Piece Year: 2020

Hodad
Micro Moment video
More info about what’s going on in Hodad
Online video premiere in March 2021 via Music for your Inbox!
Written for violinist Myra Hinrichs.
Hodad is meant to be played at a beach. The player watches ocean waves as the roll toward the shore, shaping the music to follow the natural rhythms of the sea on that day at that place.
The intonation extends my exploration of stellate hexanies tuned to the Schumann frequency 7.83 Hz.
2021 Press for Hodad
Sequenza 21: “Hodad is a metaphor for the relative spheres of influence – the violin in the concert hall and the surf outdoors. One is full of quiet introspection, the other has unlimited energy, but in this piece both can be examined by the listener in the same context.”
Neuston played by Mark Dresser’s UCSD Bass Quartet
Recorded at Conrad Prebys Music Center
Split screen video is Myra Hinrichs playing Hodad at Trestles Beach
Link to video on YouTube site
For scores contact me via email
January 31, 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
Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage
A collaboration with performer/director Alexander Gedeon, Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage combines live music and theatrical performance to reframe the cultural significance of the “worst album in rock and roll history.”
“Having Fun with Elvis on Stage” is a 1973 album collaged entirely from Elvis speaking on stage between songs at live concerts – no music. AllMusic’s Mark Deming declared “hearing it is like witnessing a car wreck, leaving onlookers too horrified and too baffled to turn away.” Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage reimagines this vilified recording as the libretto for a sort of ghost opera, combining pop art nostalgia with new technology and classical instruments to create a memetic hologram of the endless purgatory of celebrity afterlife.
My live musical score is performed along with the original LP as if they were the pit orchestra for opera or musical theater – sometimes harmonizing with the words, painting emotions in the spaces between, or reacting theatrically. Meanwhile, Gedeon’s “Elvis” persona becomes a vehicle to explore all things banal and absurd in pop idolatry, as well as the performative aspects of ‘stage presence.’
2020 press for Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage
Sequenza 21: “…carried off with exemplary production values and extraordinary performances, making the case that new music concerts can be experienced online at a high level.”
LA Times Cultural Pick: “Theater artist Alexander Gedeon and composer Daniel Corral deconstruct the myth of pop stardom in this musical fable with live accompaniment by the Now Hear Ensemble.”
LA Weekly: Arts Calendar Highlight
Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage (clip #2)
From the virtual premiere at REDCAT on Nov. 14, 2020
Featuring stage direction and pantomime by Alexander Gedeon, with music performed by the Now Hear Ensemble.

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Concerto for Having Fun with Elvis on Stage (clip #1)
From the virtual premiere at REDCAT on Nov. 14, 2020
Featuring stage direction and pantomime by Alexander Gedeon, with music performed by the Now Hear Ensemble.

View this post on Instagram
November 14, 2020
Canon in A Minor
I was asked by pianist Lorenzo Marasso to write a short piano piece in response to Bach’s Invention #13 in Am. I composed a strict canon at the octave, with the two voices one 16th note apart from each other.
Lorenzo premiered Canon in A Minor along with pieces by 14 other composers on July 26, 2020, live-streaming on YouTube and Facebook.
July 23, 2020
15 Pendulums
15 Pendulums on YouTube
This is a Unity-based video piece, inspired by Reich’s Pendulum Music, but with a microtonal tuning based on a 1-3-5-7 combination-product set. The fundamental of this tuning is an upper 2/1 partial of the Schumann resonance 7.83 Hz. This Schumann resonance is basically the resonant frequency of the Earth’s electromagnetic field.
April 10, 2020
Pastoral
Pastoral works to revise the stories I grew up with: American tropes of manifest destiny, untroubled and unlimited resources, and selective invisibilities. I am making this dance to replace those stories, with new and necessary ones. Monuments decay, inhabitable land shrinks, walls become flesh, and we consider what it means to run (away). The spatial frame of the dance shifts from iconic American landscapes to unencumbered, unbounded spaces in which dancers are unmoored and adrift. Mortal time is brief. There is only time to tell new stories and cherish fleeting moments. – VIC
Choreographic Direction by Victoria Marks
Visuals by Isla Hansen
Lighting by Arsenio Apillanes
Sound by Daniel Corral
Choreographic Assistance by Sarah Jacobs
Featuring: Dezaré Foster, DaEun Jung, Aaron Mason, Alexx Shilling, Willy Souly, Tom Tsai
2020 press for Pastoral by Victoria Marks
LA Dance Chronicle: “Pastoral takes the early 20th century concept of Americana worship and shatters it — rightfully so. Though things have never fully been fair, the once tangible idea of ‘making it’ has become almost entirely fantastical, as we struggle to find out place in this land.”
February 7, 2020