Tim Brady is at the top of a small cadre of guitarists composing what might be called modern classical or new music for electric guitar. His pieces include ones for solo electric and loopers, 100 and 200 electric guitars, electric guitar and orchestra, electric guitar quartet, electric guitar and voices…you get the idea. Check out out our previous chat here and here. And get the new three album set, Actions Speak Louder, here.
It is said that a great artist is not the best of their kind but the only one of their kind. By that metric Tim Brady is truly great. He is currently the only one I know of composing music for guitar ensembles measuring in the hundreds. Here is his latest, recorded remotely, as one does these days. Read more about Tim here and here.
Tim Brady is one of the premier composers of might be called the new classical canon for electric guitar. He largely does ensemble work ranging from quartets to groups of 200. Last year I went to his home of Montreal to write about him for Guitar Player and garnered enough additional material for a two part Guitar Moderne interview here and here.
As is typical during this lockdown, Brady and his group, Instruments of Happiness, are offering a remote performance of one of his pieces. He also answered some questions about the process.
Last year, I interviewed James Moore from the Dither Guitar Quartet around the time he released his record performing the entirety of John Zorn’s The Book of Heads. This set me on a path examining the place of the electric guitar in contemporary “classical” music. I recently posted a two-part interview with Tim Brady, where we discussed this fascinating (at least to me) subject. With this month’s release of Dither’s fantastic record, Potential Differences [New Focus Recordings], I deemed it time to talk to one of the Quartet’s founders, Taylor Levine, about how they manage to make the electric guitar sound like a natural vehicle for modern composed music. Again, the conversation ranged wide and so there will be a Part II. Please subscribe to find out when the post goes up.
In February of 2019, I was flown up to Montreal to cover composer/guitarist Tim Brady’s evening of 150 guitars for Guitar Player. You can read my coverage and interview about that here and see a sample below. Inspired by my conversation with Dither’s James Moore, after we finished Tim’s GP interview, I restarted the recorder for a wide ranging dialogue about the state of the electric guitar in today’s classical world. We covered a lot of ground so I broke it up into two posts. You can start with Part I here, but it is not necessary.