LoFi for Miles
Produced by Kyle Landry and the amazing students of the 92nd Street Y. This very quick project was produced in about 15 minutes by chopping up and editing various songs submitted by the students. The main focus is the trumpet solo from Miles Davis, Blue in Green. The video is a drone shot of a glacial stream in Washington state. In our virtual class called Sound Collage through the 92nd Street Y. I introduce young students to electronic sound design, music production, and composition concepts while stuck at home. We sampled live sounds over Zoom from around student’s homes to create a musical sound-scape each week. We sampled stomps, claps, musical instruments, beat boxing, doors slamming, dogs barking, cats meowing, glasses clinking; any sound that we could think of. With some crafty audio routing I was even able to send students an isolated monitor feed to their headphones. It was so fun watching the kids run around the house looking for sounds. We use these samples to design sounds and construct the musical elements of our piece.
Negative Rain
Composed and produced by Kyle Landry and the amazing students of the Sound Collage class at the 92nd Street Y
This summer I had the absolute pleasure of teaching a virtual class called Sound Collage through the 92nd Street Y. I designed the class as a way to introduce young students to electronic sound design, music production, and composition concepts while stuck at home. We sampled live sounds over Zoom from around student’s homes to create a musical sound-scape each week. We sampled stomps, claps, musical instruments, beat boxing, doors slamming, dogs barking, cats meowing, glasses clinking; any sound that we could think of. With some crafty audio routing I was even able to send students an isolated monitor feed to their headphones. It was so fun watching the kids run around the house looking for sounds. We used these samples to design sounds and construct the musical elements of our piece.
This particular piece, Negative Rain came from a class in early August when the students wanted to create a funky rain forest beat. The video is a bunch of negative rainy day time lapses that I had lying around. Slightly unrelated to the music but just something to keep your eyes entertained while your ears are grooving.
Written August 2020
Cloud Forms by Kyle Landry
Cloud Forms was written and recorded over the weekend of July 11th and 12th using an acoustic guitar, bass guitar, and an E-Bow which is a small device that induces vibrations in steel strings through electromagnetic inductive feedback. It does not touch the string and produces a very pure sound reminiscent to a bowed string. The method used to produce this piece was an exercise in random material generation. I chose several pitch sets to which I tuned both guitars. I then used the E-Bow, sliding along the guitar strings, to create harmonics at random. I then sorted through and organized the raw material to find the piece. Before recording I had two structural tent poles that I wanted the rest of the piece to hang on, one being, two of the acoustic guitars going out of tune during a climax, and the other, ending with four bass strings being plucked but played in reverse (you can see my hand reach in and “unpluck” the strings of four bass guitars as those videos play backwards at the end of the piece). The idea behind the sound world I was hoping to create was clouds of slowly morphing pitches and harmonies. For me, one of the joys of summer is laying on my back and watching clouds transform and evolve as they slide across the sky. I find myself sorely missing this simple pleasure during this summer of quarantine and social isolation. For now, I settle for the clouds out my studio window.
Written July 11, 2020
Heart of the City by Kyle Landry
Heart of the City was written in response to the coronavirus sweeping through New York City and to shine a light on the heroes who are working tirelessly to get humanity through the coronavirus pandemic. Throughout the piece you will hear the voices of various New York City EMS, fire, and police first responders and dispatchers recorded on the evening of April 7th, 2020 during the height of the outbreak in New York City. The pitches heard throughout the piece were recorded on an acoustic guitar using an E-bow. The heartbeat heard throughout the piece is a recording of my own heart. The cheering near the end of the piece is the 7 pm New York City ritual of applauding first responders. Names and addresses have been removed from the radio chatter to protect the victims. Heart of the City is dedicated to the healthcare workers, police officers, fire fighters, grocery store attendants, and the countless other essential workers who are leading the world through this global tragedy. The world is in your debt.
Headphones or stereo speakers are recommended as there are many stereo and 3d sounds.
Written April 2020
From Star Stuff by Kyle Landry
From Star Stuff, for saxophone ensemble, takes its title from Carl Sagan’s monologue at the opening of “Cosmos: a Personal Voyage”. The 1980s television show covers a range of scientific subjects from the origin of life to the birth of the universe. This show played a significant role in my lifelong fascination with science and humanity's place in the universe. From Star Stuff traces the journey of a photon from the formation of the star, bouncing through the core, flying through space, and finally being absorbed into the life cycle of earth. The following is Dr. Carl Sagan’s monologue.
“The lives and deaths of the stars seem impossibly remote from human experience and yet we’re related in the most intimate way to their life-cycles. The very matter that makes us up was generated long ago and far away in red giant stars. A blade of grass, as Walt Whitman said, is the journey work of the stars. The formation of the solar system may have been triggered by a nearby supernova explosion. After the Sun turned on, its ultraviolet light poured into our atmosphere, its warmth generated lightning, and these energy sources sparks the origin of life. Plants harvest sunlight converting solar into chemical energy. We and the other animals are parasites on the plants. So we are, all of us, solar-powered. The evolution of life is driven by mutations, they're caused partly by natural radioactivity and cosmic rays, but they're both generative in the spectacular deaths of massive stars thousands of light-years distant.
Think of the sun's heat on your upturned face on a cloudless summer's day. From a hundred and fifty million kilometers away we recognize its power. What would we feel on its seething self-luminous surface or immersed in its heart of nuclear fire? And yet, the Sun is an ordinary even a mediocre star. Our ancestors worshiped the Sun and they were far from foolish it makes good sense to revere the sun and the stars because we are their children.
We have witnessed the life cycles of the stars. They are born they mature and then they die. As time goes on there are more white dwarfs, more neutron stars, more black holes. The remains of the stars accumulate as the eons pass. But interstellar space also becomes progressively enriched in heavy elements out of which form new generations of stars, and planets, life, and intelligence. The events in one star can influence a world halfway across the galaxy and a billion years in the future”
• • •
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
― Carl Sagan
If you are interested in purchasing the music for “From Star Stuff” click here
Aeolian Harp by Kyle Landry
Aeolian Harp was written to explore the sound phenomenon known as the aeolian harp or wind harp. This is a harp or stringed instrument that is played only by the wind. As the wind passes through the strings, oscillating vortices are formed causing the strings to vibrate. As the wind changes the strings will ring at different harmonics producing different pitches. This saxophone quartet reimagines these unique sounds as well as the sound of the wind itself.
SATB recorded by Kyle Landry
NODE by Kyle Landry
April 7, 2017
Headphone or high quality speakers highly recommended to hear the very soft and very low frequencies.
NODE for Baritone Saxophone and Interocitor. The word node describes the point along a standing wave where the wave is at it's minimum amplitude. On the Interocitor there are three nodes. One attached to each drum and one where vibrations are input into the spring.
Un Lieu Verdoyant by Philippe Leroux
May 10, 2016
Leah Brzyski - Soprano
Kyle Landry - Soprano Saxophone
Journey by Lori Laitman
March 25, 2015
Kyle Landry - Saxophone
Yu-Lien The - Piano
Saxophone Quartet by Georg Friedrich Haas - NASA Winners Recital
The Viridian Saxophone Quartet performs Georg Friedrich Haas' Saxophone Quartet at the North American Saxophone Alliance Winners Recital 3/12/2016.
Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano, Movement I by Edison Denisov
March 25, 2015.
Kyle Landry - Saxophone
Yu-Lien The - Piano
Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano, Movement II by Edison Denisov
2014 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition Finals - Silver Medal Winners!
The Echo Saxophone Quartet performs movement II of Alexander Glazunov's Quartet for saxophone.
The Echo Saxophone Quartet performs the Scherzo Variation from Alexander Glazunov's Quartet for saxophone and "Pypes" from William Albright's Fantasy Etudes.
Greensilver by Evan Chambers
Greensilver by Evan Chambers. Recorded by Kyle Landry and Kristen Zelenak at Central Michigan University in Chamichian Hall.
The title Greensilver came from an alternate name for mercury: quicksilver. Somehow, the image of silvery, liquid, quickened metal crossed with a softening verdant green informs the tone of the piece. There is also a certain sadness at the piece's heart--the music alternates between fast-moving interlocking fluid passages and long lines that pull against drones. In the latter, I was particularly interested in the patterns of beating and difference tones (a third pitch that is created in the air when two tones interact) that are audible between and below the notes of the two instruments when sounded together. The piece was written for Wesley Miller and John Sampen. - Evan Chambers
Kyle Landry - Alto Saxophone I
Kristen Zelenak - Alto Saxophone II
Daydream by Cody Wright
Daydream was written for the Yesaroun' Duo - Samuel Z. Solomon, percussion, and Eric Hewitt, saxophone as part of the 2001 Walden School Commissioning Project. The first performance of Daydream was given by the Yesaroun' Duo on July 13 2001 at the Louise Shonk Kelly Recital Hall in Dublin, New Hampshire.
Recorded April 10, 2011 Chamichian Recital Hall, Central Michigan University.
Kyle Landry - Saxophone
Joshua Graham - Vibraphone
Prelude Cadence et Finale by Alfred Desenclos
Alfred Desenclos, Prelude Cadence et Finale
Recorded in Chamichian Hall, 11/14/11
Kyle Landry - saxophone
Jun Okada - Piano