Chaz Underriner

Biography

Chaz Underriner (b. 1987 in Texas, USA) is a composer, intermedia artist and performer based in DeLand, Florida. Most of Underriner's work revolves around the notions of landscape and portraiture in the context of experimental music. He has composed works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, chamber and symphony orchestras, jazz combos, electronics, film, dance and choir. Underriner's work has been programmed at Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Utrecht, Holland), the Los Angeles Philharmonic's National Composer's Intensive, the Proyector International Video Art Festival (Madrid, ESP), the Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival (Hawick, Scotland), the International Computer Music Conference, the Impuls Festival (Graz, AU), the Morley College Engine Room Sound Art Exhibition (London, UK), the National Building Museum (Washington DC), the 2012 Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt (DE), the Global Composition Conference (Dieburg, DE), Ostrava New Music Days (CZ), Champ dAction's Laboratorium (Antwerp, BE), the Charlotte New Music Festival (USA), the Louisville New Music Festival (USA), Dogstar Orchestra (Los Angeles), the Texas Dance Improvisation Festival (Texas), and the American College Dance Festival Association Regional Conference (Texas). Underriner's compositions have been performed by IKTUS Percussion, Manufaktur für aktuelle Musik, the Krulik Quartet, Austin New Music Co-op, guitarist Nico Couck, the CalArts New Century Players, the UNT Baroque Orchestra, the Lewisville Lake Symphony and the Santa Clarita Master Chorale. In the US, Underriner's works have been presented at the University of North Texas, Texas State University, University of California Los Angeles, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, the University of Louisville and California Institute of the Arts. Underriner is also the recipient of several awards, including a nomination for the Gaudeamus Prize, 2nd prize in the Frank Robert Abell Young Composers Competition for New Chamber Music for nocturne series: 5, and a commission by the Santa Clarita Master Chorale for their commission competition. As a performer, Underriner plays music written before 1750 and after 1950 on multiple plucked string instruments including electric guitar, classical guitar, lute and theorbo. Underriner has performed the works of many living composers including Chaya Czernowin, Sofia Gubaidulina, Mark Applebaum, Michael Pisaro, Joseph Klein, Kirsten Broberg, Mike Winter, Mark Menzies, Josh Levine, Anastassis Philippakopoulous, Brent Farris and Travis Weller, both as a soloist and in an ensemble setting. Underriner has performed at REDCAT in Los Angeles during the Sofia Gubaidulina festival, in a chamber performance the LA Times critic Mark Swed declared "[was played with] focused abandon," in the New Zealand in LA concert series, and as a part of Deep Camp Festival and Ostrava New Music Days festival in Czech Republic. Underriner also performed at the Laboratorium 2011 Festival in Antwerp, Beligum, with Austin New Music Co-op, at the wulf in Los Angeles, at the Dallas Contemporary, with the UNT Baroque Orchestra, NOVA Ensemble and the Keith Karns Big Band. As an engineer, composer and performer, Underriner's work has been released on Edition Wandelweiser Records (Chaz Underriner reinterprets Anastassis Phillipokopoulos, EWR 1502), Task Records (Devin Disanto Tracing a Boundary), Slubmusic (Michael Pisaro/Taku Sugimoto D minor / Bb Major), New World Records (Michael Winter, Music for Plucked Strings, forthcoming), and Fleur du Son (Triopolis, forthcoming). Underriner earned a Ph.D. in music composition at the University of North Texas where he studied with Joseph Klein, Panayiotis Kokoras, David Stout and Jon Nelson. He earned an M.F.A. in composition at California Institute of the Arts where he studied primarily with Michael Pisaro and Anne LeBaron. Additionally, he is an Adjunct Professor and Audio Engineer at Grayson College, an Adjunct Professor at the Art Institute of Dallas, the Lead Engineer at the UNT College of Music Lab Recording Studio and a founder and curator of the ex mus concert series based at CentralTrak Gallery in Dallas, TX. In the fall of 2017, Underriner will begin his appointment as Assistant Professor of Digital Arts at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida.

Research Interest

Introduction to Digital Audio, Audio Production