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Brian McCorkle

Brian McCorkle is a composer, sound artist, and musician. He is the Co- Director of the Panoply Performance Laboratory (panoplylab.org), creating interdisciplinary work that operates in performance art, music, and experimental theatre fields. As PPL, Brian has composed the operas On the Cranial Nerves of Barbarians (Dixon Place, ABC No Rio, The Manhattan Theatre Source and elsewhere), The Last Dreams of Helene Weigel or How to Get Rid of The Feminism Once and For All (ABC No Rio, Surreal Estate, Cabinet Magazine Event Space and over PostTV), Institute_Institut (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, the cell) and incidental and interactive music, sound design, and technological set-ups for other projects like The Silviculture Museum (chashama installation with Pine Thumbs sound software) and Calmly Engaged (Flux Factory and Wilderness Gallery). Brian has also been part of PPL's collaboration with new music ensemble thingNY to create TIME: A Complete Explanation in Three Parts (The Brick Theater) and Brian's projects with PPL have also been a part of SUPERFRONT's Public Summer at Industry City, BOB the Pavilion at Columbia University, the BABEL exhibition in a QMAD pop-up gallery, and FIGMENT on Governor's Island. With PPL, he has been the beneficiary of Swing Space from LMCC (14 Wall Street for Workforce/Forced Work), two residencies through chashama, the LAB Residency at LPAC, and currently, a residency through Performance Project at University Settlement through which he is working on the new opera NATURE FETISH.

Born and raised in Michigan, Brian spent his childhood touring the US and the world with the Battle Creek Boychoir before attending the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and writing a lot of noisy electronic rock music. In Michigan, he played with the metal band Cojum Dip and many other bands while cataloging science fiction tropes, working at libraries, and studying comparative literature (Spanish and English) as well as poetry with Thylias Moss, sound synthesis with Mary Simoni, and jazz piano with Geri Allen. Brian also studied sitar in India with Anand Mishra and algorithmic music with David Cope in California. Now living and working in Brooklyn, NY, in addition to co-leading PPL with Esther Neff, Brian plays as a jazz musician (with Joseph Keckler, Sanda Weigl, and gypsy trio Djangos and Tangos) and as a sound designer (working at the Cell, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, Theatre Row, Interborough Repertory Theater [IRT] and elsewhere), and technical director (of Surreal Estate and Serials at the Flea Theater), and performer (most recently in Robert Ashley's That Morning Thing and as a member of Varispeed performing Perfect Lives Manhattan in PERFORMA '11).

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Tags

Primary Instrument

Composer / conductor

Willing to teach

Beginner to advanced

Credentials/Background

Degree in Music from University of Michigan Studied Jazz Piano with Geri Allen, Sound Synthesis with Mary Simoni 8 years professional experience as pianist/keyboardist, guitarist, electric bassist, and singer Available to teach piano, guitar, electric bass, voice, composition, improvization, and theory $40/hour all levels Lessons taught at rehearsal/performance space: Panoply Performance Laboratory 104 Meserole St Brooklyn, NY 11206 Students are encouraged to bring their own instruments but all are available for use during lessons.

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