Biography
After four decades of exploration Todd Barton is still delving deeply into the ever-expanding frontiers of musical expression: from his DNA derived Genome Music to his innovative scores for plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; from performances of Zen Shakuhachi Meditation Music to avant-garde music for electronic synthesizers and computers; from performing with luminaries of jazz and poetry to lecturing on music and composition from the Middle Ages to the 21st Century.
Todd Barton is currently a trainer for MacProVideo Buchla courses. And continually consults about and teaches analog synthesis via Skype sessions around the world.
He is also Resident Composer Emeritus for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
His compositions have been performed by the KRONOS Quartet, Oregon Symphony Orchestra, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, Southern Oregon Repertory Singers, the Shasta Taiko, and the Rogue Valley Symphony to name a few.
Barton has received numerous awards for his theater music including the ASCAP Award for Popular Music, Dramalogue Critics Award, and the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award. He recently received a Jeff Award Nomination in Chicago for his original score to The Oedipus Complex.
His music has been heard on NPR’s Morning Edition, Westcoast Live, and the Curve of Wonder.
biography extensions:
Todd’s Genome Music has been heard and exhibited at the Smithsonian Insitute, the Carnegie Insitiute of Biological Research at Stanford University, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Graduate Art Gallery at CUNY (NY) as well as mentioned in articles for the Washington Post, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, The Economist and Wired.
Todd was Resident Composer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival from 1969-2012. He has composed music for the entire canon of Shakespeare’s plays twice as well as music for over a hundred classical and contemporary theatrical productions.
Besides the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Todd has created scores for the Seattle Repertory Theatre, the Folger Theatre and Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the Berekeley Rep, ACT and Intiman in Seattle, ACT in San Francisco, the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre and the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.
Todd continues to study zen shakuhachi meditation music which he began in 1989. He has recorded four albums: Tai Chi Shakuhachi, Mountain Ghost Breathing, Shakuhachi Ma, and Ro. His teachers include John Singer, John Kaizan Neptune, Matsumura Homei, Ronnie Nyogetsu Seldin and Philiip Gelb. Some of Todd’s shakuhachi music can be heard here
Since 1979 Todd has been exploring analog and computer-based music. He currently is a Consulting Artist for Buchla Electronic Musical Instruments. In the Fall of 2013 Todd will begin doing concerts and workshops on the new Buchla Music Easel.
Over the years Todd has collaborated with a variety of jazz musicians and poets including Anthony Braxton, Zakir Hussein, William Stafford, Ursula K. Le Guin and Lawson Fusao Inada.
He has done multimedia and dance works with Suzee Grilley, Miles Inada, and Ursula Le Guin.
As a lecturer on topics ranging from the Symbolism of Muiscal Notation of the Middle Ages, Renaissance Philosophy and Muisc, to Music for the Theatre, Music and the Human Genome and Visual Music, Todd has been guest lecturer at the Smithsonian Institute, CalArts, Future Music Oregon, University of the Pacific, Cornish College of the Art, Seattle University, et al.