photos by Sabrina Ramos
Brendan Glasson (b. Providence, RI) is a composer living and working in Oakland, CA.
He is interested in detail, texture, and slowness as launching points for a kind of augmented experience of duration and listening. Much of his work is centered around reed organ—a ubiquitous instrument in the 19th and early 20th century that has fallen into wide disuse. His relationship with reed organs is influenced by his background in electronic music, and he makes use of the buzzy tone, infinite sustain, and limited dynamics to create a music reminiscent of synthesis. By necessity he has come to develop an interest in repairing, tuning, and maintaining these antique instruments, and he explores novel techniques for amplifying and capturing the fine details of the sound.
His recent body of work, “The Reality of People” and Other Works for Reed Organ (Debacle Records), focuses on finding tone clusters that activate resonances in the organ, creating a pulsing, throbbing music of intentionally limited gesture.
Brendan has performed and shown work at SFMOMA, Centre Pompidou-Metz, the MUDAM museum, G16, the Lab, and more. He holds an MFA from Mills College, where he worked for five years as Technical Director for the Center for Contemporary Music.