David Bithell
Composition
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David Bithell (b. 1976) is a composer/performer whose recent work has been focused on the intersection between experimental music and theater. His genre-bending performances and compositions have always maintained a commitment to exposing new audiences to new media. The use of video, sets and lights, live processing of audio, design and construction of new acoustic instruments, and improvisation create abstract narratives that balance between the tragic and comic.
He has performed his compositions throughout the United States and in Europe in both academic and public settings. Recently, his composition "The President Has His Photograph Taken" for solo trumpet, electronics, and video projection was premiered at the IS ARTI Festival in Kaunas, Lithuania. Other recent performances include those at the MANCA Festival in Nice, France under the auspices of the France/Berkeley fund and in collaboration with UC Berkeley's Center for New Music and Audio Technology (CNMAT) and the Centre National de Création Musicale (CIRM), those with the sfSoundSeries, California Institute for the Arts Vexations Festival, and the Berkeley New Music Project.
As a trumpet player specializing in contemporary and improvised musics he has devoted himself to the exploration of new possibilities for that instrument. He is the trumpet player and co-organizer for the sfSoundGroup (a West Coast experimental music collective) and has played with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, the Berkeley Contemporary Chamber Players, and the La Jolla Symphony. He has also collaborated with many composers on the creation of new works for trumpet live electronics, most notably with Ali Momeni and Olly Wilson, and has performed the United States premieres of works by Ronald Bruce Smith and Jan Maresz.
Prior to this appointment, Bithell taught music theory at Pomona College. In 2004 he earned a Ph.D in Music Composition from the University of California, Berkeley from which he received his M.A. in 2001. He holds a B.A. summa cum laude from the University of California, San Diego in Music with Honors in Composition. He studied composition and computer music with Edmund Campion, David Wessel, Cindy Cox, Brian Ferneyhough, and Roger Reynolds. He studied trumpet primarily with Edwin Harkins — whose performance art duo [THE] has been very influential on his recent work.
