Spring, 2019
I am on sabbatical with the following schedule:

January / February – 

• Researching and gathering sound and data for a project on dynamic ice movement, visiting several mountain lakes in Colorado over the course of several weeks
• Working on an article on Musicking, Sound, Environment and Geography with Geography / Environmental Studies professor Dr. Brandon Vogt
• Completing the second Psychoangelo CD with CU Boulder Professor of Composition Dr. Michael Theodore

February 16, 17 – Chamber Orchestra of the Springs, Appalachian Spring, Ent Center for the Arts

March 4 – 14 – Artist in Residence at UCROSS Institute in Wyoming

April 9 – Visiting Artist, Cork University, Ireland

April 11 – Visiting Artist, University of Limerick, Ireland

April 12 – concert in Basel, Switzerland with pianist Raphael Sudan

April 15 – 20 – Improvisation workshop, Fribourg, Switzerland

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October 7 – Nexus Brass, debut performance, First Congregational Church, Colorado Springs, 2:00 p.m.

September 9, Chamber Orchestra of the Springs, Organ Spectacular

https://www.chamberorchestraofthesprings.org/organ-spectacular-iv.html

September 23 – Wai from New Zealand with EcoSono Ensemble, headlining the Technosonics Festival, University of Virginia

September 28 and 29 – Wait From New Zealand with EcoSono Ensemble, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Chapman Recital Hall

May 4 – the Bottesini Project at Syntax, Denver CO

April 13 & 14 – EcoSono Ensemble residency at Rice University, Houston Texas

February 28 – UCCS / Colorado College joint faculty concert, King Center Recital hall, University of Colorado, Denver

February 27  – UCCS / Colorado College joint faculty concert, CC Packard Hall

February 3, 2018 – Ent Center for the Arts Opening Gala – featuring “Ecoacoustic Concerto for two trumpets, ensemble and sonic geography” by Matthew Burtner

January 27, 2017 – Ecosono Ensemble performance in the IMPULSE Festival opening for Wadada Leo Smith

October 3 – 7, 2017

Artist in Residence at Palomar College, San Diego – artist in residence at Palomar College in San Diego from Oct 3 – 8.  During this time he will be the featured soloist with the Palomar Symphony Orchestra performing the fiery “Trumpet Concerto” by Alexander Arutunian, perform a solo recital of his own environmental ecoacoustic works, visit classes and work with students in an improvisation clinic.

July 25 – 29

First Annual EcoSono Music and Sound Art Festival, Anchorage Alaska – co-curator, performer

May 26 – June

EcoSono Ensemble Tour of Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand

September  26 – October 3 – performing at the Jeonju Sori Festival in Korea

October 16 – the Atlas Center for Performing Arts – the Ceiling Floats Away with composer Matthew Burtner, Joy of Motion Dance Center’s Youth Dance Ensemble Company and poetry by Rita Dove. The concert features a full performance of “The Ceiling Floats Away”, the NEA Award Winning work for interactive music and poetry, featuring the “Nomads” audience-interaction software system designed by the University of Virginia’s Interactive Media Research Group (IMRG) and Golden Sparrow for solo trumpet with dance

http://www.atlasarts.org/event/ecosono/

November 3 – Psychoangelo in concert at GOCA 1420 over Michael Theodore’s installation MicroMacro

http://www.uccs.edu/goca/EVENTS/Psychoangelo-Performance–Michael-Theodore-Lecture.html

http://www.uccs.edu/goca/ART/Michael-Theodore.html

November 11, 12 – PREPRESS with the ORMAO Dance CO.

Following phase I of PRESS, a site-specific performance in the old Gazette building, in Spring 2016, composer / improviser / instrumentalist Glen Whitehead and the ORMAO Dance Company presents phase II of this project “PREPRESS.”

Glen Whitehead, composer, featuring the Bottesini Project

4 performances | site specific | one-of-a-kind experience
Sat Nov 12, 2:00pm
Sat Nov 12, 4:00pm
Sun Nov 13, 2:00pm
Sun Nov 13, 4:00pm
Former Gazette Building, Nor’wood Development Group, 30 S Prospect

November 17, 18 – Chamber Orchestra of the Springs

http://www.chamberorchestraofthesprings.org/2016-2017-season.html#Fathers

December 8,9 – Chamber Orchestra of the Springs with the Colorado Springs Chorale

http://www.pikespeakcenter.com/events/detail/deck-the-hall-by-the-colorado-springs-chorale

December 19, 20 – the Nutcracker

http://www.pikespeakcenter.com/events/detail/the-nutcracker-1

PAST EVENTS

July 12, 2016

Glen Whitehead will be a featured artist at the SORI Festival in South Korea in September / October 2016.  He will perform in a trio with saxophonist Kate Olsen and pianist Joel Larue Smith as featured invited artists for the festival opening concert.  This trio, representing the USA and the International Society of Improvised Music in the festival,  is composing a piece for this festival based on recent events (and long histories) on systemic racism and oppression in the United States. In addition, Whitehead will participate in workshops and other concerts throughout the festival with Korean musicians and other ISIM artists.

The Ormao Dance Company – PRESS

Glen Whitehead – Composer, trumpet, electronics

Randy Bowen – percussion

3 performances | site specific | one-of-a-kind experience

Step inside the former Gazette print shop and storage space. Be transported back to a time when newspapers were our primary connection to current events.

• Choreographer: Shawn Womack (Colorado College)
• Choreographer: Janet Johnson (Ormao Dance Company)
• Composer: Glen Whitehead (UCCS)
• Video Projections: Patrizia Herminjard (Colorado College)
• Lighting: Alex Ruhlin (ABR Productions)
  • Dancers: Ormao Dance Company

Sat Apr 30, 1:30pm | Sat Apr 30, 3:00pm | Sun May 1, 3:00pm

Former Gazette Building, Nor’wood Development Group, 30 S Prospect

$15 General Admission

RESERVE TICKETS HERE

Music and Sound Design – Every sonic gesture of this piece is born from these moving artists negotiating cavernous spaces saturated with memory – metal, concrete, rust, shuffle, stamp and dust.

The old Gazette warehouse and print-room now four years closed impose a dark cavernous emptiness saturated with memories of unrelenting sounds of the newspaper industry. I imagine these round-the-clock transmitting thousands upon thousands of human-made stories in an unending present tense – every day, week, month, year. Take this imagery a little further and I can imagine over the course of half a century these sounds and stories became encoded into every concrete and metallic groove.

As the choreography for this piece unfolded over the course of months a style and mannerism developed from the Ormao Dancers unique to these spaces. I created this music to embody this emerging style. Thus, every sonic gesture was born of these moving artists negotiating cavernous spaces saturated with memory – metal, concrete, rust, shuffle, stamp and dust. The music is deep, hollow, grating and searching for a past to answer the question, “how did we get here, exactly?”

…with support from Colorado College, Kirkpatrick Family Fund, Bee Vradenburg Foundation, Pikes Peak Community Foundation, and your individual contributions through IndyGIVE.

IDEA Cabaret: Power & Authority in the Nuclear Era

The Glen Whitehead Quartet – Tuesday, April 5, 4:30 p.m. 

Glen Whitehead – trumpet and electronics

Randy Bowen – percussion

Alan Joseph – guitar

Kim Stone – bass

Subatomic Alchemy

In a performance response to the exhibition Atomic Landscapes at the IDEA space at Colorado College Glen Whitehead presents an improvisational fantasy about the omnipresent duality of radioactivity and human interconnectivity by asking this question: What if intangible mediums such as telepathy, intuition, déjà vu and other phenomena of human perception were actually tangible signals transported through the subatomic vapor trails of waves and particles? If so, perhaps some of our subatomic signals are lost, mutated or silenced in radioactive decay. This piece includes sounds and information from Geiger Counters, atomic blasts, cosmic rays and the intangible signals of the human mind in sonic conversation.

Coburn Gallery
Worner Campus Center, the Colorado College
902 N Cascade Avenue
Colorado Springs, CO 80903

The EcoSono Ensemble in California 

Compositions and improvisations for saxophone, trumpet, electronics and

environmental materials

Matthew Burtner,  Glen Whitehead and guests

Performances, lectures and workshops

February 1 – University of California, San Diego

Creative Performing Arts Channel: Music of our Time Series

February 2 – University of California San Diego

The Lodge: opening for Bobby Bradford and Vinny Golia

Feburary 4 San Francisco

The Luggage Store with Scott Walton, bass and Britt Ciampa, drums

February 8 – CSU Monterrey Bay

February 9 – UC Irvine

The Ecosono Ensemble brings together musicians to develop compositions and improvisations with new technologies for environmental activism by exploring natural and human-made environments through improvised and electro acoustic music, the phenomena of interactive relationships and interpersonal communication through sound. Matthew Burtner is an Alaskan-born composer and sound artist specializing in concert chamber music and interactive new media. His work explores ecoacoustics, embodiment, and extended polymetric and noise-based systems. Glen Whitehead is a new music trumpet artist, improviser and sound artist working in classical, jazz, and contemporary music settings, electro-acoustic composition, and interdisciplinary projects across the arts.

The EcoSono Institute (www.ecosono.org)

EcoSono pursues commonalities between innovative musical creation and ecological awareness. Experimental sound art and environmental preservation meet through the actions and publications of EcoSono. Through education, engagement and artistic production, EcoSono defines a unique methodology for environmentalism and the arts. It does this in three ways: 1) with an institute for the study of ecoacoustics, environmentalism and music, 2) by sponsoring performances, lectures, and other forms of performative culture environment engagement, and 3) with publications such as musical albums, videos and multimedia. By involving the arts in environmentalism with the assistance of science, EcoSono hopes to cultivate a close and productive relationship between the people end the places they inhabit.

Matthew Burtner is an Alaskan-born composer and sound artist specializing in concert chamber music and interactive new media. His work explores ecoacoustics, embodiment, and extended polymetric and noise-based systems. First Prize Winner of the Musica Nova International Electroacoustic Music Competition (Czech Republic), a 2011 IDEA Award Winner, and a recipient of the Howard Brown Foundation Fellowship, Burtner’s music has also received honors and awards from Bourges (France), Gaudeamus (Netherlands), Darmstadt (Germany) and The Russolo (Italy) international competitions. He is Professor of Composition and Computer Technologies (CCT) in the Department of Music at the University of Virginia.

Glen Whitehead is a new music trumpet artist, improviser and sound artist working in classical, jazz, and contemporary music settings, electro-acoustic composition, and interdisciplinary projects across the arts. His professional background spans a wide body of work over two decades as principal trumpet in professional orchestras, professional brass quintets, jazz ensembles, free improvisation, electronic music groups, sound design, composition and performance with professional dance and theatre and as an electric bassist, vocalist, lyricist and song-writer in the progressive rock world. He is the Director of Music and Associate Professor at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS) and won the Innovations in Teaching with Technology award at UCCS and the Big Idea Award with Peak FreQuency in 2016 from the Pikes Peak Arts Council. He is the Artistic Director of the Peak FreQuency Creative Arts, Director of Performance of the environmental arts organization, EcoSono and he holds the Principal Trumpet chair in the Chamber Orchestra of the Springs.

August, 2015

Glen Whitehead was in residence from August 3 – 8 at the Centro Mexicana para la Mùsica las Artes Sonoras (CMMAS) in Morelia, Mexico with classical guitarist Colin McAllister.  This residency  involved the creation of a composition for trumpet, guitar and sonic media integrating environmental and interactive events from across the city and region (a link to a recording of the premiere is below).  Working throughout the days and evening, exploring the region, and composing in the state of the art CMMAS studios this quest resulted in a five movement work, premiered on August 7 in the Centre de Cultura, a former Monastery.

Cinqo Episodès del Dia

1. Contemplación
2. Paseo
3. Oscilar
4. Expresión
5. Devoción

April, 2015

The finale of the Peak FreQuency First Annual Music Festival: UCCS 50th Anniversary  featured a world premiere of an ambitious new work by composer Matthew Burtner – Ecoacoustic Concerto: for two trumpets, ensemble and sonic geography written for trumpeters Glen Whitehead and Cuong Vu.

January 30 – Glen Whitehead will be performing “Dramatic Essay” by Clifton Williams for Solo Trumpet and Band at the CMEA Conference, Colorado Springs, CO – Dan Bell, conductor

February 19 – Extending the (Sonic) Line Peak FreQuency, the resident faculty ensemble of the UCCS Music Program, will give an interpretive response to the show and “draw the sonic line” featuring original and thoughtfully chosen works. Jane Rigler (flute and electronics), Glen Whitehead (trumpet and electronics), and Colin McAllister (guitar).

Febrary, 24 – the Bottesini Project – recording at Notably Fine Audio, Denver CO

April 11-25 UCCS Peak FreQuency Music Festival  – UCCS 50th Anniversary Celebrations

VAPA Music and Dance Collaboration                                                                 Saturday, December 6,UCCS Upper Lodge, 7:30 p.m.

UCCS VAPA Music and Dance Programs team up for an intensive collaboration of composition, choreography and improvisation featuring the Electro Acoustic Ensemble and MUS/DNCE Dance Music Collaboration.  All pieces are composed and choreographed by the students.

Dr. Glen Whitehead, Director of the Electro Acoustic Ensemble                                            Tiffany Tinsley Weeks, director DNCE 4900 Music / Dance

Take a listen to previews of Sound Dances – 

Sound Dances, by Glen Whitehead – is a sound score created for Sanctuary of Moments, the Ormao Dance Company’s fall gallery performances at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center – choreography inspired by visual artists Charles Parson and Collin Parson

November 14, 15, 22 – 7:00 – 8:30                                                     Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center                                                       $22 adults, $20 FAC members, $15 Students & Children

Sound Dances is a sound installation composed for the dance pieces in Sanctuary of Moments. Set in four interconnected rooms, they inhabit separate gallery environments while orchestrated across boundaries, blending dance and sound into a whole. These pieces are composed specifically for Sanctuary of Moments; “collectiveMotion” Choreography by Patrizia Herminjard, “Layers of Her Shadow” Choreography: Stephanie Kobes & Mollie Wolf, “Within a Moment Sustained” Choreography: Stephanie Kobes & Mollie Wolf, and “Sanctuary of Moments” Choreography: Jan Johnson. Sound Dances consists of three separate pieces that,

Sanctuary isn’t a place. A moment isn’t a thing.  Identity, self, consciousness, moments and sanctuaries are created through experiential lenses in our waking and sleeping world.  Every sound you ever hear has a life that begins and ends, never to be repeated again.  But, what if we could capture these moments and re-interpret them in an experiential sound stream, with our perceptions molding their results? These sound pieces are built from recorded sonic experiential moments, weaved through the concepts of Continuance and Sanctuary of Moments, transmuted into sound dances; sand dunes singing, birds flocking, ground-zero reconstructing, water moving, trumpets in the air and sounds with no clear source.

Stay tuned for Peak FreQuency Creative Arts Collective series – 2014 / 2015 –

Coming up – the Bottesini Project at the Heller Center for Arts and Humanities, October 4

Sept., 2014 – working on the new Psychoangelo CD – sifting through material, wading through worlds of timbre, gesture and line from collective musical accidents from the past few years – the natural disasters from the last few years, some in close proximity, are playing a role in the feel of this new work – darkness, intensity, forces beyond comprehension – hope, resilience, community.

August, 2014 – Sonic Landscapes course with Matthew Burtner, Professor at University of Virginia, and Brandon Vogt, UCCS Geography Professor was a smash hit, wonderful experience!