David Karagianis: News

Here's a little update - my new CD, Multiplex, is now available on the iTunes store, along with CD Baby and DigStation.  Check it out!

Hi everybody.  Welcome to my new website!  I'm still just getting things in place so more stuff should be up fairly soon. My big news is the new release of my double CD, Multiplex!  Check out these links to two digital download sites, CD Baby or DigStation, where excerpts of each track on Multiplex may be auditioned, you can purchase the entire (physical) CD and/or downloads of individual tracks.

Additionally you can also to get your hands (and ears) on Multiplex by sending a $19.99 check payable to Sound Dance to:

Sound Dance
10516 Clarkson Road
Los Angeles, CA 90064

My three other earlier CDs Timeless (1997), Without Words (2000) and Brave New Age (2004) are now available for $12 each directly from Sound Dance as well.  

My work seems to be making the rounds this Fall.  On September 25 and 26th Coasting, my score for Oakland based choreographer Dana Lawton, received performances in Dallas, Texas at the Dallas Hub Theater.  On October 18 Bittersweet, a film by David Rousseve with sound design I created, received screenings at NYU Tisch Performance Studies.  On October 22-25 Saudade by David Rousseve/REALITY for which I served as sound designer received performances at Danspace, New York.  On October 24 my score Between Earth and Heaven accompanied choreography by Denise Leitner for an on pointe premiere by Pasadena Dance Theater at the Pasadena Dance Theater's Studio Theater in, you guessed it, Pasadena.  On November 5 choreographer Chad Michael Hall and I conducted a master class Score-a-thon with choreography students from the Dance Department at Scripps College in Claremont, California.  Also on November 5 a YouTube video performance of part of my composition Chains performed live, filmed in Athens, Greece popped up on- line check out link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA3YsXtPpOU

My score A Matter of Time accompanied choreographer Janis Brenner & Dancers in New York at the Joyce SoHo this November 12-15.  Meanwhile my score Brave New Age accompanied choreographer’s Scott Heinzerling and Tekla Kostek work At Nowhere Random in the Twelfth Annual Dance Under The Stars Choreography Festival at the McCallum Theater in Palm Desert, California on November 14 and 15.  My fourth CD, Multiplex, drops (I just love saying that) on December 5.  Works of mine choreographed by Chad Michael Hall and Holly Johnston will be performed at Loyola Marymount University as part of An Evening of Concert Dance this December 8-12

My main job as Music Director for the Department of Dance and Theatre Arts at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles has been keeping me very busy as of late. I've composed and/or served as sound designer for a number of faculty and student dance and video projects that have received performances both within and outside of LMU. Also in the teaching realm this year, as the result of a very successful experiment held with the expert help of rising star choreographer Chad Michael Hall at the 2008 ACDFA Southwest Regional Conference at the University of California at Irvine, I launched a new music for dance Sound Dance® workshop vehicle I call the Dance Score-a-thon. These are workshops in which I re-score choreographic works-in-progress of Score-a-thon participants multiple ways. These sessions have been wonderfully effective as well as entertaining. Chad Hall and I  held one at Scripps College in Claremont, California and I did a 4-day residency at St. Mary's College in Oakland, California in early 2009. For more information about my Dance Score-a-tons contact me at: david@sounddance.net

Meanwhile beyond the university my music, sound design and performance contributions have included chamber music, dance, performance art, site-specific performance, film, dance video and multi-media genres for performances all around California, and around the US (Utah, Texas, Michigan, New York and Virginia), in Europe (London and Manchester, England, Strasborg, France, Prague, Macedonia, Czech Republic, Innsbruck, Kufstein, St. Johann and Graz, Austria) and Asia (Chennai and Bangalore, India). Coming up in 2009 - my work as sound designer for Saudade, David Rousseve's Dance Theater work is slated to receive performances at a number of venues around the US and some in the UK as well. Saudade premieres at the University of Maryland in early February, 2009.

Check out Lost Coast, my first music video! I started experimenting with video (specifically iMovie HD) in 2008 and made my first video which I have posted on YouTube. Lost Coast features the spectacular scenery encountered on a solo July hike in Northern California's spectacular Sinkyone Wilderness, a re-mix incorporating parts of Threshold from my first CD Timeless and, uh, me messing around at the beach. Try not to laugh... Oh by the way, choreographer Dana Lawton is now using this score for her solo work Coasting which is receiving performances in the San Francisco Bay area. Any way here's the link to my video. Since I haven't figured out how to link this directly to YouTube you have to copy and paste this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8pDJ_hAohs

Multiplex is a work I created in collaboration with choreographer Chad Michael Hall which premiered at Loyola Marymount University in late 2007 and was, subsequently a big hit at ACDFA at UC Irvine in March 2008. We had a blast making this piece, our dancers were awesome, and Multiplex will appear on my upcoming CD. You can also view the entire dance/multi-media performace on YouTube via the following link (copy and paste the following link): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJO5dKBldNQ I've also got two other works created and/or adapted for upcoming works by Chad, Double Speak an adaptation of my piece You Knew premieres at LMU in late November 2008 and a new score called Super Collider which will premiere in June 2009.

Check out the music for the upcoming movie trailer Boiler Maker (working title). This is the first time my music has been placed in a movie trailer. This one is for Winston Davis, a motion picture advertising production house (copy and paste the following link) http://www.winstondavis.com/clips/BoilerMaker_TrlrV1.mp4


Collaborations with Ledges and Bones Dance Company. I created an ambient infused score in four sections for Departures From Common choreographer Holly Johnston’s Ledges and Bones Dance Company’s premiere at the Ford Ampitheater in Los Angeles in June 2007. Two works from that score, Passengers and They're Here! may appear on my next CD.  I also served as a guest artist for Ledges and Bone’s SummerLAB Dance Intensive during May 2007 where for the first time ever for me I restricted myself to only performing with electronics (computer and synthesizers) in real time. Music I created for choreographer Holly Johnson’s Ledges and Bones dance company's Evidence [Embedded] premiered at Diavolo Space in Los Angeles during the month of November, 2006 was performed again March 9-11, 2007.


Upcoming CD! I’ve been working on a new CD, my 4th, hopefully, to be released in the not too distant future as well as a collection of re-mixes, most requested works and stuff I like. One of the pieces on it called You Knew features snippets uttered by Rep Heather Wilson R-N.M. during the Congressional Hearings on Indecency part of the aftermath of Janet Jackson’s so-called “wardrobe malfunction”during the Superbowl. Interesting how this Republican’s moral outrage doesn’t appear to extend to her Gun Lobby backers…You know I just can't resist using the words of various Repulican public figures as source material but, in my experience, I've found that hypocrisy spans all ideological orientations.


2007 was also a year in which I worked on several projects which fused lyrical piano writing with sound processing and voice in collaboration with student choreographer’s at Loyola Marymount University. Re-mixed versions of one or two of these pieces which premiered at LMU in April 2007 may also show up on my new CD. 


My music and sound design was be part of A Stretch of Life: views of the Vaigai River in South India.  This is and audio-visual installation by myself along with renowned author/cultural anthropologist Peter Nabokov and Indian musician/composer J. Rajasekaran first presented at UCLA’s Glorya Kaufman Hall in February 2007 and will be presented as a two month long installation during the Fall of 2007 at Gavilan College near Santa Cruz, California.


At the 2007 ACDFA Southwest Regional Conference music by David Karagianis accompanied works representing three of Southern California’s schools: Loyola Marymount University, UCLA and Moorpark College in adjudicated performances!


Music by David Karagianis created for The Post Natyam Collective’s Meet The Goddess received performances in Bangalore, India on December 2006, as part of The Other Festival in Chennai, India, December 2006, as well as in Prague during the month of September 2006.


On November 2, 2006 David performed as a percussionist in composer Robert Een’s collaboration with choreographer Kristen Smiarowski’s GROUNDSWELL: a site-specific dance for the Ballona Freshwater Marsh, presented by Loyola Marymount University's 2006 Bellarmine Forum on Environmental Responsibility.



An hour long ambient score as well as a sound installation performed live by David Karagianis created for performance artist Denise Uyehara’s The Museum: Bones of occupation, war and (mis)translation premiered as part of the COLA 2006 Individual Artist Fellowship Exhibit in Los Angeles in April, 2006.


Music by David Karagianis was featured in choreographer John Penningtons’s Hearing Change performed at the Lester Hortons Award’s at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood, California in April, 2006.

Iyanu, a score David Karagianis created for Nigerian choreographer Bode Lawal’s Manchester, England based Sakoba Dance Theatre, received various performances in 2006 included critically acclaimed performances at The Place in London in March 2006.


Music and sound design by David Karagianis was featured in two new works by choreographer Jose Reynoso as part of Border Zones which premiered in March 2006 at the Glorya Kaufman Dance Theater as part of the UCLA Department of World Arts and Culture’s MFA Upstarts Series.

At The Door is a score in which rock meets electronica I composed for a short dance film by Liam Clancy created in late 2004. This film premiered at UCLA in January 2005 and will be shown in upcoming film festivals including Dance Camera West at REDCAT in Los Angeles on June 18, 2005.

David has recently completed sound design work on two works by choreographer David Rousseve, Bittersweet a short film created in collaboration with Roberta Shaw, which premiered at Dance Camera West at REDCAT in Los Angeles on June 18, 2005, and Slaves in Love which premeired in Washington DC during Spring 2005. Bittersweet was screened at several addtional Dance For Camera Festivals in the US during 2006 including Dance On Camera at Lincoln Center, New York in January 2006, University of Michigan's Fifth Annual Dance On Camera Festival, in Ann Arbor in March 2006, and at Dance on Camera presented by Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia in September 2006.

Flux is an electro-acoustic chamber work comprised of multiple sampled acoustic quitars composed for choreographer Maria Gillespie premiered at UCLA in 2004. Flux (9:10) is available on David's Brave New Age CD. 

Eggs and Bones a 61-minute score for an installation/performance from The Museum of Human Beings,  by Denise Uyehara, with choreography by Taisha Paggett. at Highways Performance Space for the 18th Street Arts Center BIG open house, Santa Monica, CA. Also created sound design for Denise Uyehara's Mammoths/Itoman from The Museum of Human Beings -REDCAT Studio, Los Angeles.
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Terra Incognita was 20-minute dance-theater score in four parts David created for choreographer J’aime Morrison premeired at Cal State Northridge, Northridge, CA, 2003. Terra Incognita (5:01), adapted from the larger score is available on David's Brave New Age CD. S

The Living Room Project is a 40+ minute score created in collaboration with composer Robert Kaplan for A Ludwig Dance Theatre premiered at Tempe Performing Arts Center, Tempe, Arizona, 2003.  One track from that collaboration Brave New Age (7:20) is the title track  on David's CD Brave New Age. An arrangement of several other sections from The Living Room Project is available on Rob Kaplan's Then and Now, vol. 1 SD 2004-2.

Meet The Goddess is a multiple section dance theater piece created by Anjali Tata (choreographer/director) which premiered at Highways, Santa Monica, in 2002. Corridors (6:16) and Mirror Meditation (4:15)-two works created by David from Meet The Goddess- are available on his Brave New Age CD.

Originally created for a dance work by choreographer Erica Rebollar called Hunter/Hunted which premiered at Highways, Santa Monica, in 2002, David's score Predator (4:37) is available on his Brave New Age CD.

Scape is a sound score David created as part of a site-specific installation created by choreographer/director Alesia Young's held at the Kinross Building, UCLA, 2002.

Generations is a multiple piano score David re-worked from an earlier piece for Pat Catterson (choreographer) which premiered at St. Marks Church, New York, 2000.
"At St. Mark's Church last week, the program with Pat Catterson & Tina Croll was stupendous--and David Karagianis even had a memorable pivotal movement role in his own piece. Pat Catterson credited David with wonderful musical advice for her part in the entire program." Generations is available on Without Words SD 2000-1. Pat Catterson's choreography featuring this score will premiere as part of Utah Reperatory Dance Theater's reperatory in Salt Lake City on October 4, 2004.
-Katherine Teck author of Ear Training for the Body-A Dancer’s Guide To Music
"…Catterson’s 1999 "Generations", to a lively score by David Karagianis…
-Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice
"It is so wonderful to work with someone with David’s intelligence, knowledge, breadth, standards, wit, integrity, and sensitivity. He is not just an academic. He is an artist". 
-Pat Catterson, Choreographic Faculty, The Julliard School

David's musique concrete score Deadline was part of choreographer Sen Hea Ha's  Elysium at theFest der Kontinente, Munich, Germany, 2001.

Open House Concept, music, text, 6-channel installation and choreography by David Karagianis, premiered as part of The Last Big Event UCLA, Kaufman Hall Los Angeles, 2001.

Machine Music renamed My Process was created for choreographer Rebecca Bryant's MFA Thesis which premiered at Kaufman Hall, UCLA, 2001.
Listen: My Process (2:36) is available on David's Brave New Age CD. My Process is a variation on David's piece Big Business a track available on his Without Words CD. 

Free-range Chicken is an electronic score David adapted for Lineage choreographer Sen Hea Ha's work for the Gedung Kesenian Jakarta International Festival, 2000. Free-range Chicken (5:44) is available on David's Without Words CD.

David's chamber work for piano and vibraphone Chains received performances led by Kostas Theodorakos inAthens, Greece, 2000. David's electro-acoustic realization of Chains (9:27) is available on his Brave New Age CD.
"David Karagianis’ "Chains" for piano and vibraphone never strays from its repetitive jazzy rhythms, but the tintinnabular tinklings that suggest water droplets- syncopating in the rain- evolve well beyond its sunny minimalist beginnings." 
- David Buendler, The Pasadena Star-News
"The composition {"Chains" by David Karagianis} has been skillfully crafted…"
-John R. Raush, Percussive Arts Journal

The tracks Urchin, and The Witch's Dance are pieces adapted from  choreographer Sen-Hea Ha's larger works also titled Urchin and The Witch's Dance which received performances in Hamburg, Berlin and Munich, Germany, 1999-2000. Urchin (2:23) and The Witch's Dance are available on David's Without Words CD.
"Sen Hea Ha’s…. {performance featured}… exquisite dramatic work by David Karagianis and György Ligeti." 
-Malve Gradinger, Münchner Merkur.
"David Karagianis’ original percussive music provided the perfect complement to this evocation of women’s roles, as Ha alternated between spare, ascetic moves and the dreamlike quiverings of her slight body." 
–Victoria Looseleaf, The Los Angeles Times


David's score Morning of the World was adapted for a short film titled At the Edge by Sharon Kinney (director/choreographer), which premiered at UCLA in 1999. Morning of the World is available on David's Timeless CD.

Rain a section of David's score Creation created for the Dance Festival des artes de Saint-Sauveur, Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts, Québec, 1998 appears on David's Without Words CD.

Into The Light, part of David's score to
A Matter of Time New York based choreographer Janis Brenner's work which chosen to be part of the American College Dance Festival Eighth National Festival "Gala", Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, Washington D.C., 1998.
Into the Light (6:14) is available on David's CD Timeless. P"The movements of one half of each couple seemed controlled by the passage of time, thanks to David Karagianis’ score {"A Matter of Time" for Janis Brenner & Dancers} of metronome and clock sounds."
-The Morning Call, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
"This quartet {"A Matter of Time"} is buoyed, like all the dancers on Brenner’s concert... by David Karagianis’ sensitive, breathy score." 
-Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice

Between Earth and Heaven a 19-minute score featuring cello, piano and ambient sound design created in collaboration with choreographer Kathryn Eggert premiered at UCLA in May 1996 inspired by the Viegland Sculptural Garden in Oslo, Norway. Kathryn Eggert (choreographer) UCLA Dance Company, Theater 200, Los Angeles, 1996. Most recent performances with ensemble Tanz in, Zurich, Switzerland in December 1998. Between Earth and Heaven (19:19) is available on David's Timeless CD.



Episodes of the Heart is a score David created for Portraits an evening of choreography by UCLA MFA Lauren Winslow-Kearns as part of the "Upstart Series" at UCLA in February 1998. "Episodes.." is a 17-minute work in four sections combining power funk, fusion, world music, jazz and blues elements. Eventual Fruit (6:50) a track adapted from that score is available on David's Without Words CD. 


May Day! May Day! is a score David composed for Ananda Ray (choreographer) Ark III Dance Company, Dean Lesher Regional Theater, Walnut Creek, California 1997, which also received performances in September 2001.


mud floors; glass ceilings. Live electronics with Rob Kaplan (electric guitarist) The Icehouse Phoenix, Arizona, 1997.

As part of SOUND DANCE, the International Guild of Musicians Conference at Arizona State University in early January 1997, David directed and composed Sound Dance...a live and taped music score and sound installation for a site-specific work at the Nelson Fine Arts Complex on the grounds of Arizona State University. The performance featured percussionists Tigger Benford, Skip LaPlante and Stacey Fox, dancer-choreographers Elina Mooney and Deena Burton and visual artist Dee Sparrow.
"[In]Sound-Dance, a site-specific performance with music by David Karagianis, choreography by Elina Mooney... Music is air in motion, a dance of its own. Dance is movement in rhythm, music unto itself. When the two come together, all sorts of relationships flourish."
- Kenneth LaFave, The Arizona Republic


Matrix. Composition and live 8-channel sound installation for choreographer-visual artist Nina Kaufman’s evening length multi-media work premiered at the UCLA New Wight Art Gallery in December 1997.


Everyman At The Mall. Composition and sound design originally created for Cornerstone Theater’s site-specific production of Everyman set and utilizing the visual and aural attributes of Santa Monica Place-a large shopping mall in Santa Monica, California in 1995 completed its second critically acclaimed run in several malls in Southern California during Fall 1997. 
"David Karagianis’ superlative sound design {"Everyman in the Mall" for Cornerstone Theater} was essential..." 
-F.X.Feeney, Los Angeles Times


Storyteller. Score for piano and narrator to choreography by Angelia Leung and Text by Ruth Gendler for Chopsticks and Sneakers performances at Footwork in San Francisco in December, 1996 and Redlands University in February,1997.
"For my own dance collective, chopsticks and sneakers, David and I worked collaboratively in my choreographic work, resulting in a wonderful score and collaborative experience which I do not think I will ever be able to duplicate".
-Angelia Leung, Vice Chair, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures. 



Threshold a 24 minute music-dance video, completed in July 1996, was created in collaboration with director Danny Kaufman and choreographer Doug Neilsen. In September, 1996 Threshold won a Gold Plaque in the Arts & Culture category of Intercom, the Chicago based International Communication Film & Video Festival. David's complete score Threshold (23:48) is available on his Timeless CD. Additionally re-mixed, stand alone versions of Running, Spirit Dance and Beyond the Threshold from that score are available on David's Without Words CD.


Cage, a twenty- minute, four movement electronic score combining elements of musique concréte, heavy metal, and minimalism that David composed for choreographer William Gordon received its premiere with Dance Theater of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon in March 1995. Cage (5:16), Section 1 of the original score, is available on David's Without Words CD.
"The most evocative piece in the concert was William Gordon’s "Cage". [David Karagianis’] electronic music created an unrelentingly harsh urban environment." 
-Patricia Knaus, The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon


2 Places, 3 Songs. Settings incorporating Celtic and Irish folk melodies premiered with Rose Polsky & Dancers, sung by Stacey Tappan and featuring dancer Janet Eilber premiered at the Luckman Theater at Cal State Los Angeles in October 1995.
"So did the notable and strong guest artists for whom Polsky created difficult solos-Janet Elber (Two Places, Three Songs")... Live singers included Stacey Tappan (Scottish songs, arranged discreetly by David Karagianis)".
-Chris Pasles, Los Angeles Times