in the Chicago area and you love post-modernist theatre presented as an opera (and I know you do). And as with most Trap Door Theatre/Max Truax spectacular spectaculars, it will sell out, so please do reserve your seats at Trap Door's website.

HAMLETMACHINE
Written by Heiner Muller (translated by Carl Weber)
Music by Jonathan Guillen
Directed by Max Truax

Jan. 6, 2011 - Feb. 12, 20011
Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8pm.
Admission is $20 (2 for 1 on Thursdays)

Blood Wedding at Oracle Theatre

2010-10-24T14:44:00.000-07:00

Blood Wedding, currently running at Oracle Theatre, is my most recent musical project. The music for Blood Wedding, described by one theater reviewer as "spine-chilling noise", consisted of four ambient microtonal movements. Full downloads of the music are available at www.jonathanguillen.com. It was great to work with Oracle on its first show under the Public Access Theatre model. I fully support the idea of access for all and I hope Oracle finds great success in its new format.

Blood Wedding
by Federico Garcia Lorca
Directed by Ben Fuchsen

Opens: October 9, 2010
Closes: November 20, 2010
Runs: Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, Sundays at 7 pm
Admission is free

Flutes, washboards, and auto-harps, oh my!

2010-09-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

I was excited to start the recording process for Minna, which took place in November and December of 2009. I had seen 12 Ophelias: A Play with Broken Songs at Trap Door Theatre and was impressed by its cast, many of whom played instruments live onstage. Two cast members, Geraldine Dulex and Pamela Maurer, had prominent roles in Minna. For Minna, Geraldine and Pamela lent their talents on flute and washboard (Pamela plays washboard in The Barehand Jugband) and along with David Holcombe on auto-harp and Carl Wisniewski on bongos completed the Minna musical ensemble. The cast also recorded all of the screams, jeers, crowd noise, and laughter samples. This was done to create the "disembodied" effect Howard Barker refers to in his stage directions. During the show, the cast would simultaneously vocalize live over the same recorded sound, blurring the line as to what was real and what was recorded (as was experienced in David's auto-harp and Carl's drum playing). Also, I prefer to use a show's cast over pre-recorded sound samples in order create a unique sound-scape and to give the cast a greater sense of integration into the work.
All of the tracks were recorded at the theater on my laptop in Protools using the the M-Audio Fast Track Pro. The Fast Track Pro was also an integral piece of equipment for executing a surround sound design. I created four channel surround mixes (Front Left, Front Right, Rear Left, and Rear Right) in Nuendo, and I used Qlab Pro to playback to four separate channels. The Fast Track Pro has four separate analog outputs which I sent to two separate stereo power amps for channels one and two and channels three and four. And, theoretically, in a square space with speakers at each corner, I could put sound in any coordinate on the horizontal plane. With Nuendo, Qlab Pro, a Fast Track Pro, and two stereos, I successfully created quadraphonic surround sound.

The versions of audio that are available for download at www.jonathanguillen.com are stereo reductions of the four channel files. Included are musical themes and sound design created for the show. Each sound was meant to be layered upon one another in various configurations, to be repeated several times or played only once. To experience Minna in your own home, download a free version of Qlab or input the tracks into Ableton Live. Or you can play each track in itunes as you read along with the stage play. Regardless of how you experience the audio, enjoy the madness that is Minna.

Howard Barker is a mad genius

2010-01-30T11:39:00.001-08:00

Now that the Trap Door Theatre production of Minna is about to come to a close, I thought I'd reflect on the process of creating the music and sound design. This first installment will cover the pre-production concept and subsequent posts will reveal the writing and recording process, how I created a surround sound score and sound design, and how I logistically made it all work.

First, Howard Barker IS a mad genius. It's evident when reading Minna that Barker was thinking about the entire stage experience simultaneously. Stage directions like He is as if deaf, She peeps, They turn to her as if in a dance, and Minna smothers pity and self pity are a few examples of the detail Barker included regarding performance. Such detail was also directed to costumes, setting, and sound.

Several sounds recurred throughout, like the shattering of glass, a cacophony of percussion, or a distant march. Other sounds had an evolving nature, like a gentle breeze, a violent wind, or the sound of traffic on the motorways, the sound of trucks like an ocean. As well, sounds occurred simultaneously, like wind, the sound of traffic, and dripping water or a gentle wind, distant drums, and shattering glass or the sound of breaking glass and trucks.

I made a creative choice with director Nicole Wiesner to consolidate the variety of sounds presented to the audience. This would immediately help the unification of themes presented in the work. I feel that as a reader it is easy to distinguish the subtlety between water dripping, as in a thaw and water dripping from the oars of a boat; as a listener the ability to distinguish those differences is nearly impossible. The consolidation of sounds would also make control of the juxtaposition of these sounds possible. If I assign "all wind-like sounds" to be a and "all traffic-like sounds" to be b, then a gentle breeze and traffic on the motorways will equal (a + b), as well a violent wind and the sound of trucks is (a + b). Thus, cues would consist of larger entities created by the combination of "all sounds", (a + b + c) or (a + d + e) or (e + b).

The concept was complete and the next task was to create the individual sound elements and the music. I always prefer to write original music rather than use existing material, and fortunately Barker included several directions for music, as in a distant waltz, a distant march, music is heard, and the sound of pipes playing. This was a great opportunity to create music that would have a stronger presence throughout the show and not exist merely as "scene change music".

In the next post, I'll discuss the concept for the music, the recording process, and the importance of flutes, washboards, and auto-harps.

Minna at Trap Door Theatre

2010-01-14T14:03:00.000-08:00

I've just completed doing the music and sound design for Minna at Trap Door Theatre. It was a fun and exhausting time. If you're in the Chicago area, come check it out! (Please do call ahead of time for a reservation as it has been sold out thus far)

Minna
by Howard Barker
Directed by Nicole Wiesner

Opens: January 2, 2010
Closes: February 13, 2010
Runs: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 pm
With a special performance on Sunday, January 3 at 7PM.
$20 (2 for 1 on Thursdays)

The Space Logs

2010-01-14T13:19:00.000-08:00

So, I've created a blog to update everyone on upcoming shows, current projects, random thoughts, and to catalog my space journeys. As you may or may not know, I have a website, www.jonathanguillen.com. That will serve as a garage of sorts to house all the fun and crazy things I do, for you to download at your leisure.

So, why the blog? Well, I've become exhausted with all the myspaces and facebooks; also, most of those contacts are actually my personal friends. So, these space logs are for you, the general public, my people. To go where no blog has gone before.