Piece Format: Vocal

Mount San Antonio 1944
Mount San Antonio 1944
Video premiere by PARTCH Ensemble
Commissioned by PARTCH Ensemble and premiered in 2021.
The text for this piece was found in the Sierra Club’s summit register archive at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. A summit register is a log book sometimes found at the tops of mountain trails, and this text came from a summit register on Mt. San Antonio in 1944. Mount San Antonio (AKA Mt. Baldy) is the highest peak in the San Gabriel Mountains, originally called Joat by the Tongva people and called “San Antonio Peak” in the Sierra Club archives. Dale F. Stewart, who wrote this entry, reveals that he was at Caltech in 1944. At the time, Caltech was very involved in the USA’s war efforts in both Europe and the Pacific. US troops landed at Normandy only three weeks before Stewart’s writing, and the US military detonated atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki just over one year later (several key Manhattan Project personnel were from Caltech). This military affiliation helps explain Stewart’s quick identification of the Lockheed P38. Meanwhile, JPL co-founder Jack Parsons would leave his post there by the end of the year – due in part to his deep devotion to occultist (and mountaineer) Aleister Crowley and budding friendship with Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. All of this is to say that there was probably a lot on Dale F. Stewart’s mind in June, 1944 as he surveyed the vistas from Mount San Antonio.
Premiered in June 2021 at REDCAT
April 16, 2021
Byoul Part 1: 246 at 40
Byoul Part 1: 246 at 40
COVID-era remote presentation at REDCAT NOW Festival, Jan 2021
What would happen if the conventional flow of Korean dance is disrupted Prompted by this question, dancer-choreographer DaEun Jung has built a compositional system inspired by Merce Cunningham’s “chance operation” and the Korean alphabet, Hangul. Assigning the segmented moves of classical Korean dance to each morpho-syllabic block of the alphabet, Byoul Part 1: 246 at 40—consisting of 246 syllables, moves, and beats at 40 bpm—finds Jung, pansori singer Melody Shim, and sound composer Daniel Corral exploring concurrences of rigor upon arbitrary, spontaneity upon rules, flow upon interruption, dependency upon idiosyncrasy, and the conditional upon the absolute.
Choreographed and Performed by DaEun Jung
Vocals: Melody H. Sim (Shim)
Composer/Sound Design/Video Design: Daniel Corral
Costume Design: Alice Park
Scenic Concept: Haeshin Park
Director of Photography: Chantal Cherry
Video Editor: Scarlett Kim
Associate Video Editor: Anthony Storniolo
Sound Recording: Sung Ryeol Kim
Special thanks to Alexander Gedeon, Tom Byun, and Rosanna Gamson for your generous support, time, and space
January 28, 2021
Summits
Summits live at Sound Waves
Live at the Santa Monica Public Library on March 20, 2019.
Summits is a song cycle using texts I have collected over the last decade while hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains. Each song is based on entries I have documented in various summit registers (notebooks often found at the top of mountain trails). These personal chronicles from regional pinnacles portray the wisdom, humility, and humor that can only be found on a mountain peak.
Summits is written for voice, string quartet, and guitar/accordion, and I am happy to be joined by singer Joanna Wallfisch and the Koan Quartet in bringing it to life.
Summits premiered at the Soundwaves Concert Series on March 20, 2019 in celebration of their 50th event!
March 20, 2019
Space-Time
Space-Time, live at Automata
Premiere on May 7, 2016 by Accordant Commons
Based on text from Christine Wertheim’s book +|’me’S-pace, Space-Time uses a tuning system derived from La Monte Young’s Well-Tuned Piano.
It was commissioned by Accordant Commons and premiered at Automata, Los Angeles on May 7, 2016 as part of MicroFest.
2016 press for Space-Time
New Classic LA: “The mood set for meditation and rhythmic swaying and shifting, the singers clapped and recited and sang and slurred and whooped. The words philosophize about reading and comprehending, and shift tiny elements to change entire meanings, … atomizing the language and investigating the relationships of its components… The result reframes consonance and dissonance, making the audience rethink on the fly what they think is pleasant and what clashes. What is usually instinctive to our ears here required conscious thought, fitting the space journey of +|’me’S-pace. The beat was constant but the meter shifts, making the steady time feel like it was swaying in the wind. Between the sonority and the flux of time, it is all the listener can do to hang on and enjoy the ride. “
May 11, 2016
Collapse
Collapse album
<a href="http://timurandthedimemuseum.bandcamp.com/album/collapse">COLLAPSE by Timur and the Dime Museum</a>
Commissioned by REDCAT and premiered on March 27, 2014, COLLAPSE is a post-ecological Requiem – a unique performance with interactive visuals about the environmental catastrophes caused by humans, composed by Daniel Corral. Performed by Timur and the Dime Museum and produced by Beth Morrison Projects, COLLAPSE is envisioned as a sardonically theatrical mass service, where different stories are refracted through the hauntingly eclectic sound of the band and the post-punk voice of TIMUR. Re-imagining the traditional Requiem form into a band-driven song cycle for the 21st century, COLLAPSE will also feature live-mixed projections by the award-winning video artist Jesse Gilbert (World Technology Network fellow). Costumes of the progressive LA fashion designer Victor Wilde of the Bohemian Society (Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 2014), will further create a raucous portrait of the human-made impact on the planet.
2015 press for Collapse
Vanity Fair: Can the Mississippi River dead zone ever be alluring? … the “multimedia glam-rock meets classical baroque concert” seeks to start a bold conversation about our effect on the environment
Blouin ArtInfo: Glam Rock Environmentalism
Brooklyn Rail: The Rocky Horry Picture Show for the coming Apocalypse?
Gothamist: …Dark and satirical performance…
Exeunt: When writing about the genre-defying sound of LA band Timur and the Dime Museum, you might run out of hyphens—their charming glam-rock-cabaret-punk-opera-mischievous magpie-style requires experiencing first-hand to fully appreciate the influences embedded in their eclectic approach to music.
Neat Beet: On the vanguard of both drama and rock music is Timur and the Dime Museum, an experimental rock band out of LA that aims to fuse the two together into an explosive combination.
arts.meme: an art-rock tour of the daily dump of ecological disasters, with songs composed by band member Daniel Corral
2014 press for Collapse
LA Times: “nastily seductive… popsy, preachy, beat, grungy or ferociously apocalyptic, with texts to match.”
Fusion TV: “Think: revival tent-type screamer about the perils of Atlantic salmon. Think: a New Wave-style dance number about algae clumps brought together by rising oceans. Think: The kind of environmental message you can seriously not forget.”
Miami Herald: “Collapse” is so full of dark intensity and black humor that you’ll feel fine for experiencing it – but maybe a bit pensive as well.”
Miami New Times: “Intelligent, binary breaking, issue-driven entertainment that breaks binaries and reforms them into a multi-verse of music.”
Artillery Magazine: “It’s a coherent, even cogent, but stylistically unwieldy sequence of songs. It takes a special talent to impart that cogency, that urgency.”
NewMusicBox: “Daniel Corral, the Dime Museum’s accordionist and composer-in-residence, takes an inspired, unexpected approach, turning the whole thing into a psychedelic rock opera of sorts, with catchy hooks, doo-wop harmonies, and a pantheon of stylistic references. This spoonful-of-sugar tactic works wonders for the show, which is more likely to generate delight than despair. I almost feel guilty for enjoying it.”
Artificialist: ” I am well aware that ‘organic unity’ is not the sole criterion by which the quality of musical works ought to be judged, but when it is aimed for and achieved so impeccably, it’s hard not to ooh and ah.”
LA Downtown News: “Collapse has all the elements of high opera with elements of a twisted cabaret and rock and roll”
Stage Rows: “Stage Rows was among Thursday’s opening night’s audience and can testify that everything about Timur’s stage presence and Corral’s new tunes positively reeked of coolness.”
The Constance Gradual: “That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is.”
Stage and Cinema: “the sort of music you would love to dance to if not for the guilt-trip inducing lyrics about bee colony collapse, radioactivity, flooding, nuclear disaster, atmospheric hypoxia, and the gradual trash plasticization of our oceans.”
Cobalt Blues music video

Heat, Beat and Treat music video

Chora, Adored (from Collapse) live
March 27, 2014
Prayer for the World
Prayer for the World, live on June 1, 2014
Premiere by the Pasadena All Saints Coventry and Canterbury choirs
December 22, 2013
Meditation
For any number of voices and optional electronics. Duration is variable, to be pre-determined by the performers.
2015 press for Meditation
LA Times: “Corral’s wordless, a cappella “Meditation” enters into Ligeti territory with four singers treated to electronic feedback and mimicking what might be mistaken for an airplane in perpetual lift off. The performers looked terrified yet sounded amazing.”
December 8, 2013
Dislike
Dislike live at REDCAT (excerpt)
DISLIKE is a 21st century operatic documentation of a unique repository for the darker emotions swirling around the Internet. The sinister side of online anonymity and open-forum communication is examined by deconstructing 24-hours worth of comments on the most “disliked” video on YouTube. Taken as a singular libretto, the result is a surreal text full of anger, naivety, homophobia, desperation, and mischief. Meanwhile, eight accordions create a lush, post-ambient sonic environment inspired by a time-stretched interpretation of that video’s song. The resulting dichotomy depicts the Jungian shadow of the digital collective unconscious.
Dislike was premiered at REDCAT’s 2013 NOW Festival after a workshop at the Electric Lodge’s High Voltage Series! It featured Free Reed Conspiracy and The Peoples Microphony Camerata.
Read my article on LA Stage Times about Dislike
Dislike (live at Human Resources LA)
Performed by Dog Star Ochestra on June 17, 2017
2013 press for Dislike
Living Out Loud Los Angeles: “This was truly a treat for all, from our soft spoken dreamers to our extroverted realists, we all went home with a true image of how ugly we can be and how much help we all owe each other.”
Musings by a Dancing Poetess: “By the end of the piece, I hated YouTube; I hated the Internet, and I would have given anything to make it stop. But, my experience of discomfort was what created the power in the Corral’s social commentary.”
Local Looking Glass: “Its music was Baby’s chords played in discordant waves of sound a la Koyaanisqatsi.”
LA Weekly: “Composer Daniel Corral, whose work probes the weirdness of 21st-century living, has written a libretto called Dislike, about the most disliked YouTube video of all time.”
LA Stage Times: “Full of anger, naivete, homophobia, desperation, and mischief, these comments portray a Burroughsian narrative seemingly cut straight from the cloth of the collective unconscious.”
Dislike at Re-Re-Generation
Livestream performance on September 19, 2020 as part of CultureHub’s Re-Re-Generation.
Performers: Patrick Behnke, Andrew Choate, Daniel Corral, April Guthrie, Timothy Maloof, Cynthia Aaron Paige, Andrea Saenz, Joanna Wallfisch
August 8, 2013
X-Ray Sunsets
X-Ray Sunsets album
Released July 1, 2013
<a href="http://timurandthedimemuseum.bandcamp.com/album/x-ray-sunsets">X-ray Sunsets by Timur and the Dime Museum</a>
A collection of songs written and arranged for Timur and the Dime Museum. We had played them live for a while before recording them.
All songs and words composed and arranged © 2013 by Daniel Corral, and published by Spinal Frog Music (ASCAP), except “Velvet Balloon” with music and words by David Tranchina, arranged by David Tranchina and Daniel Corral, and published by David Tranchina (ASCAP); “Distance of the Moon” with music, words and arrangement by Isaac Schankler, published by Process Pool Music (ASCAP); “Until the Break of Dawn” with music by David Tranchina, lyrics and arrangement by Daniel Corral, and published by David Tranchina (ASCAP); “Interlude” lyrics by Timur Bekbosunov (BMI). All tracks produced and mixed by Daniel Corral. Executive producer: Timur Bekbosunov and Art of Opera Foundation.
Recorded and engineered at Violahouse (1-11) except for keyboards, electronics, accordion, guitar, ukelele at Spinal Frog Studio (1-11) by Daniel Corral; bass, drums at Echo Manor by Chris Votek (8,10, 11) and Wonderland Recording Studio by Matthew Setzer (1-7, 9). Mastered by Michael Hateley at Lotus Mastering. Art design, photography and CD layout by Sandra Powers. T&DM name drawing by J.G. Quintel.
2013 press for X-Ray Sunsets
LA Weekly: “post-punk opera from the captivating Timur & the Dime Museum in support of their smashing, romantic, noisy, cabaret-infused new album, X-ray Sunsets”
New Classic LA: “The record, which was largely written, arranged, recorded, edited, mixed, and produced by band member and local composer Daniel Corral, is up on bandcamp now. Timur’s voice is as impossibly flexible as ever, and there’s an enormous range of sounds in the arrangements.”
Arches Magazine: “I know — on this page it looks like a total mess, but the ear loves it.”
July 1, 2013
Your Storm
Your Storm
From the Rounds LP released by the wulf.
December 5, 2012
Zoophilic Follies
Zoophilic Follies album
released on March 28, 2012
<a href="http://spinalfrog.bandcamp.com/album/zoophilic-follies-2">Zoophilic Follies by Daniel Corral</a>
The adventurous puppet theater company Tandem and groundbreaking glam opera band Timur and the Dime Museum joined forces in Daniel Corral’s new puppet-opera, Zoophilic Follies. With comedic relish, Zoophilic Follies, explores the lesser-known stories about the famed inventor Daedalus and illuminates how technology can give flight to our wildest dreams and grusesome failures.
Zoophilic Follies premiered at REDCAT in September, 2011.
Music by Daniel Corral
Directed by Caitlin Lainoff
Libretto by Sibyl O’Malley
2012 press for Zoophilic Follies
Times Quotidian: “That he is comfortable drawing from the whole world of music is no surprise given his musical pursuits, nor that the results are entertaining, beautiful, and interesting.”
2011 press for Zoophilic Follies
LA Stage Times: “We relish the comedy involved, and also pause to consider the transcendent power of hopes so large.
Out West Arts: “It is hard to ignore the musical energy of the piece… Zoophilic Follies cries out for further development and performances.”
Times Quotidian: “This thrilling, precious project was as entertaining as it was unique, driven by ever-engaging songs, instrumental solos, and tight ensemble playing.”
September 22, 2011
Le Petit Macabre
Le Petit Macabre live performance
Music by Daniel Corral
Directed and designed by Caitlin Lainoff
Inspired by “Le Grand Macabre” by György Ligeti
Premiered at The Great Small Works Toy Theater Festival, Saint Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn NY, May 2008
Puppeteers: Catherine Strecker, Danielle Ash, BeomSik Shim, Jesse Ayala
Video Design: Roz Fulton
Singing: Harmony Jiroudek
Voice of Venus: Kari Rae Seekins
Le Petit Macabre album
<a href="http://spinalfrog.bandcamp.com/album/le-petit-macabre">Le Petit Macabre by Daniel Corral</a>
May 10, 2008