Christopher Adler (Ph.D. composition, 1999) releases new CD, Triangulations

Triangulations features works for solo khaen by Adler and fellow alumnus Sidney Marquez Boquiren (Ph.D. composition, 1999), as well as Christopher Burns, David Loeb, Vera Ivanova, Yu Kuwabara, and Jeff Herriott.

About Triangulations, Adler writes,  "I began researching traditional khaen music in 1994, and composing original works in 1996. This new collection showcases the creative imaginations of composers who have taken up the challenge to write for an instrument with just fifteen pitches. On this album you will hear six different khaen, in four keys, by three makers. All play a two-octave natural minor scale, but each has a distinct timbre and response to breath, so for each piece I choose an instrument that best suits the character of the music."

Christopher Adler is a composer, performer and improviser living in San Diego, California. His compositions encompass cross-culturally hybrid forms drawn from contemporary concert music and traditional musics of Thailand and Laos, the application of mathematics to composition, and the integration of improvisation into structured composition. He is a foremost performer of traditional and new music for the khaen, a free-reed mouth organ from Laos and Northeast Thailand. He is a pianist with Nief-Norf and NOISE, an Affiliated Artist with San Diego New Music, a co-founder of the soundON Festival of Modern Music, and Director of Composition for the Nief-Norf Summer Festival. He studied with Scott Lindroth, Evan Ziporyn, Steven Jaffe and Sidney Corbett and is currently Professor of Music at the University of San Diego. His work may be heard on Tzadik, Innova, Blue Griffin, Liber Pulveris, pfMENTUM, Rattle, Blue Leaf, Nine Winds, Artship Recordings, Vienna Modern Masters, Centaur, Traditional Crossroads, Circumvention, and Accretion Records.