Featured Audio Clip: Orchestral Sketch No. 1 **Work in Progress**
Reading Session at Brevard Music Center
Jason Thorpe Buchanan(b. 1986) is an American composer of contemporary concert music. He began his studies at age fourteen at the College of San Mateo, CA with Charles Gustavson and holds degrees in composition and in music technology, from San José State University, where he was awarded the Outstanding Graduating Senior award (2008). As an undergraduate he was commissioned by the SJSU Concert Choir, founded melosmusic.com, and held positions as music supervisor, composer, and sound engineer for the winner of Best Feature at the Miami Beach International Animated Film Festival (2009). During graduate study at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he worked as an instructor of composition and music theory, and was awarded the Outstanding Graduate Student award (2009-10) by both the Music Department and the College of Fine Arts before receiving his master's degree. He has studied composition with Virko Baley, Jorge Grossmann, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Pablo Furman, Kevin Puts and Robert Aldridge, as well as conducting with maestro Takayoshi Suzuki.
Mr. Thorpe Buchanan has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship (2010-11) at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg as a visiting scholar where he will study with Peter Michael Hamel and Manfred Stahnke while conducting research and interviews throughout Germany in regards to compositional process and aesthetics. He has received the Mu Phi Epsilon International Sterling Achievement Award (2008), fellowships from the NEON Music festival (2009) and the Brevard Institute of Music Festival (2009, 2010), and has won both the UNLV Cristina Valdés solo piano composition competition (2009) and the Mu Phi Epsilon international composition competition (2009). His first work for large ensemble - A Zarzuela & Other Lost Works (2007) was premiered and recorded in 2009 by the Tad Wind Symphony in Tokyo, with a CD released on the Windstream label in Japan. Jason has participated in masterclasses, seminars and private lessons with composers such as Brian Belet, Koray Sazli, Lei Liang, David Crumb, Joel Hoffmann, Fredrick Kaufman, and Augusta Read Thomas. Upon returning from Germany in 2011, Jason will begin his studies as a Ph.D. candidate in composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. http://www.jasonthorpebuchanan.com
Songs of Moonlight & Shadows NEON Music Festival Apr. 11 - Las Vegas, NV Vasava *World Premiere* May 1 - Las Vegas, NV A Zarzuela & Other Lost Works *World Premiere* Jun. 11 - Tokyo, Japan
Crosswinds was composed by Jason Thorpe Buchanan during the Fall of 2005. This duet for Flute and Clarinet was composed in a pandiatonic style. The quasi-functional harmonies are implied through the thin textures of the piece, enhanced by the contrasting colors provided by the two woodwinds. The work is almost entirely through composed, with the exception of the sparse return of the opening theme.
