composition
i was taught music theory, in the context of the guitar, from a gifted peer in our senior year of high school and began composing instrumentals in Garageband on my first Macbook shortly after.
i went to Union College to pursue physics, but also took music courses in my elective slots. after several unsuccessful academic and emotional bouts, i left the physics program and pursued a full music degree, focusing on composition.
all rights belong to me and any relevant & documented collaborators – no unauthorized use of my music is permitted, commercial or private
i worked on this composition with my talented friend, Varun Shah, after he sent me this drum stem
i wrote this piece for a woman i met and subsequently fell infatuated with. titled after it was written based on the kitschy minimalistic sound and the context in which i wrote it.
early music
track 3
below is one of the first pieces of music i ever wrote. the file is titled ‘misrepresented,’ however on streaming services it ended up simply as ‘track 3.’
the piece is a good representation of how DIY my music was and continues to be. it is out of time in several places, and there are a handful of glaringly brown notes, but it is still a marvelously pretty composition. the piano part was all done in a one-take improvisation.
an achievement i am proud of: my most-streamed piece
modo cielo
i found the file for this piece on a hard drive, untouched for years, and decided to release it. the title is italian and loosely (with extremely poor grammar) means “the way to paradise.”
after releasing the piece i couldn’t believe what happened. the streams on Spotify started to pick up, and quickly. For nearly a year they kept going, amassing over 11,000 streams on that platform alone; i was floored. i had a coworker tell me that she had found the piece and was using it for her yoga classes and, while at the festival thrown by my favorite band, i met one of their photographers who told me that he knew my name and had streamed my music before.
a lot is owed to this piece and it’s set a bar for me as to where i’d like to be headed.
chandler sturgeon 