Ethan Isaac

Ethan Isaac (b.1996) whose music has been described as "Post-revolutionary" and "an almost Elgarian sweep of broad melody" (New York Classical Review) is a composer that deals with topics from Russian novels to urban planning. By fusing alchemical audio processes with conventional notation they are able to realize a new musical future. They attained their B.A at Bard College and M.A at Rutgers University where they studied under Kyle Gann, Matt Sargent, Robert Aldridge, and Scott Ordway. Currently attending the University of Pittsburgh as a PhD student under Eric Moe, Ethan teaches undergraduates and researches new methods of realizing just intonation music.

Ethan has had the pleasure of working as an audio engineer under producers Jamey Lamar, and Marlan Barry. They have recorded various jazz and classical performers such as Arturo Sandoval, Branford Marsalis, Tommy Emmanuel, the Dover Quartet, and members of the LA Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, MET Orchestra.

This year, Ethan participated in the SPLICE Institute in Kalamazoo, MI and the Sō Percussion Summer Institute at Princeton University for a second time, premiering three new works, Waypoints, Tension:Release, and Ouroboros.

Contact them at ethanisaacsound@gmail.com or through their contact form for any work inquiry.

2023

2022

Releases

Ouroboros is a work for four performers. Premiered by McClane Bernhausen, Rhiannon Robinson, Melody Tang, and myself at the Sō Percussion Summer Institute. The work is built from self written text, a mix of notated material, and improvisation games.

Watch or listen to my new work, Waypoints, performed by Robin Meiksins as part of the 2023 SPLICE Institute.

Waypoints is a fully improvised work, that grows from correspondence with the composer and the electronic accompaniment. This was my first work using Max/MSP and utilizes live pitch tracking for some of the intermittent elements. The electronic backing was created using the live coding language Tidal Cycles, and a sample kit built out of personally curated harpsichord samples.

Watch my performance from this past summer’s Sō Percussion Summer Institute!

Program Note: This piece is the result of research I conducted regarding the relationship between rhythm and pitch. During this process I came across an unusual discovery. When a perfectly tuned musical interval, a fifth specifically, was played and reduced to rhythmic units, it did not produce the ideal (3/2) rhythmic ratio that in an ideal world should appear. I transcribed this, universe grooving with itself, into notation and then imposed said linear rhythms onto the ideal (3/2) ratio creating many polyrhythmic relations. The electronics produce a justly tuned C major chord when the ensemble is loud enough, reflecting the original source of pitch. Emotionally, the piece displays the interference one can have when one's ideals face reality. There can be a great deal of strife, but in the end you have to reconcile both.

2018

Imaginary Keyboards - 2018 Thesis Album

Listen to it below and purchase high-resolution files through bandcamp.

Composed, mixed, and mastered by Ethan Isaac

Contact

Name

First Name

Last Name

Email Address

Purpose

Message