Bio -- Will Redman
Short bio:
Will Redman is a composer, percussionist, and teacher who plays and writes as much music as is possible. He has played music for audiences in houses, dive bars, nightclubs, restaurants, art galleries, parks, amphitheaters, record stores, book shops, hotels, and concert halls. Although he always has and always will continue to study music in the real world, Will has studied composition at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County (BA), the University of Southampton (MA), and SUNY Buffalo (PhD). Will’s academic teachers have included Stuart Saunders Smith, Kevin Norton, Jeff Stadelman, Tom Goldstein, and Michael Finnissy; his real world teachers have included John Dierker, John Hughes, Todd Whitman, Mike Formanek, Jonathan Vincent, Bill Sack, Evan Rapport, Dave Ballou, and others. Will’s recent compositions, such as Book, are graphically fantastic scores that are intended to be interpreted by musicians of varied backgrounds and abilities. Will’s performances of late have included MICROKINGDOM with Marc Miller and John Dierker free improvisation with baritone saxophonist Steve Baczkowski; a dramatic lecture/recital with musicologist Jaime Currie and the Open Music Ensemble; solo drum set recitals (evoking Max Roach, Ferneyhough’s Bone Alphabet and Feldman’s The King of Denmark among other things);; and percussion and/or lo-fi electronics improvisations with many other good friends.
I am a composer from Baltimore. I play drums, vibraphone and other percussion instruments and I compose with Logic Pro Studio, Max/MSP, cassette tapes, or a pen and paper. Most of the music that I write and play is on the fringes of other musics that we call by names like Rock, Jazz, Classical, New Music, Improv, Experimental, etc. My mind is consistently blown when I ponder the network of superior and strange musical minds that inhabit skulls on this planet. Occasionally, I get to be a part of all that and learn a lot. Parts of this network exist in all “styles” of music and in various sections of society and levels of architecture. I, and most other musicians of the ilk, have played music on the street, in basements, seventh floors of university libraries, record stores, storefront art galleries and book stores, sixth floor loft spaces, second floors of nightclubs, and so on. I have gone to school for music a lot, always finding interesting and encouraging and open-minded music departments and music scenes (for lack of a better word) in places that I hadn’t expected (Baltimore, Buffalo, Southampton UK). So given that, below you will find some more traditional forms of my biography. These are the kind that people print in concert programs and whatnot.
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