Biography
Erich Barganier is a composer and multi-instrumentalist hailing from St. Petersburg, Florida who currently resides between New York City and Montreal. He writes chamber, orchestral, film, solo instrumental and electronic music that explores experimental technology, the edge of noise, improvisation, generative processes, and new forms of notation. His music has been released on People Places Records, [walnut+locust], Belts and Whistles Records, Infrequent Seams, Off Latch Press, Nebularosa Records, Pleroma Records, NOUS Records, and Janus Music and Sound.
Barganier's works have been presented by Bang on a Can, The International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), Gaudeamus, Mostly Modern Festival, The New Music Gathering, Roulette Intermedium, National Sawdust, Le Poisson Rouge, Diffrazioni Festival, The DiMenna Center For Classical Music, Spectra Malaysia, Arts, Letters, & Numbers, New Music New College, New York University, McGill University, Spectrum NYC, The University of Wisconsin, The University of Georgia, The University of North Georgia, and The University of Alabama, among others.
He has written for Mivos Quartet, NOW Ensemble, current and former members of the Bang On A Can All-Stars, Sybarite5, Quince, Bearthoven, Sandbox Percussion Ensemble, and Righteous Girls, among others. He has served as an artist-in-residence at The Conlon Collective/Gaudeamus (Utrecht, NL), CIRMMT (McGill University, Montreal, QC) and Westben Artist Retreat (Westben, ON).
Barganier began studying composition and theory under Mark Dancigers while attending New College of Florida (B.A., 2014). He pursued further studies at New York University, taking private lessons with Julia Wolfe, Robert Honstein, Joan La Barbara and Tae Hong Park (M.M. 2019). He currently is a professor in the music technology faculty at New York University.
He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2014 and taught English at the Belarus State University of Culture and Arts in Minsk while collecting regional folk songs and performing traditional American music across Eastern Europe.
He has studied with electric guitarist Yaron Deutsch and performs as a multi-instrumentalist, as a solo artist, and in ensembles. Barganier has performed with Joan LaBarbara, Elliott Sharp, ETHEL, Robert Mirabel, Esther Lamneck and many others, is in the electric guitar/clarinet/electronic new music duo Shutterspeed Duo with Ford Fourqurean and is an active soloist in Montreal.
His scores can be purchased directly through this website's contact form or through his publisher, BabelScores. Students and faculty at select universities with BabelScores access may retrieve his compositions for free.
Artist Statement
As a performer-composer who works across musical genres and as a visual artist, I have become acutely aware of the importance of flexibility and combining influences from a variety of styles. My compositions marry timbres and sonic material from jazz, noise rock, experimental electronica, and contemporary classical musical styles, while my process takes inspiration from the creative methods outlined in Andre Breton’s manifestos of surrealism. I develop my works with these methods in mind, which include collage and automatic writing, among many others.
I translate these techniques from their visual and literary counterparts to the audio world in order to accurately capture the spirit of creation of each method. For example, in lieu of traditional collage, I incorporate sonic quotations using electronic samples taken from television or radio advertisement or notated phrases lifted from famous operas or orchestral works that live musicians can realize. For notated works, I use graphic notation and non-standard musical notation to encourage the performers to improvise, creating the same spontaneous feeling in a live performance as automatic writing generates in literature.
In addition to using surrealist creation techniques in a sonic context, experimental and generative coding techniques inform the vast majority of my installation work and electronic music. I actively code in the computer language Supercollider and use the flexibility of the language to create music that gives the computer agency to make creative decisions. I accomplish this through the use of neural networks and parameters that rely on randomness to give my pieces a sense of life that otherwise not be heard in a fixed installation. This form of music creation not only provides the audience with a distinct sound world full of unheard timbres that have never before been heard, but can also marry the above listed surrealist techniques into an electronic context.
Creating a deep, visceral response in listeners lies at the heart of my compositional output. My work blends elements of violence and absurdity that jar the listener. It carves a niche in the current musical landscape, blending the uncanny and strange into something wholly unique. It is visceral, unrelenting, and captures the grotesque essence of the modern world in which we live.
Erich Barganier is a composer and multi-instrumentalist hailing from St. Petersburg, Florida who currently resides between New York City and Montreal. He writes chamber, orchestral, film, solo instrumental and electronic music that explores experimental technology, the edge of noise, improvisation, generative processes, and new forms of notation. His music has been released on People Places Records, [walnut+locust], Belts and Whistles Records, Infrequent Seams, Off Latch Press, Nebularosa Records, Pleroma Records, NOUS Records, and Janus Music and Sound.
Barganier's works have been presented by Bang on a Can, The International Computer Music Conference (ICMC), New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival (NYCEMF), Gaudeamus, Mostly Modern Festival, The New Music Gathering, Roulette Intermedium, National Sawdust, Le Poisson Rouge, Diffrazioni Festival, The DiMenna Center For Classical Music, Spectra Malaysia, Arts, Letters, & Numbers, New Music New College, New York University, McGill University, Spectrum NYC, The University of Wisconsin, The University of Georgia, The University of North Georgia, and The University of Alabama, among others.
He has written for Mivos Quartet, NOW Ensemble, current and former members of the Bang On A Can All-Stars, Sybarite5, Quince, Bearthoven, Sandbox Percussion Ensemble, and Righteous Girls, among others. He has served as an artist-in-residence at The Conlon Collective/Gaudeamus (Utrecht, NL), CIRMMT (McGill University, Montreal, QC) and Westben Artist Retreat (Westben, ON).
Barganier began studying composition and theory under Mark Dancigers while attending New College of Florida (B.A., 2014). He pursued further studies at New York University, taking private lessons with Julia Wolfe, Robert Honstein, Joan La Barbara and Tae Hong Park (M.M. 2019). He currently is a professor in the music technology faculty at New York University.
He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2014 and taught English at the Belarus State University of Culture and Arts in Minsk while collecting regional folk songs and performing traditional American music across Eastern Europe.
He has studied with electric guitarist Yaron Deutsch and performs as a multi-instrumentalist, as a solo artist, and in ensembles. Barganier has performed with Joan LaBarbara, Elliott Sharp, ETHEL, Robert Mirabel, Esther Lamneck and many others, is in the electric guitar/clarinet/electronic new music duo Shutterspeed Duo with Ford Fourqurean and is an active soloist in Montreal.
His scores can be purchased directly through this website's contact form or through his publisher, BabelScores. Students and faculty at select universities with BabelScores access may retrieve his compositions for free.
Artist Statement
As a performer-composer who works across musical genres and as a visual artist, I have become acutely aware of the importance of flexibility and combining influences from a variety of styles. My compositions marry timbres and sonic material from jazz, noise rock, experimental electronica, and contemporary classical musical styles, while my process takes inspiration from the creative methods outlined in Andre Breton’s manifestos of surrealism. I develop my works with these methods in mind, which include collage and automatic writing, among many others.
I translate these techniques from their visual and literary counterparts to the audio world in order to accurately capture the spirit of creation of each method. For example, in lieu of traditional collage, I incorporate sonic quotations using electronic samples taken from television or radio advertisement or notated phrases lifted from famous operas or orchestral works that live musicians can realize. For notated works, I use graphic notation and non-standard musical notation to encourage the performers to improvise, creating the same spontaneous feeling in a live performance as automatic writing generates in literature.
In addition to using surrealist creation techniques in a sonic context, experimental and generative coding techniques inform the vast majority of my installation work and electronic music. I actively code in the computer language Supercollider and use the flexibility of the language to create music that gives the computer agency to make creative decisions. I accomplish this through the use of neural networks and parameters that rely on randomness to give my pieces a sense of life that otherwise not be heard in a fixed installation. This form of music creation not only provides the audience with a distinct sound world full of unheard timbres that have never before been heard, but can also marry the above listed surrealist techniques into an electronic context.
Creating a deep, visceral response in listeners lies at the heart of my compositional output. My work blends elements of violence and absurdity that jar the listener. It carves a niche in the current musical landscape, blending the uncanny and strange into something wholly unique. It is visceral, unrelenting, and captures the grotesque essence of the modern world in which we live.