Sudoku is a percussion ensemble written to be performed alongside the solving of a sudoku puzzle in real time. As the puzzle moves closer and closer to its solution, the percussionists will read the sudoku grid like a piece of music. Each performer is assigned a number between 1 and 9, and the placement of their number in the puzzle changes how they play.

Just as every sudoku puzzle has a unique solution, it also has a unique sound that is uncovered in real time as the piece unfolds. More than that, the way the solver approaches the solution has a dramatic impact on how the performers travel toward this solution sound. I'd encourage any audience member to not only follow along in the solving of the puzzle, but to also reflect on the solution's impact on the soundscape. 

Links: Score

Canvas is an interactive installation that fosters community collaboration in the creation of a singular, evolving artwork. Over the course several days, participants engage in a communal painting process, with each individual contribution adding to the evolving visual piece. Concurrently, the live video feed of the painting is sonified through a MaxMSP patch, generating a complex and dynamic sonic landscape that is inextricably linked to the visual art. Through this immersive sensory experience, Canvas offers a unique opportunity to explore the intersection art, technology, and community engagement. For this version of the installation, the Peabody Institute's graduating class of 2023 was invited to contribute to the piece over the course of one week.

MaxMSP Patch - Michael Mills

Production - Cameron Church

Rigging - Cameron Church, Sebastian Suarez-Solis

Concept - Cameron Church, Sebastian Suarez-Solis, Mary Price

Editing - Cameron Church

encore (2022)

Social experiment for the concert hall and 3 actors

Congrats on a new piece...

encore is a reimagining of the Milgram Experiment into a concert hall setting, performed for the purpose of deconstructing the societal expectations ingrained into audience etiquette. The audience takes on the role of the unsuspecting "Teacher" from the experiment, constantly pushed by social protocol to enact, in this case through applause, the cold repetition of destructive acts. For the performance to resolve itself, the audience must realize their role as an instigator in a harmful cycle and work together to end it. But even after they've understood their agency in this system, would an audience instead choose to keep watching? Would you?

Links: Score

Recorded Performers for both performances: (from left to right at table) Cameron Church, Sebastian Suarez-Solis (cbassuarez.com), and Tyler Jordan (tylerjordancomposer.com). Audience by The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University.

Pentomino (2022)

Open instrumentation for 1 or more performers

John Conway was a mathematician known for his love of games and puzzles. Among his many achievements, he was most well-known for inventing the Game of Life in 1970. This cellular automaton aimed to describe how complex forms of life can evolve from a simple initial state. In this simulation, any given square cell on a grid can either be alive or dead. Between each generation, interactions between cells and their neighbors determine which cells die off from overpopulation or isolation, and which cells are born anew. Throughout his life, Conway used his love for games, puzzles, and magic tricks to uncover new frontiers in mathematics and inspire countless others to follow in his work. Conway died on Saturday, April 11, 2020, from complications related to COVID-19. He was 82.

I was not lucky enough to know John Conway personally, but I had the pleasure of seeing him once. I found him solving a small wooden puzzle in the halls of Princeton in 2017, referencing a small book he co-authored as he toyed with the blocks. To me, Conway embodied a way of thinking about the world through the process of play. I’m always inspired by his exploratory approach to problem solving. A methodology which is infinitely adaptable.

Creation, Solution, Translation, Dissolution, Reproduction. Simplicity holds the power to reveal great complexity.

Special thanks to Sebastian Suarez-Solis (cbassuarez.com) for their help on this piece.

Links: Score

Recorded by Cameron Church (puzzle, piano, video editing) and Sebastian Suarez-Solis (puzzle, viola da gamba, director of photography)

game. (2022)

Actor and mixed quintet

This is a piece about doing too much...

Each

musician

has a game

in front of them.

Each game has two

states that affect what

and how the musician will

play: one state occurs when the

game is well maintained, and the other

state occurs when the game falls into disrepair.

------------------------------------------------------------------

As our subject seeks out more games to add to their

ever-growing list of responsibilities, they realize far

too late that they cannot maintain everything.

There exists such a thing as too much.

---------------------------------------------

This is a piece about games,

and about how there

are too many for

one person

to enjoy

them

all.

Links: Score

Upper video recorded by Ensemble Dal Niente (dalniente.com) in Theatro São Pedro during the São Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival (spccfestival.com)

Lower video performed by David Carlton Adams (electric guitar, davidcarltonadams.com), Max Eidinoff (piano, maxeidinoff.com), Ryo Hasegawa (conductor, hasegawaryo.com), Tyler Jordan (actor, tylerjordancomposer.com), Alberto Macias (cello), Luis Ozoria (trumpet, luisozoriamusic.com), and Mary Price (french horn, marypricecompositions.com). This performance is from Cameron's Master's recital in Griswold Hall at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University on February 17th, 2023.

Crits and Errors is a process piece combining sound, performance, and gameplay using the worldwide classic game of Chutes and Ladders. Players traverse a numbered grid of 100 squares, according to dice rolls, with the objective of navigating their game piece from 0 to 100, helped by climbing "ladders" but hindered by falling down "chutes". Using Max to assign pitch and timbral values to game spaces and players, Crits and Errors combines musical aleatory with real-life gestures and sheer luck. The piece is a sonic exploration of unpremeditated harmonies and frequency progression.

Links: Max Patch

Recorded Performers: the Peabody Laptop Ensemble (Colton Arnold, Cameron Church, Maxzavier Guo, Heng Lin, Nikko Musuraca, and Anson Tong)

Uno for video conference (2020)

Laptop ensemble for the UNO® card game

Uno is built around the card game UNO and was originally written to be performed live and in person. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the necessity for social isolation, I rewrote the piece so that it could be performed over video conference call and without the need for any equipment other than a computer and an internet connection. The Max patch translates UNO’s set of simple rules and repurposes them to create a piece of indeterminate music that is built around the interactions between performers. Every sound in this piece is created live by the performers when they play a card or an action of another player affects them. Each player is able to play Uno online with one another while streaming their audio to create a sound space that evolves with every card played. While you listen, enjoy the game and the dialogue of sound created by the choices and actions of the performers.

This piece requires performers to use the program Max 8 which can be safely downloaded for free here: https://cycling74.com/downloads. 

Links: Max Patch

Recorded Performers for upper recording: Becky Brown, Jamie Clay, Bob DuCharme, Cameron Church, I-Jen Fang, and Nelly Zevitz

Recorded Performers for lower recording: Indigo Breza, Cameron Church, and Joshua Holtzman 

This is the original version of Uno before it evolved into a piece for video conference. Unlike the newer edition, this piece is entirely acoustic and is intended to be played in person with a physical deck of UNO® cards. The recommended number of performers for this piece ranges from 2-10.

🙈🙉🙊 (3 Monkeys) is a piece about communication and how environmental constraints won’t stop us ⎯ they will motivate us to evolve. In this piece, three performers fill the roles of the three wise monkeys: 

🙈 Mizaru who sees no evil, 

🙉 Kikazaru who hears no evil, and 

🙊 Iwazaru who speaks no evil. 

At certain points throughout the piece, individual performers will lose their sense of sight, hearing, or their ability to speak while continuing to maintain a visual and sonic dialogue with the other performers. This piece is an updated version of 3 Monkeys which has moved from the physical space of a concert stage to the digital space of a video call. This new environment brings with it new opportunities to explore and elaborate on the themes of communication and interpretation. In addition to providing a backdrop for the colorful graphics, the medium of a video conference call helps the focus on each individual sense be more precise. As you watch and listen to this performance, I recommend that you follow along with the conversation between performers. Try to see patterns of communication and witness the evolution of the language as it develops.

Links: Score My Analysis

Recorded Performers: Alex Christie, Becky Brown, and Cameron Church 

This is the original version of 3 Monkeys before it evolved into a piece for video call. This piece was written to be performed in person without the use of electronics.

Links: Score My Analysis

D’etat (2019)

Laptop quartet for the Coup® card game

This piece is built around the card game Coup. This game is based on the interactions between players. Everyone playing has 2 cards which they keep private. These cards determine the actions they can take during the game. However, any player can lie and take any action they choose if they think they can get away with it. Your traditional game of Coup will involve a lot of talking while declaring actions, blocking players, or challenging a claim to a card. In this piece, the conversation is brought from speech to the realm of pitch and timbre. Every action taken in this game triggers a change in the sounds produced by each player. At the same time, many actions will frequently warrant a response from the other players resulting in a dialogue of sounds. The choices of each player cause the piece to unfold in a new way every time it is played. As you experience the piece, don’t worry about understanding the rules of the game. Instead, focus on the sounds and their interactions as if listening to a conversation taking place in front of you. 

This piece requires performers to to use the program Max 8 which can be safely downloaded for free here: https://cycling74.com/downloads.

Links: Max Patch My Analysis

Recorded Performers: Brendan Burke, Cameron Church, Indy Breza, Reza Mirzaiee

Musical Chairs (2019)

Percussion quintet

Musical Chairs needs almost no introduction. Everyone has played the game before. You walk around and around a circle of chairs until the music suddenly stops and you sit down in a chair as fast as you can. Whoever can’t sit fast enough is out of the game. Then you remove a chair, start up the music again, and keep going until you have a winner. That’s exactly this piece… except now the music is live and the chairs are part of the music too! 

This is not your typical percussion ensemble ⎯ the primary instrument in Musical Chairs is the chair. Using the elimination-based format of the original game, this piece aims to explore every possible sound a chair can make. As players are gradually removed from the game and added to the mallet section, new approaches to playing the chairs are constantly introduced until a winner is finally revealed. Each round is carefully choreographed so that performers are placed in just the right position around the chairs at any given moment of a round. Before the piece begins try to guess which player is going to be the winner, then sit back and enjoy a game of musical chairs.

Links: Score

Recorded Performers: Abel Ruiz, Cameron Church, Darrion Chandler, I-Jen Fang, and Spencer Harris