Length: 3 minutes
Composed: 2019
Commissioned By: New England Conservatory for the dedication of the Robert Ceely Electronic Music Studio.
Premiere: April 17, 2019. NEC Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theatre. Boston, MA

Program Note: Fringe Beliefs was written for the renaming of New England Conservatory’s Electronic Music Studio in honor of Robert Ceely, a longtime faculty member in electronic music and composition. For the occasion, NEC commissioned a selection of electronic works from a mixture of alumni and current students, to which I contributed this short work for electric guitar and electronics.

The electronics consist of a number of short samples, mostly drawn from classic rock tracks, put together into a fast-paced collage meant to blur the lines between the live player and the electronics. In performance it should sound as if all of these different sounds are somehow emanating from the guitar which has been transformed into a strange magical conjuring tool capable of producing an even wider array of sounds than usual.