Composer/guitarist Thomas Echols will examine the idea of breath for his week-long Trillium residency at a cottage up at Mount Sequoyah in Fayetteville for the week of July 13-19. While here, he’ll record breaths, so he can analyze their spectral content to create filters that will augment other sounds. He’ll build the multi-movement composition using his own recording system, an augmented classical guitar, and synthesizers, and compose using software he’s designed especially for this project.
The work premieres at 7 p.m. Saturday, July 18, in a livestream production that combines the sounds with visuals. Following the world premiere, we’ll present a Q&A between Echols and Katy Henriksen, our founding director. The event will be livestreamed at our website: www.trilliumsalonseries.com and on our YouTube channel.
Echols was originally scheduled as Trillium’s first artist-in-residence back in March, a stay that was postponed at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. This re-imagined residency and livestreamed remote salon was organized to support health measures of social distancing to reduce the spread of the virus.
This residency and livestream event is made possible, in part, by our first grant award. The Bridge Fund was awarded to us by the newly formed Regional Arts Service Organization (RASO) at the Northwest Arkansas Council. We are honored to be among the 23 arts and culture nonprofits in Northwest Arkansas to receive funding for “transitional and long-term planning for arts and culture organizations impacted by COVID-19.” Read the full statement here. Echols’ artist residency is also sponsored by Bridges Realty.
Echols describes his work as an amalgam of classical, modernist, and pop music forays. Accepted at age 16 into the College of Music at the University of Colorado at Boulder, he went on to earn a Master’s of Music from the University of Texas and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California, and was a prizewinner in the Portland International Guitar Competition and the Donald Miller Concerto Competition.
As visiting artistic director for Austin Classical Guitar, he’s curated programs including traditional instrumental recitalists, experimental electronics, newly commissioned works, and interactive visual projections. He has recorded and performed with the Grammy-nominated choral ensemble Conspirare and the Houston Symphony Orchestra.
His experimental-pop alter ego, Man, Woman, Friend, Computer, creates simple songs that unfold into meandering compositions, analogue synth fetishism, conspiracy pop, polyrhythmic laments, somnambulist visions, and process music. MWFC’s debut album has garnered rave reviews from Austin Monthly and The Austin Chronicle, which calls it “Meditative and fetching . . . he ventures into a complex amalgam of analog and synth. Wistful, romantic. . . Echols’ vocals sooth to surrender.” A mainstay in the thriving classical guitar and experimental music scenes in Austin, I’m active as a performer and lecturer, and have contributed scholarly articles to Soundboard Magazine.