Hassan Estakhrian
Composer | Performer | Songwriter | Music Technologist | Intermedia Artist | Producer
Representative Works
Butterflies in Disguise (2023)
Tracks:
1. Danger is Over
2. Up in the Sky
3. Susie You’re an Angel
4. Escape This Paradigm
5. Hints of Wonder
6. Rise and Shine
7. Don’t Pinch Me Now
8. Keep My Head
9. Good Memories
10. One in a Zillion
This album serves as an examination of our ever-growing dependency on technology, how the digital world brings about excessive noise and stifles room for wonder, and how we cope nostalgically, yearning for a simpler time. The title represents an interplay between nature and technology within the music, where acoustic elements become disguised by technology through digital transformation. The title references the opening lyric of the theme song from Reading Rainbow, an influential television show from my childhood. As part of the production process, I worked in the recording studio with musicians exploring various music production strategies such as live arranging, recording the outcome of musical games and structured improvisation, and placing musicians in custom designed virtual environments to influence musical responses. With the addition of many overdubs of vocals and multiple instruments from me and other musicians, the audio material was then digitally sculpted and transformed into an album of ten tracks.
Musickers of Our Time (short film excerpt)
Musickers of Our Time (live theatrical debut- full)
Now more than ever musickers must be at their absolute prime to compete in this saturated world of noisemakers. What you are about to witness is just a glimpse into the training process of these brave musical warriors.
Music, Words, and Story by Hassan Estakhrian
Musickers performed by Samantha Bounkeua, Nina Guo, Madison Greenstone, Max Murray, Weston Olencki, and Mattie Barbier.
Narrator, Jeremiah Miller
Wild Living
Wild Living (2020) for six voices was composed from field recordings of birds and other wild life. I listened through these field recordings at extremely slow playback rate. Much like the speech-to-song illusion where points of speech can sound like a melody, I discovered interesting moments of music that were then approximated to pitches and duration values and used as musical motives for the piece. This recording was performed by Variant 6 and mixed by me.