MP3s:

The Cyprosyrian Girl
(Ancient Greek Music Impressions)

Aristophanes Clouds

Discography

1989 The Cud Scouts, Suddenly It's the Cud Scouts.

1995 Interruptus, Umbrella Man (Cold Feet Publishing)

1996 The Bête-Noires, The Dano Tapes (basement tapes) and Live at Lighthouse (farewell concert at Lightouse Roasters, Seattle).

1996 Sheryl Wiser, Month of Saints.

1999 Cud Scouts tracks included in The Aspen Sampler, Volume 1 (Flying Dogs Records, Aspen CO)

2000 The Bigger the God, ...And the Ugly.

2002 "Aristophanes Clouds: A Musical Reconstruction" (paper and compact disc), in E. Hickmann and R. Eichmann (ed.), Archäologie früher Klangerzeugung und Tonordnungen. Serie Studien zur Musikarchäologie, Orient-Archäologie (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Berlin, Orient-Abteilung, 2002). A full 2-disc recording is also available: MP3s are available here.

2002 Sly Moonbeast, The Sensations of Tone (the best of my own songs from 1985-2003, newly re-recorded).

2004 Susanna Rühling and Musica Romana records the Parabasis from Clouds.

2004 Audio demonstrations for Hearing Greek Microtones included on CD accompanying conference volume.

2006 Vanity-pressing of  The Cyprosyrian Girl. Tracks previewed at International Study Group for Music Archaeology in Berlin ('Beyond the Fragments').

2007 Tracks from Cyprosyrian Girl played on Italian national radio by Emiliano di Castro

2008 Tracks from Cyprosyrian Girl featured on NPR's Studio 360 in story produced by Richard Paul.  

My first true love, music remains the driving force behind the various activities of my checkered career, which has moved between composition, performance and music archaeology:

1975 Mother forces to begin piano lessons
1976-1978 Mother forces to continue piano lessons.
1979 Organ Lessons.
1980 First synthesizer (Octave-Plateau Cat)
1981 Begin practicing piano 8-10 hours/day; grades drop (except Latin); Berklee College of Music Summer Program
1981-83 Choral accompanist, Falmouth High School
1982-3 Keyboards, Falmouth High Stage Band; buy Yamaha SK-30 Symphonic Ensemble) discover Stravinsky, Poulenc
1983 Bomb piano auditions at Eastman, Oberlin, Indiana; vow never to practice again.
1983 Keyboards, The Penetrators (Falmouth, Mass.)
1983 Begin composing
1984 Hideous semester at Berklee College of Music; purchase four-track cassette recorder (Tascam 144); Keyboards in the U-Turns with highschool friends Paul Hosom, Steve Shepherd, Josh Phillips, Aaron Paycek (Falmouth, Mass.)
1984 Accepted to composition department of New England Conservatory of Music; buy first ARP 2600 ($ 250!); begin composing chamber music, electronic music, and writing songs (also collaborating with Pierre Roy and Rob McCall).
1985 Buy first accordion; busk with Pierre Roy (oboe) in Boston T.
1985-88 Work in NEC Audio Department, archiving and editing
1986-87 Member MIT Media Lab, composing with Barry Vercoe's CSound.
1986-88 Work at WGBH public radio as production intern
1987-88 Contrabass balalaika and accordion with the Verba balalaika ensemble, John Bardash, director (Boston); brief stint playing keyboards with Talking to Animals, Boston (n.b. I did not play on the record reviewed in the link).
1988 Aspen Music Festival, composition; meet Steve Skinner, Dead Bob and other local musicians
1988 Move to NYC for ill-fated--nay, disastrous--internship at New England Digital Corporation (Synclavier)
1989 Return to Aspen to play in Cud Scouts with Steve Skinner, Dead Bob, Bruce MacCalister, and Habib; record Suddenly its the Cud Scouts.
1989 Busk in England, Ireland, France and Spain, on mandolin with old friend Chris Carlson, guitar; freak appearance on BBC radio
1990 Move to Seattle, play with Cud Scouts briefly before disbanding; play accordion with Spirit Darts for two years with members of the UW ethnomusicology department
1991-94 Write user manual for the SoftSplice digital audio efitor (Digital Expressions, Inc., Bellevue, WA, now defunct); receive one free; buy second ARP 2600 (also $250!), Kurzweil K2000; meet Thomas Dolby
1992 Give piano lessons at Seattle Hebrew Academy
1993-95 Play accordion in SubMed with Steve Brown (mandolin), intensive restaraunt, club and functions work, appear in Eddie Bauer catalogue (!); master the left hand buttons finally; play accordion on Sheryl Wiser's Month of Saints; film score for experimental short, Over the Rainbow, directed by Patty Mulcahy.
1995-96 Accordion in The Bête-Noires, cocktail and cafe concert band with Tor Midtskog (guitar) and Dan Occhipinti (a.k.a. Hurrican Dano); regular club work
1995-96 Umbrella Man album sessions with Interruptus in Santa Barbara; orchestrations, conducting and keyboards for Steve Skinner's Umbrella Man rock opera, Aspen Colorado
1996 Move to England with new wife, Amanda Castleman, to begin research on ancient Greek and Mesopotamian music; Amanda buys me beautiful 1880s Bechstein upright piano for christmas, now being fully restored.
1996-97Writing music reviews for The Gist magazine (Oxford); revival of Umbrella Man.
1998-2000 Meet David Cowles Hamar; begin gigging with The Bigger the God, local heroes in the Oxford music scene, release ...And the Ugly. I'm very proud of this record. Researcher for Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London, England), updating material for the second edition
1998 Papyrological colloquium on Philodemus De musica, organized by the Phildemus Project in Chantilly, France
1999 First musical reconstruction of ancient Greek drama, Aeschylus' Choephori, for London Festival of Greek Drama; incidental music for Arion Theatre production of A Midsummer Night's Dream; Frankfort fellowship at Warburg Institute, London
2000 Musical reconstruction of Aristophanes' Clouds for Edinburgh Fringe Festival, brilliantly directed by childhood friend Dan Robb; first invitation to International Study Group for Music Archaeology (Ellen Hickmann, Director); playing Romanian folk music with Giles Hogben, Susan Coleman, and Luke Barlow.
2000-2002 Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome; finish PhD thesis, Terpander: The Invention of Music in the Orientalizing Period.
2001 The famous Casino Night at AAR, featuring debut of The King Mixers (with Carlos Noreña, Craig Brandt, Michael Ebner, Jack Hill, John Bailey, with guests Richard Taransky, Donald Lipski, Tamara Birdsall, Wendy Heller, Karen Klaiber, Paul Garfinkle); revival of Clouds at AAR and Museo Nazionale, Palazzo Altemps, in conjunction with the English Theatre of Rome (Gaby Ford)
2002 Interviews and documentation of Romanian street musicians in Rome (with Maria Craciun), for Arrivederci Romania
2002-2003 Broneer and CAORC fellowships for research on musical iconography of Greece, Cyprus, Phrygia and Lydia; buy the amazing Reaktor virtual modular softsynth, Digital Performer, develop the Virtual Lyre. Realizations of the Athenaeus Paian and Mesomedes Hymn to Nemesis.

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