Beau Sievers

Music composition and performance

I am a composer and performer on percussion and electronics, and was a founding organizer of Indexical.

I am also a social and cognitive neuroscientist.

Contact

Please feel free to email me.

Ensembles

Drummer with Great Blue Heron, 2021–present. Improvising duo with Eli C-P. Recordings:

Drummer with MILM, 2018–present. With Tom Deis and Eli C-P. We gather every year to write and record an album in a week. Recordings:

Drummer with The Happy Valley Band, 2011–present. Computer transcriptions of classic pop songs. “The Great American Songbook heard through the ear of a machine.” ORGANVM PERCEPTVS LP released by Indexical. Selected performances:

  • May 10, 2019. High Desert Soundings Festival, Twentynine Palms, CA.
  • April 29, 2017. Experimental Music Yearbook, Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA.
  • April 26, 2017. Center for New Music, San Francisco, CA.
  • June 5, 2016. CCRMA, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.
  • August 4, 2012. Electric Eclectics 7, Meaford, Ontario, Canada.
  • April 6, 2012. Miniature Minotaurs, WFMU radio, Jersey City, NJ. Listen.
  • September, 2011. Ostrava New Music Days Festical, Czech Republic.

Drummer with many short-lived metal and punk bands in the San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, and New York City, one-off projects, and other creative disasters, 1997–present.

Selected compositions

Saxophone quartet, 2015. Procedurally generated score. A meditation on removal.

  • April 11, 2015. New Thread Quartet. Music for Contemplation, Church of the Annunciation, Brooklyn, NY. Listen.

Distance etudes, for string quartet and fixed media, 2012. Procedurally generated score. Tracing paths through harmonic space. Recorded by Conrad Harris, Pauline Kim Harris, Dov Scheindlin, and Brian Snow on Index 0, released by Indexical.

  • March 1, 2012. Conrad Harris, Pauline Kim Harris, Liuh-Wen Ting, and Brian Snow. ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn, NY.
  • February 23, 2012. Voxare String Quartet. Old Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.
  • February 15, 2012. Conrad Harris, Pauline Kim Harris, Liuh-Wen Ting, and Brian Snow. S.E.M. Ensemble Reading of New Works. Willow Place Auditorium, Brooklyn, NY.

Memory network, for electric guitars, 2011. Procedurally generated live score for variable size ensemble. Coordinating and remembering movement across the fretboard.

  • September 2, 2011. ZWERM and Larry Polansky. Ostrava New Music Days, Ostrava Philharmonic Hall, Czech Republic. Listen.

Crossings, for piano four hands, 2010. Conflict behind the keyboard.

  • January 7, 2011. Andrew Christopher Smith and Sam Morrison. St. Mark's Poetry Project, St. Mark's Church, New York, NY.

General MIDI texture studies, 2009–10. Fixed media. Listen: General MIDI Haiku. Listen: General MIDI Texture Study #2.

  • February 13, 2012. General MIDI on ice. Curated by David Kant. James W. Campion III ice skating rink, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.

Spatial network for percussion, 2009. Procedurally generated live score for the performer's chosen instrument. Interleaving paths through physical space. Recorded by Doug Perkins on Simple Songs, released by New Focus Recordings.

  • June 9, 2011. Nuno Aroso. Villa Romana, Florence, Italy.
  • July 23, 2009. Nuno Aroso. Sound and Music Computing Conference at Casa da Musica in Porto, Portugal. Curated by Pauline Oliveros.
  • May 5, 2009. Doug Perkins. Dartmouth Festival of New Musics in Hanover, NH. Video.

For assisted cellist, 2009. Procedurally generated live score. A theater of computer control over body and breath.

  • May 7, 2009. Alex Waterman. The Way To Go Out at Spheris Gallery in Hanover, NH. Listen.

Foxtrots, 2009. Variable instrumentation. Procedurally generated score. A grammar for dancing awkwardly together. Inspired by A Revised Grammar for the Foxtrot by Don Herbison-Evans.

Young astronomer, 2008. Fixed media. Spaces, large and small. Released on the Dartmouth Digital Musics compilation CD, 2008. Listen.

Selected performances

  • June 17, 2012. Music for Snare Drums by K.C.M. Walker. Percussion. With Jack Callahan. Incubator Arts Project, St. Mark's Church, New York, NY.
  • July 2, 2010. Harmony # by David Kant. Piano. Ontological-Hysteric Theater, New York, NY.
  • August 18, 2009. Improvised electronics. International Computer Music Conference, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
  • 2009. Tetherball by Larry Polansky. Guitar. The Way To Go Out, Spheris Gallery, Hanover, NH.
  • November 20, 2008. For 1, 2, or 3 People by Christian Wolff. Percussion. The Way To Go Out, Spheris Gallery, Hanover, NH.
  • May 3, 2008. Percussion duo with Will Guthrie. Dartmouth Festival of New Musics, Hanover, NH.
  • January 24, 2008. Eine Kleine Gamelan Computer Music by Daniel Goode. Electronics. The Way To Go Out, Spheris Gallery, Hanover, NH.
  • November 2, 2007. CONDUCTION® No. 167, Samson Occom by Butch Morris. Electronics. Spaulding Auditorium, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.
  • April 29, 2007. Rime and Glaze by Olivia Block. Percussion. World premiere. Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA.

Education

BA in Music Synthesis, Berklee College of Music. MA in Digital Musics, Dartmouth College. Composition study with Larry Polansky, Newton Armstrong, Kui Dong, and Christian Wolff. Percussion study with Jimmy Sage, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Mike Mangini, and Terri Lyne Carrington.