Biography
Connecticut-based composer, improviser, and multi-instrumentalist Manuel J. Perez III (He/Him/His; b.1995) writes and performs music that exists at and inside of intersections, harnessing a unique skillset that is bred from time spent in a variety of fields such as the astrophysical, mathematical, philosophical, and musical. The synthesis of these influences presents itself in sonic landscapes informed by tangible process and design, which are aesthetically informed by a wide range of practices and mediums such as spectralism, noise, free jazz, electronic music, American experimentalism, modern metal, sound art, the classical canon, modernism, and a variety of other formal, informal, popular, and unpopular idioms. Of particular focus in his work is restoring the creative agency to the performer through the implementation of improvisatory environments and challenging performative headspaces.
His projects strive to provide a unique multi-sensory experience that appeals to a wide audience while still challenging perceptions of art, energy, style, and culture through use of extremes and limits. This manifests itself into a wide array of mediums, from performance/multimedia art to acoustic works. His experience in audio engineering and electronic music studios also informs his acoustic music, often times working on translations of digital techniques into acoustic writing. This also includes live electronic processing and manipulation. Perez’s works have been performed & commissioned by groups and performers such as the SPLICE Ensemble, NOW Ensemble, Toneburst Laptop Ensemble, Adam Vidiksis, PHAZE Ensemble, Laura Cetilia, and more. His art as been performed and screened internationally, including countries such as Germany, Austria, and Turkey, and at institutions, festivals, conferences, and marathons such as Arts Letters & Numbers, TU-Berlin, Wesleyan University, and University of Redlands, Current projects include MAPPINGS, a concert-length improvisatory work for trombonist Marc Anthony Perez, as well as other collaborative improvisational works. As a performer, he is a co-founder of PHAZE Ensemble, a new music collective that promotes young and unheard composers in conjunction with long-standing masterworks of living composers. This ensemble operates in a community-based context, opening up a new conversation about the accessibility of music written by living composers. In addition to PHAZE, he has performed with Toneburst Laptop Ensemble and regularly improvises with collaborators in a multitude of settings on saxophones, guitars, and electronics, as well as performs premieres and at workshops across the United States. As a Southern California native transplanted in Connecticut, he currently holds a B.M. in Composition & Saxophone Performance and minors in Mathematics & Physics from the University of Redlands, and is set to graduate with a M.Sci. in Astrophysics from Wesleyan University. His past teachers include Paula Matthusen, Ron Kuivila, Anthony Suter, and Mark Dancigers, with varying levels of supplemental instruction from Tyshawn Sorey, Michael Harrison, Andrew Greenwald, installation artist & sculptor Jeffery Schiff, Nina C. Young, Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, Joshua Marquez, Zae Munn, Sam Torres, and Chris Pitsiokos. While not beautifully entrenched in these fields, he enjoys spending time studying up on astrophysical phenomena and fostering meaningful relationships with his wife and two kittens. (Current as of July 2020) |
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