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Entries tagged "Updates"

Summer 2025 Updates

Posted on 2025-09-13 09:00:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

Check, check, 1, 2. Is this thing on?

Every 5-10 years, I get antsy with my blog setup and switch from WordPress to something of my own making. This is the latest iteration of using my inferior coding rather than the robust infrastructure of WordPress. And since Liszt (which is *gestures around* all this) got a lot of updates this summer, let's see if we can break it.

And now, the regularly-scheduled photo dump.

Most of the summer we were kicked out of our offices as the newly-renamed Challey Hall underwent renovation in addition to the construction we lived through last year. We tried out the industrial no-ceiling look, but it just didn't match the concert hall.

Construction at Challey

With all the moving around, we found all sorts of things, such as this guy who got locked in a storage closet.

Things hiding in the storage closet

Since we were kicked out of our office, we had to make do with other activities. We started the summer by celebrating Erin's first birthday, and after a relatively calm June by comparison, then went the marathon of teaching and conferences. I spent a week at the International Music Camp teaching Audio Tech, drove home on a Saturday, then we packed the car first thing Sunday morning to head to ClarinetFest in Fort Worth. Cassie premiered Theme and Conversations along with Suzanne Tirk and En-chi Anna Ho.

Nametags

Can you tell it was in Forth Worth?

Only in Texas

So let's see...The week after ClarinetFest(r) was uneventful, then Cassie was at IMC for a week, then Cassie was at Minnesota All-State at Concordia for a week, then I left for the Aspen Composers Conference, where I presented a paper with Zach Daniels on creative ecosystems. We flew into Denver and rented a car, and took the back way into Aspen through Independence Pass.

On top of the world

Fargo has direct flights to and from Denver, so it was a breeze getting there. Getting back, however, involved a detour.

Inexplicably back at O'Hare

After getting back from my wayward trip to Chicago at 2 in the morning, we packed the car the next morning for a week at the ranch.

Erin in Montana

Getting back home, the building was finally open enough to move in, ceilings and all. Here's the faculty studio that I finally got to move in to, giving the composition program an actual space!

A blank canvas

Erin helped with filing my percussion music.

Help

And here's what I've done with the place. I figured, since we're talking about composition and mostly looking at a screen, why look at a 13-inch laptop screen when you can have a TV?

Home sweet home

I've taught in this space for three weeks and it's great. I still think that carpet is a choice though.

And now that the semester's in full swing, it's all lesson prep and grading and troubleshooting computers, and an AI song cycle, but that's a story for another time.

November-December Updates

Posted on 2025-01-05 05:11:00 by Kyle and tagged with Travel Updates

I set out to do a monthly update at the end of November, but then finals week got the best of me. So here's November AND BONUS December.

November started out with a trip to the annual College Music Society conference in Washington, DC. I had a tape piece (The Earth Shall Soon Dissolve Like Snow) on one of the CMS concerts, and a demonstration for the Association for Technology in Music Instruction side of the conference. This was the one conference that I allowed myself to go to this year (aside from the regional CMS that I hosted during a blizzard in March). It was great to get back into the researchy-creativey side of things.

Later, I was able to run out and do a bit of sightseeing. Here's a view of Capitol Hill from the Library of Congress.

Here's a closer picture of the Washington Monument. I didn't really plan to go here, I was just on the subway heading back to the airport and was looking for a public restroom, and the restroom situation on the Washington Metro is a whole saga unto itself.

Oh and also the conference hotel (the Washington Hilton) was where Reagan was shot.

The paper/demonstration I gave was about a program I've been writing for tracking the composition process--essentially, it's an app that has a bunch of buttons you push while composing to track your progress, and then it gives you a transcript and stats. It turns out I take way more breaks than I thought. WAY MORE. Here's what the app looks like on the right monitor. (Also this is clearly a staged shot, because my desk was not previously and has not been since this clean.)

Meanwhile in Fargo, progress continues on our building addition to the Challey School of Music. Cassie is moving into one of the new offices on the second floor; I'm moving to an office that will be vacated also on the second floor. My plans for a composition emporium on the third floor were rejected.

Bartleby and Erin are getting along.

Tape Piece showed up on an album that was released.

I got the paperwork started to teach a music tech course at Concordia this spring, due to Doug Harbin's sabbatical. I had to look up "Precept." I also have to remember what it's like to not know all the insane idiosyncrasies of MaxMSP.

We drove the cats and the kiddo to Montana for Christmas. Bart was thrilled. (Also, we have a second cat, Lorraine, who doesn't appear here because all her pictures are blurry or because she is hiding at any given time. At this point in the trip, she was in the back passenger floorboard.)

Erin got to ride a horse!

And I finished a couple of pieces. Hey! Composing! (Miniwashitu for Contrabassoon and Piano (for Martin Van Klompenberg), and Last-Minute Waltz for solo flute (for a 15-minutes of fame call for scores featuring Lisa Bost-Sandberg)). Note to self: do more of this in 2025.

It's going to be a good year.

Tape Piece released on Ablaze Records Electronic Masters vol. 10

Posted on 2024-12-19 20:38:00 by Kyle and tagged with Announcements Updates Recordings

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kyle Vanderburg
Email: info@kylevanderburg.com
Website: https://KyleVanderburg.com

Kyle Vanderburg’s Innovative Work Featured on Electronic Masters Vol. 10 by ABLAZE Records

Fargo, ND – 12/19/2024 – Composer and sound artist Kyle Vanderburg is proud to announce the release of his fixed media work, Tape Piece, on Electronic Masters Vol. 10, which became available worldwide on November 29, 2024. The Electronic Masters series from ABLAZE Records is celebrated for highlighting cutting-edge electronic compositions and providing a global platform for exceptional artistry.

Chosen from submissions spanning the globe, Tape Piece stands out for its immersive sonic quality. ABLAZE Records’ Douglas Knehans remarked, “The piece has a great atmosphere, excellent realization, immense subtlety, and beautiful audio quality. Congratulations on a wonderful work!”

The Electronic Masters series has earned high praise as a platform for new and experimental works. Recent reviews have celebrated its “positively vibrant” contributions to contemporary electronic music, affirming its role as an essential series for modern listeners.

Vanderburg’s music, which often navigates the relationship between nostalgia and innovation, explores familiar sounds in unexpected contexts. Tape Piece uses the sounds of adhesive tape--masking, scotch, aluminum, packing, and duct--to transform a mundane office supply to a new sonic world.

About Kyle Vanderburg

Kyle Vanderburg (b. 1986) is a composer and sound artist based in Fargo, ND. His music blends nostalgia with innovative sonic worlds, often recasting familiar sounds in fresh and unexpected contexts. His work has been presented globally at festivals and conferences such as ICMC, SEAMUS, and NYCEMF. He is currently Composer in Residence at North Dakota State University’s Challey School of Music. Learn more at KyleVanderburg.com.

About ABLAZE Records

ABLAZE Records is a premier platform for emerging voices in contemporary classical and electronic music. Through its Electronic Masters series, ABLAZE provides a global stage for composers who redefine and expand the possibilities of sonic artistry. Learn more at AblazeRecords.net.

Availability

Electronic Masters Vol. 10 was released on November 29, 2024, and is available worldwide on streaming platforms including iTunes, Naxos Music Library, Amazon MP3, and Spotify, with physical copies distributed through ABLAZE Records.

For more information and updates, visit: KyleVanderburg.com.

September-October Updates

Posted on 2024-11-02 08:47:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

I didn't take a ton of interesting pictures the past two months--lots of teaching and organization and tech support. But here's the interesting bits of the middle of the fall semester.

I finished writing a piece for Bassoon and Electronics. This isn't what it's called now, but it was called this very briefly (more info on that piece coming up in the next few days)

I started work on a contrabassoon piece, and I'm using a tool I developed for tracking the composition process (which I have a presentation on next week at CMS, which I need to finish). Here's a quick shot of me composing while on an NDSU Press field trip (staying at Nineteen26 Campground and Lodging in Steele, ND).

(That same field trip, the NDSU Intro to Publishing class printed, folded, collated, and trimmed 275 copies of this year's chapbook. I drove the van and drank a lot of coffee.) Here's a photo of the group (courtesy Allan Burke):

A few weeks later, we took the same class to Altona, Manitoba, to tour Friesens Corporation. Friesens is one of Canada's largest book printers. Here we are next to several tons of rolls of paper. I drove the van and drank a lot of coffee.

We turned Festival Concert Hall into a Black Box theatre again for our fall Thundering Heard! student composers recital. This year we're trying to build an audience with New Music Punchcards.

Ooh! Also, the NDSU University Symphony Orchestra premiered my work The Uncertainty of Joy. (https://vimeo.com/1018999619, at about 50:30. Updates to the website coming soon!)

Back at home, we got a new gate for the backyard (we lost the old one when we expanded the garage door at the beginning of covid times)...

I hit 1,450 days on Duolingo...

Bartleby claimed more of Erin's furniture...

And Erin went for a stroll.

Next week I'm off to the 2024 College Music Society/Association for Technology in Music Instruction conference, at the Washington, DC, Hilton. That's right. Washington, DC. During election week. I can only assume that the conference hotel was cheaper for those dates.

June-July-August highlights

Posted on 2024-09-01 11:26:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

I've worked on some projects this summer (furniture, writing, parenthood), and I've been trying to stay away from social media, with varying results. So here's a brain dump of things from this summer.

I finally refinished the last of the six mission-style chairs I bought from the University of Oklahoma in the mid-2010s. And then I refinished another that apparently hadn't been glued properly. And then I reupholstered them all with new foam because dorm chairs from the 90s don't have the best support.

I finished an orchestra piece I intended to finish in March. I'm very pleased with the result, but I can think of a half-dozen better ways I could have written it more efficiently. (The opening tempo isn't "TEMPO," I'm just scrolling through my camera roll and this is the pic I have).

The Uncertainty of Joy premieres this fall by the NDSU University Symphony Orchestra

I migrated the entire NDSU Performing Arts website to Wordpress, for the second time in three years. When I abandoned the project a few years ago, I apparently saved nothing. We're going to migrate it again later this year to Drupal (for reasons), but having the website in a content management system is a significant improvement. It also allowed me to learn Fedora Linux (we were initially going to host it at NDSU, and they only support Red Hat, which Fedora is related to. Letting programmers name things was a mistake. Hats.). Here's how we update websites now, versus how we used to:

I taught at one of my favorite places, the International Music Camp, for half a week in July. I wasn't comfortable being away the whole week, and OU colleague extraordinaire Steven Eiler taught the other half of Audio Technology. Here's me and some of the class, up to no good.

I completely rewrote the instrument/equipment/locker checkout system in Liszt, which was one of the most complicated programming things I've done. Formerly, there were individual checkouts for lockers and instruments, and some people checked out lockers, and some people checked out instruments, and you put instruments in lockers, so it got complicated. Now checking out a locker checks out the instrument inside it, and vice versa. It also means you can check out every single NDSU piccolo instantly.

We (me, Cassie, Erin, Bartleby, and Lorraine) took a trip to Montana. Lorraine loves car rides!

On the way back we saw some NDSU fans.

Here's one up close

Bonanzaville repaired the foundation to the Hunter Times building, so I spent a little time getting type cases put back in order. Working with the equipment at Bonanzaville helps to prevent me from buying a printing press and putting it in my basement.

Speaking of printing, I wrote and published a book for my Music Skills for Academic Success class. It's definitely a work in progress. (This whole ordeal deserves a writeup of its own).

One of the other projects from this summer was organizing and preparing a high school composition competition called Score Wars. We did some publicity for that, including a radio interview on Prairie Public (to be aired at a later date) and an eeeeaaaarrrlllyyy morning spot on one of Fargo's local TV stations.

Of course, school started at the end of August, and I started teaching the freshmen important things about Music. And, as it turns out, typefaces.

Cassie and I also spent the entire summer navigating becoming parents, which is a whole other story arc entirely.

But now, school has started, and we're off to new and exciting projects--some of which I'll write about later.

You Can't Outrun Your Daydreams now available on MUSLAB-Complex Planet

Posted on 2024-01-16 22:16:00 by Kyle and tagged with Recordings Updates

This was in the works for most of the fall semester, but I can finally announce that my You Can't Outrun Your Daydreams has been released on Volume 1 of MUSLAB's Complex Planet album.

From back in September:

Kyle
MUSLAB International Electroacoustic Music Exhibition is pleased to inform you that your work has been selected to participate in the Phonographic co-production - MUSLAB- Cero Records PLANETA COMPLEJO.
This is an opportunity that we offer to people who have passed the curatorship process and who have chosen the option to participate in the selection for co-production CDs.

Your work as a composer offers an interesting perspective to our musical community, since it combines research and artistic creation proposing a personal aesthetic. Therefore, it fits perfectly with the general interests of the exhibition.

The COMPLEX PLANET exhibition includes a selection of different sound, video art and photographic works, where our different cultural identities are analyzed through the relationship between endemic social processes and globalization. The proposal is based on the fact that a fundamental characteristic, which enables evolution in nature, not only in biological contexts but also in social and cultural ones. Thus, both the endemic and global factors are a guarantee of evolution and adaptability that has to do with the importance of diversity.

Receive a cordial congratulations from the MUSLAB team.

Here's a copy of the cover of the three-volume set:

Complex Planet/Planeta Complejo is available on all streaming platforms, online at http://www.cero-records.com/release/muslab-planeta-complejo-vol-1·2·3/, or if you'd like a physical copy, I have some left.

Tape Piece selected for Sonorities

Posted on 2023-10-25 10:15:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

Hey! Tape Piece is making the rounds, and will be performed in Belfast next April!

Dear Kyle,

I am pleased to inform you that your submission “Tape Piece” for the Listening Rooms strand of the open call has been selected for the Sonorities Festival Belfast 2024 programme.

Please confirm that you are still happy for your work to be featured in the festival via email to [email removed] by no later than 4pm Thursday 2^nd November GMT, 2023.

Once you confirm your participation, please contact [name removed] to confirm your technical requirements.

Finally, many thanks for your interest in our festival, and for sending us such engaging work.

Regards,

Sonorities Team

Composition Process paper accepted at the Research on Contemporary Composition conference

Posted on 2023-08-25 15:22:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates Travel

Dear Kyle Vanderburg,

Your paper “Inspiration/Perspiration: Creating a Map of the Music Composition Creative Process” has been selected for programming as part of the 7th annual ROCC conference at the University of North Georgia.

All participants must register for the conference.

To secure your place in the program, you will need to pay the registration fee before September 17; if you have not paid, we will not plan on your participation. Your purchase of a ticket on Eventbrite is your registration for the event.
Due to the quantity/quality of submission - presenters are only allotted one performance or paper, all other submissions were not accepted.

The conference is scheduled for October 27 to October 29, and the program booklet will be sent electronically after the event. Congratulations and we look forward to an engaging conference this year.

Research on Contemporary Composition Conference

This will be fun! I haven't had a presentation or performance in Georgia yet (but I did drive up from Jacksonville when I was there this spring for CMS).

Reverie of Solitude and a presentation in Wichita!

Posted on 2023-01-20 09:32:00 by Kyle and tagged with Announcements Updates

I'm pleased to announce that I've had two items selected for the College Music Society central conference this coming March! My Reverie of Solitude for stereo fixed media, and a presentation on The Mess of Music Composition (which I first gave at the Aspen Composers Conference a few years ago) will be on the program in Wichita. Notification follows:

Dear Kyle Vanderburg,

The CMS Program Committee would like to thank you for submitting your proposal, “The Mess of Music Composition” in response to the CMS 2023 Central Conference - Call for Oral & Poster Presentations. I am very pleased to let you know that your work has been selected for presentation on the program.

It is our policy that all composers, presenters, co-presenters, panelists, and collaborative pianists must hold current membership in CMS and must register for the event no later than Thursday, February 9, 2023. The registration form is available on the conference website. As only the primary submitter receives this message, please share this link with any collaborators involved in your presentation and make sure they are aware of this policy.

If a co-presenter or panelist is from a profession other than music (e.g., lawyer, librarian, medical professional), they may be exempted from the membership and registration requirements; however, it is your responsibility to communicate with us right away regarding such participants so that we may verify their exemption. Performers of works by CMS composers are not required to register unless they plan to attend conference sessions in addition to the concert in which they are performing. In this case, they are expected to pay the full registration fee accordingly.

Please look for further correspondence regarding the date and time of your presentation. Please recall that according to the rules of the Call, you have agreed to present on any day of the conference. We regret that we cannot entertain requests for specific dates or times.

I congratulate you on your acceptance and look forward to your participation!

Sincerely,

Hannah Christine Weaver

Chair, Program Committee

2023 CMS Central Conference

Brain Dump: Summer Schedule, Social Media, Scarcity Mindset

Posted on 2022-06-16 10:58:00 by Kyle and tagged with Updates

Several things that are bouncing around my head these days:

First off, let’s talk about the summer schedule. Hopefully this will be a productive working summer. But in between that work, some interesting projects:

For ten days in June, I’ll be in NYC to help run the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF). I don’t have a piece on the festival this year, I’m just working. That should help me get my mixing, troubleshooting, and gaff-taping fix for the year.

The first week in July, I’ll be teaching Audio Technology at the International Music Camp. Lots of firsts for that one—first time at the International Peace Gardens, first time teaching at IMC, first time using Cubase…

At the beginning of August, I’ll be presenting a paper on composition program curricula at the Aspen Composers Conference. A few days later, I’ll be teaching a seminar on recording technology at NDSU’s Music Education Summer Symposium.

Next: Social media. Ugh. I’ve never really liked it. I feel like I always have to be “On” to use it—as in, everything I post has to be amusing or witty or something more than “I’m eating a sandwich.” I’ve long suspected that it’s the cause of most of our recent societal problems. As I teach freshmen every year, my believe that being constantly catered to by algorithms isn’t healthy. And my recent reading list hasn’t helped things.

Dave Eggers, The Circle

and the sequel that I’ve bought but am too scared to read: The Every

David Heinemeier Hansson’s articles on how it's hard to escape being ordinary in a connected world and how growing apart and losing touch is human and healthy. That last one really makes you think.

Those led me to this fantastic and fantastically-titled article in the Atlantic: Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid.

Now, I haven’t gotten out the tinfoil hat and I’m not saying that I agree with everything I’ve just listed. But these things have been on my mind for a while.

This is part of a larger thing I’m going through right now, where I’m realizing that I don’t have to be good at everything. I’m not good at contributing to social media (and consuming it isn’t good for me) and that’s okay.

I’m not good at email either, but that’s a project and a story for another day.

This leads me to my third thing—the scarcity mindset. This came up in Beyond Talent earlier in Entrepreneurship this spring, and it struck the students (and me) differently than usual. For much of grad school and my early academic career, I’d say “Yes” to whatever project or job came my way. And this never really stopped—even though I have full-time employment and several side projects, every time I see a job posting I think “OOH! I could do that too!” Not “instead.” “Too.”

Diversification and risk management are good things, but there’s a point of diminishing returns where you’re spread too thin. I just need to calm down and focus on the plates that are already spinning.

OOH! Or I could go back to school to become a CPA!