CJM Biography

Christopher McIntyre leads a multi-faceted career in the contemporary arts as a solo and ensemble performer, composer, and curator/producer. The diversity of his activities recently led Time Out New York to note "...with every passing week, trombonist-composer Chris McIntyre becomes more central to the new-music experience in New York." (2/08) He performs on trombone and Nord synthesizer in a variety of settings, ranging from fully notated concert works to open improvisations. Current projects include leading TILT Brass Band and SIXtet, 7X7 Trombone Band, and electro-improv group LOTET, and collaborative efforts including the creative music ensemble Ne(x)tworks. McIntyre's trombone skills have been utilized in groups such as SEM Ensemble, Flexible Orchestra, The Knights, and the Darmstadt series' acclaimed performance of Terry Riley's In C, and in composer-led projects of David First, Michael Schumacher, Elliot Sharp, Jonathan Bepler (w/ Matthew Barney), and Anthony Coleman. McIntyre recently performed on both trombone and Nord synth during at The Kitchen's sold out festival Let's Go Swimming: A Tribute to Arthur Russell (which he also co-curated). Recordings of his trombone work can be heard on New World, Tzadik, and Mode Records.

McIntyre's compositions express a wide-range musical and intellectual interests. They often incorporate conceptual elements such as spatialization, recontextualized notated material, and gradually shifting aural tableaux achieved with improvisative strategy. The aesthetics of visual artists such as Sigmar Polke and Sol Lewitt have played an important role in creating several works. Polke's use of juxtaposition and imperfect repetition heavily influenced the Ne(x)tworks piece's Sigmar [unknown source] and Raster for quintet. The stuplimity series for various trombone ensembles (solo with laptop, quintet+, and the 7X7 septet) derives concepts directly from LeWitt's early 70's multiple media work Variations on Incomplete Open Cubes, including the presentation of serialized material in disparate formats and media. He experiments with both conventional,instructional, and graphic notation systems to achieve these conceptual ends, frequently employing a combination within a single piece. The work invests a great deal in the creativity and musicianship of its players, and each performance tends to be a unique iteration of the original material.

He has contributed to the repertoire of Lotet, TILT, Ne(x)tworks, 7X7, Flexible Orchestra, and B3+ brass trio. Performance highlights include the collaborative folio score stuplimity no.2 (music for Sundown) created for 7x7 and choreographer Yoshiko Chuma (supported by American Music Center's Live Music For Dance program), and the combined forces of TILT and Lotet premiering the Roulette/Jerome Foundation commissioned work Metaxis. Metaxis, a collection of cell-based notated material, has been heard in subsequent iterations including Metaxis 2 for TILT SIXtet, and Metaxis [Wave], a site-specific version presented at Free103point9's Wave Farm. During the Spring '08 season, McIntyre's multi-channel sound work silOM was presented at the 2008 MATA Festival Sound Installation (co-presented with Diapason Gallery), and Ne(x)tworks premiered Raster for quintet, a new work for piano and string quartet, during the group's 3-part concert series Dialogics at Chelsea Art Museum.

Beyond performing and creating music, McIntyre is active as a curator and concert producer. He is currently Artistic Director of MATA, a non-profit organization that commissions and presents the work of young composers. MATA's public programs include the bi-monthly series Interval (co-presented with Issue Project Room) and its annual Festival. He has served as Associate Music Curator at The Kitchen, where he acted as Artistic Director of the ten-piece experimental chamber orchestra Kitchen House Blend, and lead curator of live events during New Sound, New York Festival. McIntyre returned to The Kitchen in May '08 as co-curator of Let's Go Swimming: A Tribute to Arthur Russell, a 3-night event presenting songs and instrumental music by the innovative cellist, composer, and producer Arthur Russell. Other recent independent projects include curating the month of June 2007 at John Zorn's East Village venue The Stone, which featured the festival Trombonophilia, and co-curating Horn Week (Feb. 6 - 9) at Issue Project Room. (5/08)

Current short bio(s)
McIntyre's CV (10/07)

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