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More music from the pop-rock behemoth that brought you the theme song to EndWar! For more in-depth and less on-topic coverage of what's going on in the world of Ben, be sure to check out my new, erratically updated blog, Aesthetic Cartography. Or for less in-depth but much more frequent updates, follow my Twitter feed! January 14, 2010 Two cool things! For those in Minnesota, I'll be presenting some of my work at the next Composers' Salon at 7pm on Tuesday, January 19, at Studio Z, 275 E. Fourth St., in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. St. Olaf composition professor Justin Merritt and two other composers are also on the bill. I went to the last Salon in December; it's a nice, informal setting in which composers present some of their music, and people can respond and ask questions (not unlike the Seattle Composers' Salon I used to attend back in Seattle). More (slightly out of date) info on this regular monthly series is available here. Then back in Shanghai, I've got a video piece included in the new Make Over show at OV Gallery, 19 Shaoxing Lu, which runs from January 23-March 14, 2010. The show is a reflection on the dramatic face lift that Shanghai is undergoing in preparation for the World Expo this year, and my piece, Shanghai Traces, is a real-time video piece that algorithmically shuffles and smears images of some of Shanghai's common street vendor wares. There are lots of other cool people in the show, too, so swing on by! And by the way, Happy New Year! 两个好活动! 下个星期二,在美国明尼苏达州圣保罗市的 Studio Z, 我要介绍我最近的作品，还有三个其他的作曲家（包括St. Olaf大学音乐教授Justin Merritt）要介绍他们最近的作品。 他们那里每个月有这个活动，很非正式，很温暖的环境，谁都可以对作曲家问随便的问题。跟多消息在这里。 然后这个月底我要参加上海的OV画廊的《外立面工程》展览。 展览一月二十三号开始，三月十三号结束。 我的作品是实时录像，使用上海的普通的用品作抽象的程序逻辑录像。 顺便,新年快乐! November 24, 2009 On December 5, I'll be performing at an event called Alternative Expression at the Creek Art Center, which will also feature sets by Alexander Furk and Arthur Bligh. My set will be "algorithmic, ambient, and aleatory," and the focus will be on some new computer-generated video ideas I've been developing. The Creek Art Center's in a funky old space, a little hard to find, on the north side of Suzhou Creek; go to 423 Guangfu Lu (near Wuzhen Lu), then go down a little alley around back; I think there are plenty of signs. Show starts around 9. Also, this Thursday, November 26, I'll be presenting my new audiovisual installation Study for Insomnia at The Nut. My friends Laurent Lettrée and Nathalie Delpech, collectively known as LLND will also be presenting installation(s) and performing, so it should be a fun night! I didn't realize until after I agreed to do this that it's going down on American Thanksgiving (easy to loose track when living in China). But you know what? I'm thankful for a chance to present my new installation! This is actually the second time I've presented a piece here. Right after I took my 路口 Lukou installation down at Art+Shanghai Gallery three weeks ago, I set it up again at The Nut for their inaugural Underconstruction party (organized in part by Greenhouse Project), one night only! The Nut is located at 1147 Kangding Lu, Bldg E (near Wuning Nan Lu), and the party goes from 6 until midnight or so. And let the record show that last Sunday I participated in a crazy karaoke performance sponsored by Company, who have a fresh new website here. Don't worry, this isn't the last you'll be hearing of this performance. 十二月五号我要在 苏河艺术 参加一个叫"Alternative Expression"的活动。还有Alexander Furk和Arthur Bligh要参加。 我的表演是用笔记本作环境音乐，还要分享我最近的录像作品。 苏河艺术的地址是上海市光复路423号后面（近乌镇路），演出九点开始。 这个星期四十一月二十六号还有活动，我要在The Nut安装我的新的装置Study for Insomnia。 我的朋友Laurent Lettrée和Nathalie Delpech(LLND）也要参加。 The Nut在康定路1147号E栋（近武宁南路），活动六点开始。 上个星期天我参加一个Company安排的卡拉OK活动，但是这不是最后一句！ November 19, 2009 Advance tickets for my concert tomorrow, opening for Owl City at Dream Factory in Shanghai, are sold out! If you want to try to get one of the 100 tickets available at the door, get to Dream Factory at noon tomorrow. Details below. If you can't make it to this show, I'll be posting info about a more ambient show on December 5 very soon. 我和Owl City明天晚上的演出预售已经卖完了。现在只有一百张现场门票，你可以明天中午到芷江梦工厂尝试买。 如果你没办法，别着急，我十二月五号还有演出，完些在这里广告。 October 31, 2009 I'm super excited to be opening for Owl City when he comes to Shanghai on Friday, November 20. As I type this, Owl City has the number one song in the USA, which is pretty nuts. His story is amazing, a small-town Minnesota boy making music in his parents' basement who got huge on MySpace; read all about it here. To support his set of starry-eyed synth pop, I'll be presenting a set of my own slightly more world-weary yet still somewhat starry-eyed synth pop. This concert is being put on by Split Works, the tireless tour promotors who have previously brought acts like Sonic Youth, Battles, Ghostface Killah, and Young Knives to China. The show starts at 7pm (note the early start time) on November 20, 2009, at Zhijiang Dream Factory, 4/F, 66 Yuyao Rd (near Xikang Rd). Tickets are RMB 120 advance, RMB 160 at the door. Pre-sale tickets are going fast (the Hong Kong stop has already sold out), so make your plans early! Full details are on the Split Works website. 我很兴奋十一月二十号当Owl City的暖场嘉宾。 他现在有美国的第一首歌，他的故事很奇妙，在豆瓣能看更多消息。 我也打算表演合成器流行歌。 演出是Split Works安排的，所有关于这个活动的消息在他们的网站上。 演出在芷江梦工场，余姚路66号同乐坊内(近西康路)，4楼，十一月二十号晚上七点举行。门票120元（预售）/160元（现场）。 October 13, 2009 I've been asked to perform at the "Non-Academic Style Electroacoustic Concert" to be held as part of The 2009 Shanghai International Electroacoustic Music Week at the Shanghai Conservatory. Also on the bill are Wang Changcun 王长存, Torturing Nurse, Mai Mai, and organizer Zhao Junyuan's 照骏园 new band (with Olaf Hochherz) Power Wood Quality 木电质. The concert will occur on the afternoon of October 21 from 2pm-5pm in the Conservatory's Reporting Hall, 20 Fenyang Lu (near Fuxing Lu). You can read all the details on my blog! I'm doing another performance with Cindy Ng 吴少英 at Art+Shanghai Gallery this Saturday at 6pm, in conjunction with the Wuwei 无为 show. Don't forget, my four-channel sound installation 路口 Lukou is still running there every day through November 1! For the record, I gave a lecture on algorithmic art to Ercument Gorgol's Parametric Form class at the Shanghai branch of the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Architecture last Wednesday. 我要参加上海音乐学院的2009年上海国际电子音乐周的“来自非学院派的声音”演出。 十月二十一号下午两点钟至五点钟在音乐学院的上音报告厅举行，汾阳路20号（近复兴路）。 王长存，折磨护士，买卖，和照骏园的新乐队木电质都会表演。 更多消息在我的博克上。 我这个星期六下午六点在艺术+上海画廊要跟吴少英一起表演。 不要忘记，我的路口声音装置还在艺术+上海画廊到十一月一号，每天（除了周一）都可以去听一听！ 我上个星期在香港大学建筑学院的上海分公司演讲我的程序逻辑艺术。 September 18, 2009 My most successful sound installation to date is running from September 9 through November 1 at Art+ Gallery as part of a show entitled 无为 Being and Nothing. The gallery is located at 22 Fumin Lu, near Yan’an Lu, in Shanghai (note new address!), and they're open Tuesday-Sunday, 11am-7pm (closed Mondays). My piece is a four-channel installation called 路口 Lukou that manipulates field recordings of Shanghai traffic sounds in real-time. You can read all about it on my blog. I'm also playing a synth-pop set at Not Me a week from tomorrow, Saturday, September 26, 2009, at the generous invitation of STD's Digital Love series. Please note the date; I had previously posted it incorrectly. Also on the bill are synth-punk superquasars Resist! Resist!, and the STDJ's will spin ecstatic digital sounds into the wee hours. 10pm and free! 我最成功的声音装置在 艺术+上海 画廊 从八月九号至十一月一号正在跑步. 展览叫 无为 Being and Nothing. 画廊的地址是上海市富民路22弄2号, 近延安路 (他们最近搬家了,这是他们的新的地方第一个展览) 。 画廊周二至周日早上十一点至晚上七点开门(周一关门) 。 我的作品是一个关于上海交通声音的实时四轨声音装置叫《路口》。 在我的博克上有更多新闻，但是都是英文，不好意思！ 还有下个星期我打算在Not Me酒吧表演我的合成器流行歌。 （以前我写的不对的日期，对不起！） Resist! Resist!乐队和STDJ's还要表演。十点钟开始，免费的！ August 26, 2009 Lots of performances these days! Here they are, in chronological order (some have already happened, apologies): Saturday, July 25, Zhujiajiao, premiere of my composition Zhujiajiao Drinking Game A mini music fest featuring Torturing Nurse, Hong Qile 洪启乐, Li Jianhong 李剑鸿, and friends. Monday, July 27, Amnesiac (hosted by LON), Logo, 10pm My first DJ set as AleaBoy (although no one knew it), algorithmic dance-like grooves. Sunday, August 16, Brainwave Communication Yuyintang, 8pm Shanghai premiere of Zhujiajiao Drinking Game, with Hong Qile 洪启乐, Maimai 卖笑, etc. Sunday, August 23, RESO 7, Yuyintang, 8pm Ambient electronic + free improv with Xu Cheng 徐程, OK=NO, and Maimai 卖笑. Thursday, August 27, top secret subway show, 1pm I'm not really clear on the details. Thursday, August 27, Sacco's Club Heart Attack, Not Me, 9pm I'm doing a set of synth-pop as well as some quasi-acoustic songs + DJ Biff Jorgensen, SPS! Tuesday, Sept. 8, Wu Wei 无为 opening party, Art+, evening I'll be performing on laptop with visual artist Cindy Ng. More on this cool project soon! Saturday, Sept. 26, STD's Digital Love, Not Me, evening Full synth-pop set! Resist! Resist! also performs! Whew, if you include the 29 Giraffes opening party (which was a packed success), that's 9 performances in 2 months! 最近有很多演出!有些已经过去了,对不起. 周六，七月二十五号,朱家角,第一次表演我的作品《朱家角喝酒游戏》 实验音乐节，包括折磨虎视，洪启乐，李剑鸿，和其他的朋友们。 周一，七月二十七号，LON的 Amnesiac， Logo，十点 我第一次作程序逻辑DJ。 周日，八月十六号， 脑波交流， 育音堂，八点 第一次在上海表演《朱家角喝酒游戏》，还有洪启乐，卖笑，等。 周日，八月二十三号， RESO 7， 育音堂，八点 实验电子乐和徐程，OK=NO，和 卖笑。 周四，八月二十七号，秘密的地铁表演，一点 我还不太清楚。 周四，八月二十七号，Sacco的Club Heart Attack， Not Me，九点 合成器流行歌 周二，九月八号，无为展览开幕， 艺术＋上海晚上。 我要和吴少英一起表演。 周六，九月二十六号，STD的Digital Love， Not Me，晚上 合成器流行歌！Resist! Resist!还要表演！ 包括上个月的《二十九长颈鹿》 开幕（一个大成功）这是两个月内九次表演！ July 5, 2009 OK, I’ve finally set a date for my 29 Giraffes show opening, and it is July 23, 2009. It’s a triple whammy, in fact: in addition to the first public unveiling of my visual art, the opening night gala features a live performance of Radiospace and other ambient, algorithmic pieces; and it also serves as the release party for my new CD Radiospace 040823. The party starts at 6pm, with a performance at 8pm, and entry is free! 29 Giraffes is an exhibit of algorithmically generated digital prints that I’ve been working on for over two years. The original impetus was to find an ideal album cover for my Radiospace CD, which was actually recorded back in 2004. I wanted to generate an album cover that incorporated the same kinds of algorithmic behaviors that I used to create the music. In the process, I realized there was a whole range of other possibilities to explore using this technique. You can read more about the CD here, and download an excerpt here. You can also preview some of the images that may or may not be included in the final show here. You can read the whole press release, which goes into somewhat greater detail about the project, here. Finally, you can read a fine preview of the show in the July 2009 issue of That’s Shanghai (available here). The venue is [the studio], 796B Julu Rd. (near Fumin Rd.), Shanghai. Enter through lane 786, then take the first left until you see the big brown door. The visual art will remain on display through August 9, but since [the studio] is a creative workspace with somewhat irregular hours, it’s best to call and make an appointment to view the exhibition after the opening party: +86 21 6247 2765. 七月二十三号我的《二十九个长颈鹿》展览终于举行！ 事实上有三个好原因过来：有艺术开幕，有我的表演，还有我的最新的专辑无线电空间 040823出版！ 六点开始，八点演出，免费进来玩儿。 你可以在这里看更多关于新专辑的新闻。 你可以在这里听到一小部分。 你可以在这里看几张长颈鹿的图片。 你可以在这里看关于这个活动That’s Shanghai杂志的文章。 [the studio]在巨鹿路796B号，靠近福民路（近来，往左拐，寻找褐色的大门）。 展览八月九号结束，如果你想来看看，最好是先打个电话：+86 21 6247 2765。 June 20, 2009 Two last minute gigs just confirmed for this week! Tomorrow (Sunday, June 21) I'm celebrating Fête de la Musique with a quasi-acoustic pop set at the Lakeside Ville barbecue and pool party. They're located out near the Hongqiao Airport. Here's a flyer and a map. Barbecue's 6-8pm, entertainment's 6-9pm (there's also some African drumming and rock and roll planned), but I think you can come earlier and splash around in the pool. The event is free, but if you want to eat barbecue, it's 140 RMB for adults and 70 RMB for kids. Then next Wednesday (June 24) I'm playing a brief electronic set (like what I did at last month's Antidote festival in Zhujiajiao) at Logo (13 Xinfu Lu, near Fahuazhen Lu). I think I'm on late, like midnight-ish. Check out the complete synth-pop set on my Neocha page, and be prepared for the audience participation segments! 这个星期我要两次表演！ 明天（六月二十一号周日）我要参加 Lakeside Villa 的烤肉游泳池派对， 因为从一九八二年以后六月二十一号是法国的全国性的音乐节。 烤肉六点到八点能吃的，音乐六点到九点能听的（除了我，还有非洲鼓手和摇滚音乐）。 可以下载地图和海报。 活动是免费的，但是如果你想吃烤肉的话，成人140元，孩子70元。 然后下个周三（六月二十四号）我要在 Logo 表演合成器流行音乐， 和我上个月在 解毒剂朱家角电子音乐界表演的差不多。 活动比较晚开始，夜半左右。 你可以先上 我的新茶网站 听我打算表演的歌曲！ May 4, 2009 The friendly folks at Antidote were gracious enough to invite me to join the bill for their upcoming Antidote Festival of Electronic Music at Zhujiajiao on Saturday afternoon, May 23rd, in the Shanghai watertown suburb of Zhujiajiao. I'll be performing alongside electronic luminaries B6, LON, and Zig Zag, all of whom have impressed me with live sets recently, as well as Resist Resist, Reptile & Retard, and Uprooted Sunshine Soundsystem, with whose sounds I look forward to becoming better acquainted. Check out the flyer (another fine design by B6) for details. I'm preparing a completely new set of synth-pop songs for this performance, comprising about half of a new album I'm currently working on. I performed some of them acoustically at Yuyintang last March, and you can check out the electronic versions on my Neocha page, so you can learn the words and sing along at the show! 那些很友好的解毒剂家伙们邀请了我参加他们的解毒剂电子音乐节，在朱家角，五月二十三号下午举行。 Zig Zag, B6, LON, Resist Resist, Reptile & Retard,和Uprooted Sunshine Soundsystem也要表演。 具体消息在B6设计的蛮好看的海报。 我正在准备五首合成器电子音乐流行歌，和我最近表演的实验音乐完全不一样。 你可以上我的新茶网站听一听。 April 5, 2009 I've got a busy April ahead, with two shows and an installation in Beijing, followed by another performance back in Shanghai. Here are the details, in order. On Tuesday, April 14, I'm playing at BMW, the 152nd of the regular Waterland Kwanyin experimental music revues at 2 Kolegas. The series was launched in 2005 by Yan Jun 颜峻, who also runs a label by the same name, but since he'll be out of town, my friend Feng Hao 冯昊 of Walnut Room 核桃室 is taking the reins. In addition to myself and Walnut Room (which also includes saxophonist Li Zenghui 李增辉), the program features the cello/voice/electronics duo Mayming from England. 2 Kolegas is located in a drive-in movie theater, 21 Liangmaqiao Lu; the show starts at 8pm, and tickets are 30 RMB at the door. Next up is the project that's been occupying me for a big chunk of 2009, the installation I'm doing with Chen Hangfeng 陈航峰 for the Fat Art 09: Music to My Eyes exhibition at the Today Art Museum. He's built a custom kaleidoscope apparatus that's connected to a video camera for projection onto the walls of a small, hexagonal room, and I've written a program in Max/MSP that fractures and filters the signals from two microphones positioned elsewhere in the gallery in real-time. I previewed the technology at my Brainwave Communication show last month; you can hear an excerpt on my Neocha site and read a bit about how it works on my blog (I plan to go into greater detail in a future post). The show is sponsored by the record company Modern Sky, curated by Karen Smith, and also features works by Liu Ye 刘野, Yan Lei 颜磊, Aniwar 安尼瓦尔, Mathieu Borysevicz, Xu Ruotao 徐若涛, Wu Ershan 乌尔善, Zhou Yue 周越, Wang Bo 王波, Sun Lei 孙磊, and Pei Li 裴丽. The Today Art Museum is located at 32 Baiziwan Lu, Building 4, Chaoyang, Beijing, and the exhibit runs from April 17 to May 3. Performances by Modern Sky-affiliated groups such as PK14, Dead J, and New Pants are planned. Hangfeng and I are scheduled to do an artists' presentation at 2pm on Sunday, April 19th. Then on Thursday, April 23, I'm returning to D-22 for another laptop performance, sharing a bill with experimental rock bands Mingtianjiujiesan 明天就解散 and Fat City. 242 Chengfu Lu, Wudaokou, half-way between Wudaokou Subway Station and Peking University East Gate, 9pm, 30 RMB (20 for students). And the next day I return to Shanghai in time to perform at the Blender Digital Culture Festival. This two-day event is going down at the South River Art Center, 1247 Nan Suzhou Lu, on April 25 and 26, featuring exhibits, presentations, and performances by B6, LON, BAIFAN, and many others. I'm currently scheduled to play on Saturday evening at 7:30, though the schedule is subject to change, so come early! Also, the event is sponsored by Nike, my first ever product endorsement! 我这个月很忙！我在北京有两个表演和一个声音装置，然后回来上海以后还有一个表演。 我先在两个好朋友酒吧参加BMW,第一百五十二个水陆观音实验音乐会。 颜峻要出差了，所以这次是核桃室的冯昊安排的。 （核桃室里面还有萨克斯管家李增辉。） 英国的Mayming 美明也要参加。 亮马桥路21号汽车电影院内，八点钟开始，门票三十元。 然后四月十七号到五月十三号在今日美术馆有我和陈航峰合作的装置。 我们参加摩登天空安排的Fat Art 09：目耳计划展览。 我做的声音部分是用Max/MSP做的实时软件，已经在上个月的脑波交流演出用过一次， 你可以在我的新茶网站上听我表演的一部分。 还有刘野，颜磊，安尼瓦尔，Mathieu Borysevicz， 徐若涛，乌尔善，周越，王波，孙磊，裴丽也要参加。 凯伦史密斯是策展人。 北京市朝阳区百子湾路32号北京今日美术馆。 四月十九号周日我和陈航峰要讲演，介绍一下我们的合作。 然后四月二十三号我归来D-22做笔记本演出。 节目也包括明天就解散乐队和Fat City。 成府路242号，五道口地铁与北大东门之间，九点钟开始，门票三十元（学生二十元）。 最后我回来上海以后我会参加Blender电子文化节，四月二十五号到二十六号， 在上海苏河艺术中心，南苏州路1247号。 有很多活动，演出包括B6，LON，BAIFAN，等。 好像我要星期六晚上七点半表演，但是时间表还会变化，所以我推荐你再一点来！ March 26, 2009 The two big shows in the past two weeks were quite successful, good performances all around, good turnout, good vibe. And good press! Check out these interviews in SmartShanghai and Shanghaiist. 最近的两个演出是大成功！表演好，观众的人多，还有这两个网站采访了我：SmartShanghai 和Shanghaiist. March 6, 2009 I’ve playing two very different sets at two different shows this month. Come to both! I’m also releasing a new CD! First on Sunday, March 15, I’m playing in a show being billed as “Silence or Silence or Brainwave Communication,” organized by Fuzhou’s Hong Qile 洪启乐, founder of Brainwave Communication. Hong Qile will be performing, as will Shanghai residents Xu Cheng 徐程 (half of Torturing Nurse), Lu Chen 陆晨 (lead singer of Shanghainese punk ensemble Top Floor Circus 顶楼的马戏团), Dai Cheng 戴诚, and VJ Jin Ning 金宁. I’ll be performing a sneak preview of a sound installation I’m working on, incorporating ambient automated filters and algorithmic rhythms (more on that project later). Then exactly one week later on March 22 (also a Sunday), I’ll be opening for Japanese/Korean duo 10, back in China for another tour in support of their new CD Kitsch. Last time in Shanghai they played at Logo, opening for Jeans Team, and their spacey noise-pop seemed to go over pretty well. I never tire of posting this link to the translation I did of Li Jianhong 李剑鸿's account of their Japan tour over 2 years ago. You can also read more about their ill-fated last trip on my blog. This second show will double as the CD release party for my new rock EP 3 Heart-Shaped Cookies, my first CD ever. I’ll be performing a quasi-acoustic set of love songs from my pop catalogue, covering a songwriting span of about 15 years. Both shows are at Yu Yin Tang (1731 West Yan'An Rd., near Kaixuan Rd.), both start at 8, both shows are 30 RMB at the door. You’ve got a week in between to recuperate, so there’s no reason not to attend both! 我这个月要两次表演，那两次完全不一样。还要出版一张摇滚专辑！ 第一次表演是三月十五号，我参加脑波交流安排的上海现场演出。 我正在做一个新的声音装置，所以我打算表演装置的一部分。洪启乐（脑波交流创办人，从福州来的）也要表演， 还有徐程（折磨护士的成员），陆晨（顶楼的马戏团的主唱），戴诚，和VJ金宁。 一个星期以后三月二十二号我要参加10乐队的演出。他们回来中国巡回演出，因为他们有新的专辑叫《Kitsch》。我听过他们表演很多次，每次还很奇妙。上次他们在Logo和从德国来的Jeans Team乐队表演。他们两年之前和李剑鸿在日本巡回演出，李剑鸿写进了他的博客，我帮他做英语翻译。在我博客上，我说明一下他们上次在中国巡回演出。 那个二十二号的演出也是我的第一个专辑3 Heart-Shaped Cookies出版派对，专辑内容是摇滚乐，所以我打算表演的都是流行歌。 演出都在育音堂（上海市延安西路1731号凯旋门），都晚上八点开始，都三十块门票。 February 2, 2009 I’ve finally collected some of the most interesting information I could think of regarding audio in EndWar and posted it on its very own web page. I’ve also collected a bunch of press clippings and added them to the press page. Also, Ubisoft has launched an exciting new contest, in which contestants are invited to create their own videos for the EndWar song I wrote for the game’s credits. You have until February 17, 2009. Hurry! 我刚才上载了一张关于EndWar声音部分的网站，但是我还没做中文版本。 而且育碧有一个比赛，可以做你自己的录像配我写得EndWar歌，但是好像就是北美和欧洲可以进入了。我不好意思！ January 12, 2009 I'll be making my Beijing debut at the venerable performance institution D-22 next week on Wednesday, January 21. I'm still working out the details of my performance, but it will be a some assortment of ambient and aleatory electronic works performed on my laptop. Show starts at 9:30, and I think it will be free! Also, I just checked, and 3 Heart-Shaped Cookies is finally up on iTunes. Wish they'd notify you when releases go live. Anyway, you can download it there or from Amazon, and I think it's also up on on EMusic and Rhapsody and Napster and elsewhere, so take your pick! 我下个星期三（一月二十一日）第一次在北京演出！表演是在D-22酒吧，九点半开始。我要用笔记本做实验电子乐。应该是免费的。 而且我的新摇滚专辑3 Heart-Shaped Cookies(三块心形曲奇)现在可以从iTunes，Amazon，等下载！ November 8, 2008 EndWar, for which I've been heading up audio design for the past 3.5 years, was finally released this week. Go buy a copy! I collaborated with the Seattle band 99 Men on the song "EndWar" that plays over the game's end credits. On the occasion of the game's release, we've decided to release three other tunes that we recorded together before I moved to Shanghai in 2004. Ladies and gentlement, I give you 3 Heart-Shaped Cookies by Ben Houge & 99 Men! Our little mini-album is its way to digital retailers as I type this, and there's no way to predict when it will be ready for download, but it should be sometime in December. If you would like to be notified when it's available, drop me a line, and I'll keep you posted. We're also working on a physical release; developments on all fronts will be posted here. EndWar终于发表了！去买一张吧！ EndWar里有一首歌，是我跟我的西雅图的朋友一起做的，所以我们决定还要发表三首我来中国之前写的歌， 新的专辑叫"3 Heart-Shaped Cookies." November 3, 2008 Tomorrow at 5pm, I will present an informal lecture on sound art for Raquel Assis's "New Media and Environments" class at Raffles Design Institute, Donghua University Campus, 1882 West Yan An Rd. I plan to discuss some of my own work (including, but not limited to, my work in videogames), in addition to going over some general sound art concepts. I don't think there's a problem if you want to swing by and listen in, but I'm not sure of the exact location, so it's probably best to drop me a line first. 我明天下午五点钟在 Raquel Assis的"New Media and Environments" 课要演讲，介绍一下声音艺术和我自己的工作。 上课在Raffles Design Institute， 延安西路1882号。 如果你想来看看，应该没问题，最好是先联系我，因为我还不知道具体地方。 October 14, 2008 I'm just finishing up a new sound installation that will be exhibited from this Thursday in the 100% Design display at Shanghai International Creative Industry Week, providing sonic counterpoint to a design and layout by the vivacious Jutta Friedrichs of MÜ Furniture. To quote from the official press release (which I wrote), "100% Design Shanghai celebrates Shanghai International Creative Industry Week with the joint installation Breaking New Ground, a collaboration between MÜ designer Jutta Friedrichs and sound artist Ben Houge, providing a sneak preview of next year’s 100% Design Shanghai show. The 240 sqm joint installation provides a showcase for new local and international design objects, specially selected for the exhibition, which metaphorically break through the ground and float amid shards of ice, as a fresh wind blows in from overhead. This complete sensual experience reflects excitement and anticipation for the gathering wave of design and creativity that is swelling in China." My part of the show employs many of the techniques I've developed for deploying videogame audio over the years, with an emphasis on dynamic, evolving behaviors (no loops!). The sound is generated in real-time by a program I wrote in Max/MSP, evoking the natural behavior of wind and wind-driven phenoema (e.g. chimes and flutes). The exhibit will be open to the public from 9am to 5pm on October 16-21, 2008, at The Factory, Building 1-B1, No. 265 Lingshi Rd. (near Gonghe Xin Rd.), Zhabei District, Shanghai. That's about a block north of the Shanghai Circus World subway stop on line 1 (take exit 4). 我正在做好一个声音装置，是上海国际创意产业活动周的一部分， 配MÜ家具设计师Jutta Friedrichs设计的100% Design展览。 我用Max/MSP程序的， 技术是关于我的设计电子游戏的声音部分经验发展的。 灵感是风吹和自然的过程。 展览这个星期四开始，十月十六号到二十一号，早上九点到下午五点能过来听听。 地址是闸北区合金工厂创意产业集聚区，灵石路695号。 可以坐地铁来，灵石路在地铁一号线上海马戏城站的北边（用四号出口）。 September 30, 2008 On October 22, I'll be participating in a performance of Christian Marclay's Screen Play as part of the month-long Shanghai eArts Festival. Christian Marclay is an influential artist whose work pokes at sound from many angles, and Screen Play is a video score "to be interpreted by a small group of musicians," consisting of a collage of black and white film excerpts overlaid with bright computer graphics, which as you may imagine allows the performers a fair degree of latitude. The piece will be performed three times in the course of one evening, by three different groups of musicians. I'll be performing with Yan Jun 颜峻 and Bruce Gremo, both coming down from Beijing for the occasion. Also on the bill is guitarist Elliott Sharp, out from New York, performing with Wu Na 巫娜 (guqin) and Wang Li Chuan 王力川 (percussion), also down from Beijing. The third set features Shanghai's irrepressible punk band Top Floor Circus 顶楼的马戏团. The performance is part of the Final Cut portion of the eArts Festival, centered around Shanghai's Xujiahui district and organized by the fine folks of ArtHub. In addition to several nights of new media shows, they're taking over some of the big digital displays in the neighborhood and applying them to artistic ends, promising quite a spectacle. Event: Christian Marclay's Screen Play Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 7:30 pm Location: Xujiahui Park (near Zhao Jia Bang Lu and Hengshan Lu) Admission: free! In other news, I'd say my performance at last Friday's Pecha-Kucha #11 turned out pretty well. I came up with a new piece, "Statement of Purpose," for the occasion; you can check out photos and a video. Also, I think I forgot to mention that I finally finished translating Li Jianhong's Japan Diaries, documenting his tour of Japan in December 2006, posted for your reading pleasure over on GNO, complete with dramatis personae. 我十月底参加上海电子艺术节的演出，有三个小组来表演Christian Marclay的Screen Play电影乐谱。 我要和 颜峻 和 Bruce Gremo 一起表演。 还有纽约实验吉他手Elliott Sharp，古琴手巫娜，鼓手王力川，和上海朋克乐队顶楼的马戏团。 上海电子艺术节的徐家汇部分叫 Final Cut 是 ArtHub 安排的。 还有几天的电子艺术活动。 活动：Christian Marclay的Screen Play 时间：二零零八年十月二十二日周三晚上七点半 地址：上海市徐家汇公园（近肇嘉浜路和衡山路的路口） 门票：免费！ 我觉得上个星期五的 Pecha-Kucha #11 表演还不错。 我写了新的作曲，叫"Statement of Purpose"，你可以看 照片 和 电影。 而且我终于翻译好了李剑鸿的“日本十日私人地图册”，你可以去 GNO网站 看英文版本。 September 24, 2008 I’ll be making a presentation about my work at the nexus of videogames, music composition, and digital art at Pecha-Kucha #11 this Friday, kind of a non-linear, multi-media lecture/performance. Note the new location: PECHA KUCHA NIGHT #11 Date: Friday, September 26, 2008, 8:20 pm Location: Wen Ding Plaza, No.204, Wending Road (near Kaixuan Road) Cover: 40 RMB (includes one free drink) 这个星期五我要参加 Pecha-Kucha #11， 介绍一下我的电子音乐和艺术。没事来玩儿！ 第十一个PECHA KUCHA NIGHT 时间：星期五,9月26日,8点20分 地址：文定路204号A（近凯旋路） 门票：40元 (一个免费饮料) September 12, 2008 EndWar audio is finished! About 2 weeks ago we checked in the final EndWar audio data, which felt a bit surreal after working on it for 3.5 years. I’m really happy with how it turned out, thanks to the efforts of a really fantastic audio team. Hear the results for yourself when EndWar hits shelves in a few weeks. I’ve shared a bit about the ideas and techniques behind the audio for the game with the EndWar community team in a podcast and a developer blog, if you want to know what’s going on behind the scenes. EndWar has turned out to be a really great game. Personally, this is the first time ever that I still enjoy playing a game after I’ve finished working on it. Initial feedback from the press has been quite positive, too, including the Game Critics Award for Best Strategy Game of E3, the first time a console game has won in this category. Here’s a sample of other comments (visit the official EndWar site for the latest updates): Game Critics Awards, Winner, Best Strategy Game IGN, Winner, Best Strategy Game for Xbox 360 GameSpy, Nominated for Best X360 Game (#9) Gametrailers, Winner, Best Strategy Game UGO, Winner, Best Strategy Game Cheat Code Central, Nominated for Best Strategy/Simulation Game Edge Online, EndWar named a best game of E3 This marks the end of my four-year tenure with Ubisoft, and I’m currently embarking on a long-anticipated sabbatical, which will encompass music composition, performances, art installations, writing, and intensive Chinese study, among other pursuits. My mission is to find ways to apply the techniques I’ve developed for structuring non-linear sound in videogames over the past twelve years in a broader cultural context. More info about these activities will be posted soon. EndWar 的声音部分两个星期以前终于结束了。我觉得结果非常好，因为我们声音部门又天才又很专业，我很感谢我的同事！ EndWar 究竟是很有意思的游戏。这是第一次我做好一个游戏以后我还想玩儿。我们已经赢了几个很好的奖品（连接在上面）。还有我写的博克和podcast，我介绍一下 EndWar 的声音部分。 因为现在 EndWar 结束了，所以我要离开育碧电脑软件有限公司。我要开始做我很长时间期待的安息年，研究怎么用我的游戏声音意见参加更大的文化谈论。 July 20, 2008 Ooh, check out the first update to the look of this site since it went live in 2001! The image at the top of each page is a photograph of neon lights on Shanghai's East Nanjing Road, which I reshuffled algorithmically using Max/MSP. I'm planning a gallery show of more of these kinds of images this fall after EndWar ships, details forthcoming. I also finally fixed the Scores page of this site. For a long time you couldn't download scores, as Finale changed their on-line score viewing plug-in format one too many times. Way back in 2000, I upgraded to Finale 2001 just for this functionality, but it never really worked right, especially compared to what their competition was doing at the time. But anyway, at long last, you can once again download all of the sheet music for my soundtrack to Arcanum (scored for string quartet), plus two other old pieces, a setting of some personal ads from 2002 and a setting of evening prayer from 1998, quite an eclectic collection, I guess. 我刚才更新了我的网站的样子，比以前好看得多！ 上面的图片是我用 Max/MSP 转换的在上海南京东路拍的照片。今年秋天 （做好EndWar以后） 我打算安排这样做的图片展览。 而且我终于修改了这个网站的 乐谱页， 你可以下载几个老作品的乐谱，包括我写的 Arcanum 电子游戏的配音，是用弦乐四重奏录音的。 April 5, 2008 I'll be performing at an event next Saturday organized by Mai Mai 卖卖 from Musclesnog called RESO: Reconstruct the Experimental Soundscape of Ourselves. I'm helping out with the English language promotion, and I've put the info up on the Sound Currents website, though it's not an official Sound Currents event. (The next official Sound Currents concert should be sometime after EndWar ships.) At this show, I plan to do something involving vocal improvisation and a laptop. Also on the bill are Asthma Writers Union (that's Mai Mai's solo project), Porn Moon Twins, and Dominik. I performed twice with Dominik in May 2006, last time he was in China, once at the Zendai Museum of Modern Art and once at Noishanghai's first anniversary A Sunday Afternoon show. Should be fun, come on down! Date: Saturday, April 12, 7:30 pm Venue: Mecooon (aka Downstream Garage) Address: Long Cao Road, lane 200, number 100, building 3 (next to the former Yu Yin Tang). Cover charge: 20 RMB (includes free CD for first 50 audience members) 下个周末我会参加 Musclesnog 的卖卖安排的 RESO第一局 活动。这次我会用即兴嗓音和笔记本表演。 演出还有 Asthma Writers Union （卖卖个人的项目）， Porn Moon Twins， 和 Dominik 多多。 上次Dominik二零零六年来过中国，我们一起两次表演了。第一次在 脑上海 的 A Sunday Afternoon 周年音乐会， 第二次在 证大现代艺术馆。来玩儿吧！ 时间: 星期六,四月十二号,晚上七点半 场地: 下河迷仓 地址: 龙漕路200弄100号3楼（育音堂原址隔壁） 门票: 二十人民币，所有入场观众将赠送弥勒唱片为RESO定制的限量50张唱片 July 9, 2007 Now that the big website overhaul is complete, I can get back to posting news, and the most interesting news lately is that the project on which I've been working for about the last two years has finally been announced to the world: Tom Clancy's EndWar. It's a real-time strategy game set in the universe of Tom Clancy's near future techno-thriller books, designed from the ground up for Microsoft's Xbox 360 videogame console. I'll leave the official announcements to the pros, so check out the official website for more information. I'll just say I'm having a great time working on a truly innovative project with a very talented team from 5 continents and all the resources to pull off something of unprecedented coolness! July 8, 2007 Okay, it’s time to come clean. In the six years since this site went live, there has been exactly one person generating all of the content you find here: me, Ben Houge. When I first put up this site, I guess I thought it was more professional or legitimate or whatever to refer to myself in the third person, but it’s become increasingly cumbersome to maintain the charade in recent years. The problem is that once one starts down that dark path, there’s no easy way to switch to writing in the first person, since it requires re-writing the entire website. Well, that’s what I’ve finally done; I could bear it no longer. So I hope the world enjoys the new more personable and approachable Ben Houge. Next big project: Chinese version. Stay tuned… P.S. I finally got a MySpace page last February; I used to think MySpace was soooooo 2004, but then I realized it’s a good way to stay in touch with Chinese musician friends, so I jumped on the bandwagon. There are two exclusive tracks there, Psalmus and Mobile 3, elsewhere unavailable! I’ve also got a Flickr page now, a bit lean for the moment, but more coming soon! December 12, 2006 Pictures from the 2pi Festival and NOIShanghai VI have been added to the Images page. A recent feature from last month's issue of That's Shanghai has been added to the Press page. There have been several other minor nips and tucks left for the reader to discover. Additional 2pi shots are available on Flickr, and check out the GNO website, maintained by Lawrence Li, for complete coverage of the event, with most performances available for free (legal) download. GNO is an indispensible resource for cutting-edge Chinese music and sound art, and Lawrence is a tireless and eloquent advocate. November 16, 2006 In addition to next Thursday's show at Yu Yin Tang, a second NOIShanghai VI concert has been added the next day (Friday, Nov. 24th) at China Live Bar, featuring the same line-up mentioned below, but with mostly different music. Live Bar (phone: 021-28336764) is located at 721 Kun Ming Road, near Tong Bei Road in the northern Yang Pu district of Shanghai. The show will start at 9pm, and tickets are 30 RMB at the door. Ben has also been added to the line-up of the fourth annual 2pi Festival in Hangzhou the next day, on Nov. 25th. Organized by Li Jianhong (李剑鸿), 2pi is the main annual showcase of experimental Chinese music and sound art, presenting artists from all over mainland China and Taiwan, in addition to Ben, Audrey Chen, and Alessandro Bosetti from the NOIShanghai concerts. The event goes starts at 2:30pm and runs until midnight at Loft 49, 49 Hangyin Rd., Gongshu District, Hangzhou. Check out the official website for full details and a map. 下个星期有两个新的演出。 原来的是十一月二十三号星期四在育音堂（明细在下边）。 然后二十四号星期五在 现场酒吧 （杨浦区昆明路721号，近通北路，电话021-28336764）九点还有演出。 然后二十五号星期六在杭州我会参加 2pi音乐节。 音乐节在loft49（杭州拱墅区杭印路49号 ）二点半开始。明细，作曲家，地图什么都在在他们的网站上。 October 16, 2006 Ben returns to Yu Yin Tang to perform at NOIShanghai VI on Thursday, November 23, 2006, 7:30 pm, Lane 100, 200 Long Cao Rd., Shanghai (tel: 021-64360072). Tickets are 30 RMB. In addition to a performance by Torturing Nurse (NOIShanghai organizers and tireless promoters of new sounds in Shanghai), this concert also marks the return of cellist and vocalist Audrey Chen (Baltimore, USA) to Shanghai. She performed at last year's Sound Currents concert with percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, and this year's she's touring Eastern Asia with Berlin-based saxophonist and sound artist Alessandro Bosetti. Ben is likely to present, among other works, a live performance of "Study for Eventual World Domination", recently contributed to Mike Min's Bike Bin Project, a musical bicycle tour of Seattle. 二零零六年十一月二十三号周四七点半在 育音堂 (龙漕路200弄100号, 电话021-64360072) Ben Houge (我) 参加 NOIShanghai VI 的演出。门票30元。 Torturing Nurse (闹上海组织和新的声音发扬的人)会演出。还有美国的歌手和大提琴演奏家Audrey Chen。去年她参加霍杰明的 Sound Currents 演出。 她现在和德国的萨克斯管吹奏者 Alessandro Bosetti 正在旅行东亚洲。 我大概会演出不但他最新的作品， “Study for Eventual World Domination,” 而且其他的电子音乐。 October 1, 2006 Ben just contributed "Study for Eventual World Domination" to Mike Min's Bike Bin Project, a somewhat peculiar endeavor which is best explained by Mike himself on the official site. At face value, at least, it's a self-guided musical bicycle tour of Seattle, and doesn't that sound pleasant? Ben was involved in two stages of the project, in fact, first in manipulating the fodder supplied to the participating artists, then in contributing a response to said fodder. It's all a bit odd, but wondrously so. By the way, the Infinite Scape concert from last month went quite well. In the end, circumstances prevented Jin Shan and Chen Wei from making the trip from Hangzhou, but Torturing Nurse and Xu Cheng ably substituted for them. And even though there's no way you might have attended, let the record show that Ben and four of his Ubisoft colleagues (Yu Hai Xiang, Lu Bin, Yang Jia Yang [aka Clark], and Jean-Michel Tari) performed an exclusive three-song set in English, French, and Chinese at Ubisoft's company party last week. The name of the band is Final Submission (designed to evince a chuckle from industry insiders). However, in the heat of the fray, the venue's wonky electrical system fried Ben's beloved Roland JP-8000 synthesizer. Memorial arrangements are pending. August 27, 2006 Following last Sunday's excellent concert by Dickson Dee (aka 李劲松 or Li Jin Song) and Lawrence English at Tang Hui in Shanghai, Junky (lead instigator of Torturing Nurse) asked Ben if he would like to participate in another concert two weeks later. The details were unclear, and Ben didn't really have anything prepared, but he certainly knows better than to refuse such an offer. So next Sunday, September 3, 2006, Ben will join Melanie Velarde, Jin Shan (金闪), and Chen Wei (陈维) as part of the Infinite Scape concert at Yu Yin Tang, Lane 100, 200 Long Cao Rd., Shanghai (tel: 021-64360072). The show starts at 4pm, and tickets are 20 RMB. 周日九月三号 Ben Houge (霍杰明) 还要演出. 来听听吧! 主办: Infinite Scape 场地协助: 育音堂 时间: 2006年9月3日(周日)16:00 地址: 龙漕路200弄100号 电话: 021-64360072 门票: 20元 August 20, 2006 Just added to the Press page is an article on last May's Noishanghai show, written by Dominik Salter and published in the June issue of Shanghai Talk. Another Sound Currents show is currently in the works for next November; stay tuned for more details! June 3, 2006 The Noishanghai concert last month rocked, with an eclectic array of music, a good crowd, and a funky venue. Ben performed his electronic work Psalmus and premiered A Reading from Mao Zedong's "Talks at the Yan An Forum on Literature and Art," a new electronic version of his 2003 work A Reading from _____ for four readers, in which an arbitrary text is manipulated into a completely non-linear form that emerges in real time. Images from the show are available on the images page. Then last Sunday, Ben premiered his new Method for the Direct Conversion of Visual Information into Sound, at an event called Lovely Shanghai Music, organized by Germany-based art collective Team 404 at the Zendai Museum of Modern Art. Team 404's project involved collecting visual images to serve as scores from a range of artists all over the world, then inviting local musicians wherever the project is presented to interpret these scores live. Not being much of a free improviser, but wanting nonetheless to oblige the amiable Germans, Ben devised this method for sonically representing the works on display. For over an hour, Ben and UK artist Dominik performed the work on synthesizer, drums, accordion, voice, radio, and gu zheng (a Chinese zither). April 2, 2006 On May 7, 2006, Ben will take part in Noishanghai's anniversary "A Sunday Afternoon" mini-festival of experimental/electronic/noise artists and musicians. Noishanghai has been responsible for some of the most creative underground experimental performances in Shanghai over the last year or so, in addition to releasing a steady stream of adventurous recordings on their affiliated Sasha label. Here's the full line-up for the upcoming show: 10 (Marqido from Japan + itta from Korea), laptop noise Torturing Nurse (Shanghai,China), analog harshnoise group D!O!D!O!D! (Hangzhou,China), guitar and drums noise band OO (Shanghai,China), voice and sound Ji Mu (Hangzhou,China), hardware and laptop noise Dominik (UK), minimal noise Wang Changcun (Shanghai,China), laptop sound art Ben Houge (USA), laptop sound art 00700 (Shanghai,China), guitar and keyboard noise duo Keplerslaws (France), free-improvised electronics Acidzen (Hangzhou,China), hardware noise duo Ben is still considering the exact details of his performance, but he's currently thinking it will likely include a reprise of Psalmus, premiered last November, plus some new speech-based work. The only way to find out for sure is to come to the show! The concert will take place at the new Yu Yin Tang venue, south of Xu Jia Hui, near the Shanghai Stadium, Lane 100, 200 Long Cao Rd. (phone: 021-64360072). Note that the show is in the afternoon, starting at 4pm. Tickets are 30 RMB at the door. 下个五月七号 Ben Houge (霍杰明) 要和所有的上面的作曲家一起演出. 来听听吧! 主办: NOIShanghai Shasha Records 场地协助: 育音堂 时间: 2006年5月7日(周日)16:00-20:00 地址: 龙漕路200弄100号 电话: 021-64360072 门票: 30元 March 30, 2006 The March 2006 issue of the English-language monthly Shanghai Talk profiles Ben's game audio history and current aesthetic outlook in a two-page feature article entitled "Sound Man: The Art and Science of Composing Soundtracks for Computer Games." Choice pull-out quotations include, "I think there's kind of a tyranny of melody in game scoring," and, "At one point or another, all game audio designers must take a sledgehammer to a pumpkin." The full transcript has been added to the Press page. Ben's music has also been featured prominently on a Chinese internet radio station run by Tinnitus (耳鸣 , aka Hong Qi Le) in recent months. This site is a fantastic portal to the experimental underbelly of the burgeoning Chinese music scene. And to cap off this recent flurry of press interest, a transcript of Ben's January interview for the Polish radio station RMF Classic's Klasyka wchodzi w gre (Classics comes into the game) program has also been added to the Press page. January 23, 2006 Ben's music for Arcanum will be featured on the Polish radio show Klasyka wchodzi w gre (Classics comes into the game), hosted by Mateusz Pawlak, on RMF Classic this Friday at noon Seattle time (that's Saturday at 4am Shanghai time), then rebroadcast on Saturday at 6am Seattle time (10pm Shanghai time). Ben also did an interview for the program, which should be on the web site soon. To listen, just click "Sluchaj nas w internecie" on the main site. December 10, 2005 The Nakatani-Chen Duo is Ben's new favorite band. They exhibited a mesmerizing improvisational resourcefulness at the latest Sound Currents concert (and again at Live Bar and the following weekend at the 2pi Festival of experimental music in Hangzhou). They also happen to be warm, fascinating people who are great to hang out with! Ben's debut as one of those ubiquitous laptop performers was also well-received. Ben presented a new piece entitled Psalmus and a live performance version of his 2004 work Radiospace. To help mitigate the disconnect that can occur when a performer's face is hidden behind a laptop monitor, both pieces used only sounds that were recorded on stage as part of the performance: Ben's voice and some Tibetan bells for Psalmus and local Shanghai radio broadcasts for Radiospace. Local English language monthly Shanghai Talk (which evidently has no web page) had a woman on the scene who described the "overlapping monk-esque chanting, chimes, and bells" of Psalmus as "church music on acid." While she was thwarted in her search for Chinese punks at Harley's (which often presents local metal bands), doesn't that sound like an interesting thing to stumble across at a bar in Shanghai? Check out pictures of the show on the images page. October 30, 2005 Sound Currents lives again! The concert series that Ben founded in Seattle will be reincarnated on November 19 at Harley's Bar in the Xujiahui district of Shanghai. The Nakatani-Chen Duo, comprising Baltimore-based vocalist and cellist Audrey Chen (who knows Ben via Dennis Rea and Christopher DeLaurenti) and her percussionist collaborator Tatsuya Nakatani, will perform two sets of experimental free improvisations as part of their Asian tour in support of their new album Limn. As the opening act, Ben will present several new aleatoric electronic works, including a live performance version of his 2004 composition Radiospace. Tickets, available at the door, cost 45 RMB, which includes one drink. The show starts around 8pm. For full details and directions, check out the substantially bilingual Sound Currents website. The Nakatani-Chen Duo have several other dates planned while they're in town, including a show with Shanghai noise band Torturing Nurse the following night at Live Bar. Check out their tour itinerary for more information. October 21, 2005 Here's another interview, courtesy of G Soundtracks. In it, Ben discusses music from Arcanum and King's Quest: Mask of Eternity, as well as his conception of game audio design as a kind of meta-composition. He also hints tantalizingly about his current project. August 27, 2005 Music4Games just published an interview with Ben, in which he discusses Passage to Arcanum, his new arrangement of the main theme from Arcanum for string orchestra. The Symphonic Game Music Concert 2005 in Leipzig last week was a tremendous success, selling out in three days! The German game publication 4Players also conducted an interview with Ben last March, and Game-Vision posted a concert review, for the German speakers among you. According to the review (as translated by Torsten Reinl), Passage to Arcanum "enchanted the venue/house with dramatic yet magnificently beautiful string passages." May 1, 2005 Tickets are now available for the Symphonic Game Music Concert 2005, to be held in Leipzig, Germany, on August 17. Ben's Passage to Arcanum, a freshly-minted work for string orchestra incorporating themes from his Arcanum soundtrack, will be premiered at this event. In addition, the program features music from Ben's most recent project, Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, composed by Stephen Harwood. Tickets are available from Music by Design or, if you live in Germany, directly from the Gewandhaus, where the concert will be held. For more information, including recently announced additions to the program, see also this preview article at Music4Games. March 29, 2005 Following a whirlwind production, Ben's first project for Ubisoft since moving to Shanghai, the PlayStation 2 edition of Gearbox Software's World War II game Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, has been completed and is now available wherever fine videogames are sold. Brothers in Arms is unique among World War II shooters for the tactical element it introduces to the genre, as well as for its unprecedented historical accuracy. This marks Ben's fourth collaboration with Gearbox since 1999, following two Half-Life expansion packs and the PlayStation 2 release of Half-Life. February 27, 2005 The German magazine Gamestar recently announced the first six game soundtracks to be represented at the Symphonic Game Music Concert 2005, which will be held at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Germany, on August 17, in conjunction with the GC Games Convention, August 17-21, 2005. Ben is preparing a string orchestra arrangement of excerpts from his Arcanum soundtrack to accommodate the forces of the 90-piece FILMharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Andy Brick. In addition to Ben's music from Arcanum, selections from Battlefield 2, Morrowind, Silent Hill 2, International Karate and Spellforce 2 will also be performed. Watch the official concert website for the latest information as additional titles are announced, or to sign up for the newletter. More information will be posted about this exciting and unique event as the date approaches! November 27, 2004 Ben will be returning to Seattle to attend the premiere of his Laudate Dominum by the acclaimed a cappella chorus The Esoterics on December 11th and 12th. Ben will give a presentation on his work prior to the Saturday evening concert, and a reception will follow. There are two additional performances the previous weekend in Tacoma and Medina. Below are the dates and locations for all four concerts; for complete information and to order tickets, please visit the Esoterics' web page. Sat, 4 Dec, 8 pm, Christ Episcopal Church, Tacoma Sun, 5 Dec, 3 pm, St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Medina Sat, 11 Dec, 8 pm, St. Joseph's Church, Seattle Sun, 12 Dec, 3 pm, Holy Rosary Church, West Seattle The work represents a synthesis of several areas of activity. It is the most recent in a stream of sacred choral works, but it is unique in that it incorporates random elements, suggested by Ben's work designing audio for videogames. In this regard, it resembles other recent open form works, such as Mobile 1, premiered by the Ensemble Sorelle last spring, the real-time sonic environment Radiospace, and various Seattle School pieces, such as Relay and A Reading from _____. These performances are supported by a generous grant from Meet the Composer. October 31, 2004 Last year, Ben was commissioned to write several liturgical works for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Renewing Worship project, and some of this music has been published for congregational use by Augsburg Fortress. "God is Love," Ben's acclamation for the rite of marriage, is included in the Life Passages resource, and his "O Come, Let Us Sing to the Lord" (a setting of the traditional Venite, commissioned as part of Ben's Morning Prayer setting in 1998 and originally published in the Worship & Praise hymnal) is included in the Daily Prayer resource. "God is Love" has an optional random element (not included in the published score). After the acclamation has been introduced and sung once, each member of the congregation may repeatedly choose one of the three phrases to sing independently of the other singers over a sustained low G drone. This may continue indefinitely, until the drone stops, and each congregation member finishes the current phrase before the service continues. The result should be a static, meditative sonic environment, mirroring the unified diversity of the church. October 1, 2004 Since moving to Shanghai, Ben continues to maintain a presence in Seattle's musical landscape. At midnight on October 16th, a half-hour rendering of Ben's composition Radiospace will be featured on KEXP's Sonarchy program. An archived recording will remain available on-line for two weeks following the broadcast. Radiospace is a real-time sonic environment that digitizes, manipulates, and re-disperses an audio signal from a radio. The rendering to be broadcast on Sonarchy was recorded last month in Ben's new Shanghai home, incorporating local broadcasts. It succeeds in capturing some of the strange, disorienting, exhilarating buzz of discovering a huge, foreign city. This will be Ben's second appearance on Sonarchy, an adventurous radio show curated by veteran producer/engineer/sound artist Doug Haire. In May 2003, Ben appeared on the show as a member of Seattle School, premiering his A Reading from _____ and Variations on _____ simultaneously. July 25, 2004 "Big news! I've accepted a position as Senior Audio Designer with the French videogame company Ubisoft and will shortly be relocating to their Shanghai office (where the hit game Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow was recently produced) to head up audio for a forthcoming PlayStation 2 title. This position is a perfect match for my experience and interests; not only is Ubisoft a forward-thinking company committed to innovation in digital entertainment, but my international upbringing has uniquely prepared me for the opportunity to live and work in China. I'm really looking forward to this adventure! "The most difficult thing about moving away from Seattle will be leaving behind all the friends and colleagues I've gotten to know over the last eight years. Through my involvement with the Seattle Composers Alliance and the Washington Composers Forum, I've come to appreciate Seattle's close-knit musical community, and I don't think this kind of creative environment is easily duplicable elsewhere. I've made great friends and learned an immense amount through my work in games, and Seattle remains a hotbed of industry talent. In the arena of public performance, I'm particularly going to miss the indefatigable Korby Sears and the inscrutable Mike Min, who together comprise the common core behind Sound Currents, Seattle School, and Subpoenaed Lemur, three creative outlets that have conspired to make the last several years particularly fulfilling. "This web site will probably remain largely inactive during this time of transition, but with any luck the site and email address will continue to function uninterrupted. I can only imagine the sonic adventures ahead, but I'll update this page with audio news from Asia as soon as possible." -Ben. June 10, 2004 Concurrent with his work in games over the last two years, Ben has been living a secret double life as a graduate student at the University of Washington. This bifurcation of acoustical effort ended this week, when Ben defended his thesis and fulfilled the final requirements for a Master of Music degree in composition. Ben’s thesis composition is a computer program called Radiospace 1.0, which is intended to function as the basis for a sound installation. The work was programmed in Cycling ‘74’s Max/MSP, a graphical programming language for audio applications. Radiospace 1.0 digitizes an incoming audio signal from a radio, then fragments and redistributes the sound using granular synthesis techniques. Unlike many installation pieces, the work does not loop; rather, musical events are concatenated and overlapped to form an additive structure, as the incoming radio stream constantly replenishes the source material. The result is a continually evolving aural environment that ranges from disjunct and tumultuous to lush and meditative. At UW, Ben studied composition with Juan Pampin and Richard Karpen and digital art with Bret Battey. Much of Ben’s work has focused on digital art, sound synthesis, and algorithmic procedures, trajectories that were significantly influenced by his work designing audio for digital games. Now that the degree is complete, Ben will continue to create music and sound art drawing on these techniques, to seek connections between academic and commercial disciplines, and to explore the sonic and artistic potential of the burgeoning game industry. June 2, 2004 Ben's chamber work Mobile 1, scored for flute, piano, soprano, and cello, will be premiered by the acclaimed Ensemble Sorelle on June 20 at the Seattle Art Museum. The work is in three movements, "Amoeba," "Filament," and "Cipher," which may be played in any order. Mobile 1 continues Ben's exploration into open form and aleatory procedures, inspired by his work developing audio for video games. The individual components of the score are fixed, but they may be recombined in a number of ways for any given performance, according to procedures indicated in the score. Sorelle's concert is another fine production of the Washington Composers Forum. Also on this engaging program are Sofia Gubaidulina's Zwei Lieder nach Deutschen Volksdictungen, Peter Maxwell Davies' Anakreontika, Lukas Foss' Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and Bern Herbolsheimer's Albina. May 18, 2004 In addition to tomorrow's Composers Workshop performance of Ben's Variations on _____, the work will be reprised at the Seattle Composers' Salon on May 28, 8pm, at Benaroya Hall's Soundbridge (Second Avenue entrance). The lineup will be slightly revised for this second performance, featuring Michael Chinen, guitar; Korby Sears, accordion; Dale Speicher, percussion; Chris Stover, trombone; and Tom Swafford, violin. May 12, 2004 This Saturday, May 15th, Ben will appear live on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth radio program to discuss the cultural significance and impact of video games from an aesthetic (specifically musical) point of view. Other guests on the program are MIT's Henry Jenkins and the German media artist Tilman Reiff, co-inventor of the PainStation. The program will be broadcast at noon on Saturday, Seattle time (i.e., 2pm Wisconsin time). It's a call-in show, broadcast live on the web using RealPlayer. May 2, 2004 Ben's composition Variations on _____ will be performed at the May 19th Composers Workshop concert in the University of Washington's Brechemin Auditorium (in the Music Building). The concert is free and starts at 7:30. The work explores non-linear form, inspired by Ben's work designing audio for video games, and is scored for one or more performers on any instrument. The score consists of a transparency that is placed over an existing score of the performer's choosing, plus a chart that describes how to progress through the material exposed through the transparency. On this concert, the piece will be performed by a quintet consisting of Greg Bowers, harpsichord; Michael Chinen, guitar; Jon Haek, flute; Sean Osborn, clarinet; and Josh Parmenter, saxophone. April 6, 2004 Wow, there must be a lot of Yoko Ono fans in Seattle! In addition to the Seattle Weekly interview, Wednesday's Grapefruits performance at the Capitol Hill Arts Center, organized by Seattle School, is featured in the current issues of The Stranger (a concert preview as well as a Stranger Suggests recommendation) and Tablet, and was also recognized with a pick in the Seattle Times. March 31, 2004 Ben and his outspoken cohorts in Seattle School were interviewed by the Seattle Weekly to talk about their upcoming Grapefruits performance, a tribute to Yoko Ono and the Fluxus movement. Incidentally, the person biting his lip about halfway down is Ben, an ardent Cage admirer who doesn't think there's anything inherently wrong with "the concert realm." In an unpublished portion of the interview, Ben explained the impetus behind his involvement in Seattle School. "Whenever you're involved in artistic creation, you're taking certain things for granted, unless you're a true titan like Harry Partch or somebody, building your own instruments, devising your own tuning system, inventing your own occasions for performance. You're always taking something off the rack, such as what it means to write for violin or to write a sonata. These things come with their own context. Seattle School is about questioning what we're taking off the rack, making sure that the things we use are really important to us." February 5, 2004 Muziko Nova, St. Olaf College's new music organization, is presenting a Leap Day concert on Feb. 29, 2004, 2pm, at Minneapolis' Southern Theater. To celebrate the centennary of St. Olaf's music department, the concert will showcase works by St. Olaf alumni. Ben will be represented by his open form work A Reading from _____, in which four readers read from a text of their own choosing according to a chart and a set of instructions. In addition to the concert on Leap Day, festivities include a new music forum on Saturday, Feb. 28th, and a student recital on Friday, Feb. 27. For a full schedule of events, times, and ticket information, visit the Muziko Nova web page. January 1, 2004 In a list of Seattle's classical highlights of 2003, Seattle Weekly's Gavin Borchert singled out Sound Currents for providing the Most Tasteful After-Concert Reception: an array of freshly made waffles, real butter, and 100% maple syrup. It's a fitting closure for a breakthrough year. After years of planning, the Sound Currents series finally became a reality with concerts in February and October. Sound Currents spawned a spinoff, the composers' collective Seattle School, first convened to perform the music of Mike Min at Sound Currents 1 and subsequently presenting a full evening of works by Mike, Ben, Korby Sears, and Guy Whitmore at Polestar Music Gallery and on KEXP. And lest any of this tempt a composer to turn stuffy, spazzy space-pop duo Subpoenaed Lemur began working local clubs, providing a needed leavening agent. Meanwhile, Ben continued his efforts to elevate video games to an art form, providing audio for projects by Sierra, ArenaNet, and Microsoft Game Studios. He also managed to squeeze in a liturgical commission from the ELCA for their Renewing Worship project. Of course it's not surprising that these disparate sonic endeavors end up informing each other in interesting ways. With all of these projects going strong and plans for new ones already underway, here's to a sonorous 2004! December 1, 2003 This weekend, odeonquartet will perform Ben's Music from Arcanum (musica arcana) as part of Advent services at Cross of Christ Lutheran Church in Bellevue, WA. Ben will be in excellent musical company with Bach's beautiful Cantata 61, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, or Savior of the Nations, Come. Services are at 9am and 11:15am. November 11, 2003 Next week, on November 20, Ben will participate in a concert by Seattle School, a composers' collective operating at the frontiers of performance. Ben will assist in performing some of his recent investigations into process and open form: A Reading from _____, Relay, and Study for Air Guitar. Other works on the program include Guy Whitmore's music for his sculptural, custom-built chain instruments; Korby Sears' party in a box; and Seattle School ringleader Mike Min's explorations of the karaoke phenomenon, including a work for karaoke singers and paintgun. The concert is presented by the innovative, celebrated Polestar Music Gallery; visit their web page for complete details. October 29, 2003 Sound Currents 2 was another success! An enthusiastic audience packed the pre-concert discussion, and the energy continued unabated throughout the concert, all the way to the exclusive waffle afterparty. Another round of favorable press coverage is chronicled on the Sound Currents press page. Keep your ear to the ground for information about Sound Currents 3, currently being planned for next spring! October 5, 2003 It's happening again; the second Sound Currents concert will occur on October 21, 2003, at Town Hall in Seattle. Cutting an even wider swath across Seattle's musical landscape than its predecessor, Sound Currents 2 will feature new works by Tom Baker, Greg Bartholomew, Nathan Grigg, Ben, Scott Selfon, Kevin Siegfried, and Donald Skirvin. Ben will present two works for voice and piano, which will be performed by soprano Beth Ann Bonnecroy, accompanied by Peter Mack. Stranger Personals is a song cycle of personal ads drawn from the "Girls Seeking Boys" section of The Stranger, one of Seattle's alternative weekly newspapers. Libera me was composed for the computer game Homeworld 2, with a text from the traditional Latin Requiem mass. Interestingly, Homeworld 2 was released about two weeks ago, and Ben's piece, a late addition to the soundtrack intended to play over the end credits, had been replaced by another composer's music. Libera me was, however, featured in promotional materials and broadcast on the video game channel G4. Having music pulled from a project at the last minute is actually not an uncommon phonomenon, and Ben now finds himself in the company of Elmer Bernstein, Rachel Portman, Michael Kamen, Jerry Goldsmith, and countless other composers who have invested more time in a project, sometimes complete film scores, only to have their work replaced by someone else's in the end. And, as is often the case, even though the music wasn't used, the commission resulted in an interesting piece that would not have otherwise occurred to the composer to write. The text and musical material of Libera me were a response to Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei, which served as the main theme for the first Homeworld game. So if you want to hear Libera me, you'll just have to come to the concert! September 6, 2003 Ben recently signed on to serve as audio lead for Microsoft's Mythica project. Mythica is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on Norse mythology, scheduled for release next year. Ben will be collaborating with a very talented team to bring the game to aural fruition. To find out more about the game's unique take on the genre, check out the Mythica site! July 5, 2003 Last May, Ben designed sound for ArenaNet's new massively multiplayer online role-playing game Guild Wars. The game was unveiled for the first time at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles and has already emerged as a highly anticipated title for 2004, garnering numerous best of show mentions. The team, which includes several former Blizzard principals, have collected accolades from the press on their web page. Ben created all the sound heard in the E3 demo and collaborated with the team in designing an audio system for their game. June 19, 2003 A recent New York Times article proposed that Seattle may be the next Seattle. Indeed, impetuous, young bands are popping up all over the place, filling the city's many music venues with fresh, new sounds nightly. Even a band with a name as ridiculous as Subpoenaed Lemur can find a chance to perform, as they will do at the Rendezvous next Monday night at 9pm. May 14, 2003 Those living around the Seattle area have two opportunities to hear new works by Ben this month. On Saturday, May 31, at 2pm, the Northwest Girlchoir will premiere Ben's new piece Blossoms as part of their spring concert, which will take place at Meany Hall on the University of Washington campus. More information is available on their web page. And on May 24, tune in to Sonarchy on KEXP to hear a live performance by Seattle School, the composer collective formed to perform Mike Min's work Folding at the Sound Currents concert. In addition to works by Mike, Seattle School will premiere Ben's open form pieces A Reading from _____ and Variations on _____, as well as music by Guy Whitmore. April 30, 2003 Those who were unable to attend last week's Playing the Game panel discussion on music for interactive media can read Seattle Weekly columnist Gavin Borchert's article "The New Opera" in this week's issue. The article includes insights and examples drawn from the event and from interviews with Ben and composer Scott Selfon, and Mr. Borchert makes some very interesting parallels between the nascent video game genre and the early days of opera. April 29, 2003 As a member of the Esoterics, Ben will perform in three concerts celebrating the centennial of British composer Lennox Berkeley's birth on May 9, 10, and 11. This respected and accomplished composer was an associate of Ravel, Poulenc, and Britten, and his splinteringly gorgeous music demonstrates a remarkable synthesis of French and British characteristics. (It's also an obstinate but rewarding challenge to sing.) Visit the Esoterics' web page for more information. April 16, 2003 On April 21, Ben will be participating in a panel discussion on music for interactive media entitled Playing the Game, an event organized by Gennady Filimonov of the Odeon String Quartet. Other panelists include game composers Alistair Hirst (Need for Speed), Marty O'Donnell (Halo), Scott Selfon (Xbox audio support), and Jeremy Soule (Icewind Dale). The event will be held at Cornish College of the Arts' PONCHO concert hall, Monday, April 21, 2003, at 6:30 pm. In addition to what promises to be a fascinating discussion about non-linear music, the Odeon String Quartet will perform Ben's Music from Arcanum (musica arcana). March 3, 2003 Sound Currents was a fantastic success! Over one hundred enthusiastic and attentive people came to listen to new works by Ben Houge, Mike Min, Geoff Ogle, and Korby Sears on a Tuesday night on Mercer Island! The performances were excellent across the board, and the waffle reception was a big hit, thanks to the tireless efforts of Heather Helgeson, Celia Chavez, and Patricia Thompson, who set up the reception area, ran four banks of waffle irons, whipped butter, and administered 100% pure maple syrup to hungry fans of contemporary music. The concert also received great buzz in the press, including recommendations and favorable previews in the Seattle Weekly, the Stranger, and the Seattle Times. Composers Alistair Hirst and Nathan Grigg joined Ben on KUOW's The Beat to chat with host Dave Beck about Sound Currents and the state of video game music. The Odeon String Quartet appeared on KING FM's Live By George program to perform excerpts from Ben's suite Music from Arcanum (musica arcana) and Geoff Ogle's String Quartet No. 1. Melinda Bargreen wrote in the Seattle Times that Ben's soundtrack for Arcanum "is sophisticated enough to pass muster on its own as an extended string quartet." For more press, visit the Sound Currents press page! With this much positive momentum, you can look forward to the second Sound Currents concert this fall! January 25, 2003 It's finally happening! After more than two years of planning, Sound Currents, a concert series devoted to music by composers active in the Pacific Northwest, will launch one month from today. The idea has been brought to fruition through the hard work and dedication of fellow composers Mike Min, Geoff Ogle, and Korby Sears, with additional contributions from Harry Love in the preliminary stages. For this first concert, Ben will present a suite of music from Arcanum; Mike Min will present Folding, a work for voice and electronics (in which Ben will perform as a member of the new composers' collective Seattle School); Geoff Ogle will unveil his String Quartet No. 1; and Korby Sears will present Water for Pistons, a wind trio inspired by the urban legend of the water engine. The concert features performances by the Odeon String Quartet, Ryan Hare, Florie Rothenberg, Andrea Smardon, and Seattle School. Sound Currents will take place as part of the Music & Arts Series of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (where Ben is composer-in-residence), 8501 SE 40th St., Mercer Island, WA, on February 25, 2003, 8pm, preceded by a discussion with the composers at 7pm. On February 24th, the composers will visit Mercer Island High School to talk with students about music and what it's like to be a composer. Partly because of these outreach activites, Sound Currents has a received a generous grant from Meet the Composer. The concert is co-sponsored by the Washington Composers Forum and the Seattle Composers Alliance. More information, including program notes, bios, and directions, is available on the Sound Currents web page. Hope you can attend! November 20, 2002 All kinds of interesting things have been going on lately! First of all, Ben's song cycle of personal ads, Stranger Personals, will receive its Northwest premiere this Friday, November 22, at 8pm at Brechemin Auditorium in the music building of the University of Washington. Marissa Rebadulla-Ramos will sing, accompanied by pianist Erin Earl. Also, Louisana composer, arranger, and saxophone guru Paul Coats has arranged five of Ben's pieces from Arcanum for saxophone quartet! The results are posted at Sax on the Web, along with many other scores and articles pertaining to the saxophone. Finally, a new tune entitled "Larry Rolls the Dice" is available for download from Ben's Mp3.com page; it's a jazzy number from the new Sierra release Hoyle Casino Empire. The piece was originally composed as the casino theme for Leisure Suit Larry 7, but here it receives a much more relaxed and nuanced reading by an acoustic jazz quintet. July 15, 2002 The new Scores page on this site has been expanded to include the song cycle Stranger Personals (premiered last April by mezzo-soprano Patricia Thompson) and Ben's setting of Evening Prayer (commissioned by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), in addition to Music from Arcanum (composed for the computer game Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura). You can view and print the scores (free of charge) by means of Finale's SmartMusic Viewer web browser plug-in. June 3, 2002 The Esoterics, the adventuresome a cappella choir with whom Ben sings, present a series of concerts this month entitled Chroma. The fascinating program features music celebrating the colors of the spectrum by a wide array of composers: Gerald Finzi, Earl Kim, Maurice Ravel, Linda Waterfall, Ferenc Farkas, Arne Mellnäs, Malcolm Williamson, and the premiere of Donald Skirvin's "Alchemy." There will be four performances, as follows: Saturday, June 8, 2002, 8 pm, Christ Episcopal Church, 310 N K St., Tacoma Sunday, June 9, 2002, 8 pm, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 8501 SE 40th St., Mercer Island Saturday, June 15, 2002, 8 pm, St. Joseph's Church, 732 18th Ave. E, Seattle Sunday, June 16, 2002, 8 pm, Town Hall, 1119 8th Ave., Seattle Visit The Esoterics webpage for maps and additional information. May 17, 2002 A complete set of scores for the music Ben composed for the computer game Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura is now available for download from the new Scores page on this site. All 18 string quartet pieces have been posted, including the outtake "In Memoriam." Full scores are presented for following along with the recordings, and individual parts are provided for performance. You will need to install Finale's SmartMusic Viewer to view and print these files. April 13, 2002 This month mezzo-soprano Patricia Thompson, accompanied by pianist Carl Gales, will premiere Ben's new composition Stranger Personals in her Master's recital at Indiana University. This song cycle is a setting of five personal ads taken from the "Girls Seeking Boys" section of The Stranger, one of Seattle's weekly alternative newspapers. The performance will take place at 3 pm on Saturday, April 27th, in the Recital Hall of Merrill Hall on the campus of Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Ms. Thompson's program also features works by Handel, Mozart, Brahms, and Poulenc. April 12, 2002 There's a catchy new tune entitled "Love on TV" available for download from Ben's MP3.com page. It's quite unlike the rest of the music posted there, featuring fellow Sierra sound guy Mike Caviezel on guitars and drums. Check it out! April 2, 2002 The Seattle Composers Alliance will present a 5-year retrospective of the Seattle International Film Festival's popular and influential Fly Filmmaking series on May 1, 2002, at Seattle's Little Theater. The SCA is the official provider of music for the series. Among the short films screened will be Shaya Mercer's "Baby Express," for which Ben composed the soundtrack last June. For more information, visit the Seattle Composers Alliance webpage. January 23, 2002 Ben's new motet "Blessed Are You, O Lord" will be premiered on February 2, 2002, by the Cantorei Choir of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church at St. James Cathedral in downtown Seattle, as part of the 5:30 p.m. mass service. This motet is the third piece in Ben's collection "Service of Light: Three Pieces for Evening Prayer," completed last year. The text is a blessing from the Book of Common Prayer. Ben will be in excellent musical company; the choir is also singing William Byrd's beautiful motet "Ave Verum Corpus." January 2, 2002 Ben will join eminent Seattle choir The Esoterics as they perform the complete choral works of French composer Maurice Duruflé on the occassion of his 100th birthday this month. Works include his Four Motets and his masterpiece, the Requiem. There will be two performances: Saturday, January 12, 8 p.m., at St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood; and Sunday, January 13, 8 p.m., at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on Mercer Island. If you're in the area, come hear this beautiful, lush music inspired by the rhythms and modes of Gregorian plainchant. December 8, 2001 Ben's new composition "One Winter Night" will be premiered by the Holy Trinity Cantorei Choir on Christmas Eve 2001 at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Mercer Island, WA. The piece will be performed at the 4 p.m. and 11 p.m. services, accompanied by a string quintet. November 6, 2001 Sierra announced today that the immensely popular game Half-Life has been released for the PlayStation 2. The significantly enhanced and expanded PlayStation 2 version was developed by Gearbox Software, who also created Half-Life: Opposing Force. At the last minute, Ben was called in to design interface sound effects and compose a music loop for the main menu screen. September 19, 2001 Now that Arcanum has finally shipped, Ben has compiled all the interesting information he could think of regarding the Arcanum soundtrack into a new Arcanum soundtrack page on this site. In addition to the full credits for the soundtrack, this page includes detailed information about the studio sessions and copious comments by Ben about the music, its inspiration, and its thematic content, concluding with a list of related and recommended CD's for further listening. September 16, 2001 Ben just finished composing a new "Alleluia" for choir, congregation, and organ, which was commissioned for the installation of Pastor Wm. Chris Boerger as bishop of the Northwest Washington Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The piece will be premiered at his service of installation, which will take place at 1:00 pm on Saturday, November 3, 2001, at Salem Lutheran Church, 2529 North LaVenture Road, Mount Vernon, WA. July 31, 2001 More of Ben's music is now available for free download from his brand new MP3.com page. Newly available pieces include music from King's Quest: Mask of Eternity and Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail! July 20, 2001 Since the Arcanum sheet music was posted on Sierra's Arcanum site, the soundtrack has been doing remarkably well on the MP3.com charts. As of the time of this posting, the main theme is in the top 100 on the classical charts, and all of the Arcanum tracks are in the top 50 on the strings charts, with "Arcanum" peaking at number 2. Download the soundtrack to keep the momentum going! July 17, 2001 Sierra has announced plans to post sheet music for Ben's Arcanum soundtrack on the official Arcanum site. The main theme has already been posted, with a new score to be added each week through the game's August 24th release date. A full score is provided, allowing interested listeners to follow along, as well as individual parts for performance. The scores can be viewed and auditioned with the Finale MusicViewer, a web browser plug-in available free from Coda Music. If you have questions or comments about the music's format, please write; web-based music publishing is relatively uncharted territory, and it would be interesting to read your feedback! If you haven't heard the Arcanum soundtrack yet, it's available for free download at www.mp3.com/arcanum or at Sierra's official site. The music is scored for string quartet and was performed by members of the Seattle Symphony. June 19, 2001 Last week Ben composed the soundtrack to Shaya Mercer's short film Baby Express, which was produced as part of the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival's Fly Filmmaking Challenge. Shaya and the rest of the crew had only 6 days to shoot, edit, complete post-production on, and screen the film, a genetic engineering comedy shot at Redmond Town Center. Baby Express was premiered, along with Fly Films by Guinevere Turner and Dan Mirvish, at Seattle's Moore Theater on Saturday evening, to an enthusiastic crowd of about 800 people. For more on the Fly Filmmaking process, check out an article that ran in Monday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer. May 16, 2001 RPGDot recently conducted an interview with Ben in which he discusses the soundtrack for Arcanum, his musical influences, and past and future projects. The site also features (along with an unfortunately large photo of Ben) a previously unreleased outtake from the Arcanum recording sessions entitled "In Memoriam," available on RPGDot's music page. May 14, 2001 Jonny Drama, a new beatnik spy game being developed by Sierra for the Xbox console platform, has been announced. Ben has been working on Jonny since finishing up Arcanum last fall. The game will feature a dynamic, interactive score using Microsoft's DirectMusic technology. For a taste of the game's vibe, check out the official Jonny Drama webpage. April 2, 2001 The entire Arcanum soundtrack has been posted to Sierra's Arcanum page in MP3 format. There's also an Arcanum page at MP3.com. Portions of the soundtrack were included on the CD that accompanies in the May 2001 issue of Computer Gaming World, although the names of the tracks were mysteriously omitted. The original track names are as follows: Track 1: Caladon Track 2: The Demise of the Zephyr Track 3: Battle at Vendigroth Track 8: The Wheel Clan Track 9: Radcliffe's Commission Track 13: Qintarra Track 14: Tarant Track 15: Tarant Sewers Track 16: Towns Track 18: The Void Track 19: Villages March 18, 2001 www.benhouge.com goes live. Let's hope it gets updated more often than Laurie Anderson's webpage. |
