Max Gibson is a British-Irish composer, writer, and educator
based in Northern California, whose work spans concert music,
multimedia, electronic music, and theatre. At UC Davis, he is
pursuing a Ph.D. in Music Composition and Theory, with emphases
in Science and Technology Studies, Studies in Performance and
Practice, and Environmental Humanities.
His projects have been performed and presented internationally in
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Slovenia,
Sweden, Turkey, the USA, and across the UK.
Drawing on medievalism, architecture, industrialism, astronomy
and astrology, as well as the natural world, he is musically
interested in expanded time, line and counterpoint, sound
massing, the act of listening, and with configuring the space of
performance and spectatorship through interdisciplinary
approaches to composition.
Max currently studies composition with Kurt Rohde, and
harpsichord with Faythe Vollrath. His musical journey has been
guided by teachers and mentors including Mika Pelo, Pablo Ortiz,
Rolf Hind, Antoine Beuger, Ron Kuivila, Paula Matthusen, Howard
Skempton, Michael Zev Gordon, Scott Wilson, and Michael Finnissy,
among others.
He is also an avid cook and enjoys experimenting with food as
much as he does sound.
Graduate student composer Max Gibson along with collaborator
Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambaksh (Librettist) will see the premiere of
their short opera Leonard as part of Jewellery
Quarter Festival in late July. The work was commissioned by
the Birmingham
Opera Company in the United Kingdom.
