Artist Blog
Writings by new and established artists
Featured This Month
John Hollenbeck: Composing a Better World
John Hollenbeck explores how the decisions during the composition process change the composer themselves and why that is important today.
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Ed Palermo: Trial and Error. Arranging Music The Hard Way
Ed Palermo reflects on his path in the practice of arranging through Zappa, the Beatles, Coltrane, and others developing his taste and preferences around his peers.
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Dan Pugach: Tolerating ‘Tolerance’ – Writing While Uninspired
Talking about his experience writing his work Tolerance, Dan Pugach talks about his process for this piece in particular and during the pandemic as a whole.
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The Archive
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Danny Jonokuchi: Collaboration and Mycelium
Danny Jonokuchi reflects on the process of artistic expansion and how it led to the collaboration for his work Mycelium.
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JC Sanford: Electronic Effects as Orchestration (by a novice)
Editor’s note: At various times throughout my tenure as ISJAC blog curator, and scheduled blogging artist fell through late in the game for any…
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Yuhan Su: Reveal the Second Moon
Yuhan Su discusses works from her upcoming album using electronics, the theme of duality in orchestration, and bringing cultural dualities into musical form.
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John Yao: Points in Time
John Yao talks about the emotional side of arranging your own music, balancing between character and change, and his latest project.
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Elio Villafranca: Tres Aguas – A Retrospective
Working through a brief history of Cuban big band writing, Elio Villafranca discusses the influence of traditional cuban rhythms and more on his writing.
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Zhengtao Pan: Scenery In My Story
Zhengtao Pan: Scenery In My Story Counterpoint writing in modern large jazz ensemble music I recently released my debut jazz orchestra album, “Scenery…
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Brian Shaw: “I’LL LEAVE THAT TO YOU, MR. DETECTIVE” – SOME THOUGHTS ON KENNY WHEELER’S COMPOSITIONAL PROCESS
Brian Shaw discusses Kenny Wheeler’s compositional techniques and history and how that might have inspired writing techniques and his sound.
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Rachel Eckroth: Speaking in Tongues
Last month, a two year collaboration finally came to fruition. My long time friend and colleague, John Hadfield, a phenomenal drummer and percussionist reached…
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Jon Irabagon: A Server Farm’s Worth of Compositional Devices
Jon Irabagon discusses his upcoming album based around AI and talks through his piece Routers and with focus on form and flow.