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Using the sound of the spoken voice, instrumental accompaniment and electronic processing, Eigenvalues (Cameron McPhee and Jonathan Matis) compose and perform material that blurs the boundaries between music and literary art. Weaving together original and found text with composed and improvised music, Cameron and Jonathan's work is unique, artistically compelling and socially relevant.
This is a novel and creative redefining of text-setting, of putting words to music, of putting music to words and transforming the boundary between them. Starting from scratch, Eigenvalues is discovering how to combine words and music in a way that retains the integrity of both the spoken language and the musical composition.
This project unites Matis's skill as a composer and musician with McPhee's training in the theater allowing for a collaboration that is simultaneously imbued with experience and unfamiliar and challenging to both artists. Jonathan Matis is a composer and performer whose work actively combines the practices of composition and improvisation. He has performed and recorded with a variety of ensembles, and is a co-founder of the DC Improvisers Collective (DCIC), a quartet exploring the intersection of jazz, contemporary composition and experimental music. Performing with electric guitar, a small collection of low-tech preparations, and live signal processing, Matis coaxes textures from the instrument - in addition to the occasional tried-and-true plucked string approach. Cameron McPhee has performed on and written for the stage since she was a child. Trained in theater at the New World Conservatory for the Arts, her love of the avant-garde has driven her to push the boundaries of traditional theatrical forms.
The name, Eigenvalues, is a tribute to Jonathan and Cameron's faith in the mathematical (ordered and random) universe. The name represents the uniqueness of this project as well as its attempt to bring text and music together into one singular plane.
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