Revision of stephen santillan's portfolio from Mon, 11/29/2021 - 22:22

About Stephen

Baltimore City

I am a multi-instrumentalist and composer who was born in Quezon City, Philippines. When I was seven, my family moved to Baltimore, Maryland. Initially, visual art was my practice, but I ended up switching to music after ending my short college stint. I hired a music theory tutor for a year, and took an additional 2 years of theory at a community college afterwards.

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View Stephen's Resume

Sunset at Owl's Head - music for solo performances

All the non-collaborative music I have written in the past required organizing groups of musicians to perform it. The current music trend of performing with backing tracks in a live setting was not something I intended to explore. However, the unustainable nature of hiring musicians for orchestral work, along with the opportunity to intermingle instruments that wouldn't normally be grouped together, have made the idea more intriguing. With this in mind, I started working on a perfomable solo project , which became "Sunset At Owl's Head." This approach also helped me bridge the gap between eastern and western music. Being born in the Philippines, I have always been interested in folk traditions in music. As a main performing vehicle for this project, I was exploring alternative guitar approaches that didn't use the strumming of chords, common in western pop music. Instead, I was interested in the use of eastern and western Asian techniques and modes, which I synthesized within pop structures. A guitar played this way helped me keep the live guitar elements completely enganged, to help keep balance with the non-liveness of the backing tracks. But the use of the backing tracks also allowed me to use ensemble passages to give the pieces a more modern western texture. Large group performances and non-western approaches to music are ongoing motivational factors for me, and this project is a culmination of both influences, as well as a culmination of the various approaches I have been experimenting with in other projects. I am looking forward to playing more solo shows in the future and am currently working on new music for this project.

Sleepers Find A Hole Through Time (2023)

The original idea about this project was to have a thickly layered rhythm and heavily orchestrated backing track. The live guitar would be busy to counter the invisibility of the backing track performance. The vocals were just signposts on the structure. After performing in this way for a few years, I found myself wanting to whittle down the layers and have the vocals and the lyrics dictate the structure. While contemplating how to approach this new direction, Andy Shenker asked me to participate in a night of readings called "Circles and Lines". This was written with cirlces in mind:

Sleepers Find A Hole In Time
100 Windows (2023)

written for Circles and Lines. This was written under the idea of lines and following a thread of clues.

100 Windows

I watched a hundred windows open
But saw nobody move them

I heard a sound so I looked outside
Saw no one

I had a feel of somebody falling
Who knows where it came from
So I leaned in
While listening
I sunk down to my elbows

In the woods I heard a voice call
Or was it a hundred angels
Or a hundred drums
A savage clang of thrums
A crushing fiery hum
I leaned in
It told me "um pa-pa pa pa pa pa"
They sang "um pa-pa pa pa pa pa"
Winter Peace (2024)

work in progress. Experimenting with more improvisatory techniques to structure the song against a static guitar phrase.

Scattered bract, leaves blown about and once again dark comes to us early

And the boughs left stripped, uncovered trembling with the cold cold, cold

Some straggle leaves flutter like birds frozen on bare branches

While birds below hop like foliage in a blow

And winter winds come whistling like sirens of the lonely

A frozen moon shares it strange light now

And there’s a quiet that’s sheltered from the night.

The darkness lightens surrenders up a far corner

Crackle ash and smoke shepherds apparitions

And it’s you and

me

and the winter ghost
Sunset at Owl's Head cassette

finished and released a cassette based on these set of songs
Sunset at Owl's Head (animated performance of first section)

Since the pandemic has halted possibilities of live performances, I did a hand drawn animation for the first section of the title track, to replace what would have been a record release performance. I wanted to be physically present in the performance through the lines in the drawings, instead of doing a web performance. And instead of animating singing, I drew portraits of people that have influenced me to superimposed on the blank singing figure, when the voice is present.
Sunset at Owl's Head
Red Finish
Outro
Strange Tear
live photo from Fadensonnen, February 2020

Wheatie Mattiasich

I started accompanying Wheatie for live shows in 2011, and naturally started writing songs with her. I recorded her 2013 record "Little Black Star" and co-wrote a few songs on that record. We just released an LP, "Old Glow" in January 2023 and plan on touring to support the album. One track "This Way" was spotlighted on NPR's Now Playing. We continue the collaboration and are touring to support the last record.

a cover.jpg

Old Glow LP. Released in January 2023
Wheatie live.jpg

Photo from a show at the True Vine on November 21, 2018.
This Way.mp3

This track was featured on NPR's Now Playing in January 2023
People.mp3

from "Old Glow"

No Place

"No Place" will be the fourth in a series of solo cassettes I have been releasing. The title, as well as being the beginning of "no place like home" (the bulk of these pieces were written during the lockdown of 2020 and the beginning of 2021), also refers to the pieces in this collection not fitting within the confines of the other solo projects I have been working on. Most of the music I have written have been for live performances and with the halting of live music during the pandemic, I shifted my attention to experimenting with instrumental music, either written for it's own sake or informed by a visual narrative. All the other solo cassettes have included instrumental tracks, so working this way has always been part of my practice. But this collection is an expansion of the instrumental idea withoug limiting myself to specific approaches inherent to other projects.

Winter Surf (2023).mp3

This will be the first track of the all instrumental cassette
foundling - excerpt (2022).mp3

Excerpt from a piece written to a short film
Bacchus 2022.mp3

New mix and edit from a longer score for the cassette
Wooden Walk.mp3
Scene from Seijun Suzuki's Kagero-za with 3 different incidental music
Ark

Originally written in 2016 for an art installation by Zoe Friedman's "By Land or By Sea." This piece is a loop that goes on continuously, here represented by one cycle. The music is a 2 minute loop that plays continuously. There are 2 string ensemble entrances that change the the mood from a passive rhythm to a more suggestive tone, each variation changing the mood in different ways.
Hills

This is an experiment with orchestrating one verse and one chorus of pre-existing song by Sybille Baier in an instrumental way
Walk

This was written/orchestrated for an evening where Wheatie Mattiasich and I were asked to play records and perform a set of music. The idea was a conceptually blurring between djing and performing. I wanted to perform a song that was mostly un-performable due to the highly orchestrated nature of the piece. I joined in the performance by playing along with the guitar, starting with a few phrases in the middle, and eventually joining in fully at the end. I wanted to further blur the two ideas by using a pre-existing song, but also making it my own by drastically changing the feel and mood
No Place

A work-in-progress instrumental track

Ceremony Drum

Ceremony Drum started off as a writing exercise based on an image of a pop band in the dark. I imagined a group of musicians where the view of the lead vocalist, ususally the most visible in a pp group would be obscured by darkness and by his posotion in the back of the stage. I also imagined a drummer being front and center, and only having a floor tom instead of a full drum kit, and he would be the only person standing on stage. I liked the idea of the drummer's repetitive motion being the only visible element of the live performance. From this image, I imagined what this group would sound like. At first, I was just using this as an exercies to quickly write a song to help me take a break from the more involved pieces I was working on. But after some time, I realized I had accumulated a some good songs adn decided to take this project more seriously. I put together a group to perform this live in 2019 and hope to do more shows in the future. I am still writing new material for this project.

Ceremony Drum at Current Gallery 2019
Ceremony Drum cassette

Released cassette version of Ceremony Drum project in January 2021
Some Days (2023)
Canoe
Fell Into a Room
Ceiling Fan
World Is On It's Way
In the Roses

Ghost Life

Ghost Life was an ensemble project based on mostly small rhtythmic instruments . When it first started, I wanted to combine my love of pop and ethnic music with ensemble organization. The instrumentation allowed me to put percussion up front to form its own narrative. At an age where anybody can play a single instrument and fill up a room completely with sound, I wanted all the individual sounds of the group to be tiny. I also tried to avoid any use of chord progressions, relying instead on the constanly shifting rhythmic elements and combinations to sustain interest in the pieces. I made some virtual ensemble performances to highlight the physical elements of the sound. That element is an important factor in this music and might be lost on just a listen through. After years of performances with little documentation, I wanted to have some representation that would highlight the sound generating process of the physical action.

Ghost Life - Moose

2nd virtual ensemble video for Ghost Life
Ghost Life - Hands (2018)

virtual ensemble performance video
Ghost Life cassette

Cassette release of Ghost Life and Relay project together. Release date pending due to problems with the tape transfer of the recording. But it should be out by late winter 2021.
Morning Roosters (2018)

First part of a projected cylce of 8 parts.
a3

ghost life performance at floristree. february, 2014. filmed by thomas kessler.
ghostbeat4

ghost life performance at floristree. february, 2014. filmed by thomas kessler.

Miscellaneous pieces

The constant search for inspiration leads to experimenting with ideas that don't necessarily fit in within the confines of existing project. Some pieces were written just to be its own thing project with an end.

Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner

excerpt written to a video
Saul Walk

excerpt written to a video
Looking Glass River (2021)

A setting of Robert Louis Stevensons's "Looking Glass River" for organ and chorus (here represented by MIDI sounds)
Alan Moore 2021

After working with the Officer! track, Jared Paolini, Jeff Mcgrath, and myself decided to work on a couple more tracks in the studio.
Apse Coo 2020

This was an experiment in writing a serial piece using a set of dyads to generate the composition
Relay song cycle

While working on the Ghost Life project, I started working on a drum machine driven experiment that wasn't hindered by the idea of having to perform it live. It also gave me the freedom to work outside the confines I had set for myself with Ghost Life, while using techniques I had learned from that projects. The idea is that a constantly shifting drum machine idea eventually gives way to more melodic instruments sprouting out of its rhythmic bed. There are 4 movements. Movement 1 and 2 start instrumentally, and eventually vocals come in towards the end of those sections. After the only pause in the whole cycle, Movement 3 "The Cathederal" begins. It is a completely instrumental section and leads to movement 4 "The World Is Always Disappearing", a vocal section. The dynamic between the 3rd and 4th movements mimic the instrumental/vocal song structure of movements 1 and 2.

Music for other people's projects

Music written for other people's projects

Officer! - "Strong Butler" (2023)

Written for international collaboraive project "Officer!" This is the first time I took the lead vocals in a collaborative setting, and the first instance of using the bass clarinet (which I am relatively new at) in a recording.
Crickets (2023)

Soundtrack written for 3rd collaboration with Zoe Friedman
Night Jungle (2022).mp3

Music written for an animated installation by Zoe Friedman
2018 exquite corpse soundtrack- The Adventures of Prince Achmed

On October 13, 2108, I took part in 2 live performances of an exquisite corpse soundtrack. New music was written for different sections of the film by different artists, and was performed at the Parkway Theatre. This section was written in collaboration with Emmanuel Nicolaidis playing vibraphone and floor tom. This was a home draft our section, so the vibraphone and drum is not present in this version. The video footage is still being put together at the time of this post.
Ishi's Brain (2012)

Music written for travelling puppet performance of Ishi's Brain, used to promote book by Eamon Espey, of the same name.
Children in Heat (rough mix) (2009)

Song written in collaboration with Emmanuel for "Children in Heat" a video by Deitra Thompson, based on a song by the Misfits.

Past collaborative music projects

Oh Hang 2013-2016

Oh Hang was a collaboration with Emmanuel Nicolaidis (drums, vocals) and myself (keyboards, drum machine). Pre-programmed drum machines and samples against live drums and keyboards were used to generate the music for this project. We released an album of Friends Records in 2015.
Oh Hang 2013-2016 "Conquistador Hop"
Permanent Waves 2016-2017

This was a collaboration between Emmanuel Nicolaidis (bass), Jeff Mcgrath (guitar), Christina B (vocals) and myself on drums. We recorded an album in El Paso, Tx in 2017.
Cole Tut 2014-2015

Collaborative project with Jeff Mcgrath (guitar), Lesser Gonzales (vocals), Chris Day (bass) and myself on drums. We released a cassette in 2016. Cover art by Chris Day
Cole Tut 2014-2015 "Goodness Goes"
Thank You live photo from London in 2011

I joined pre-existing band Thank You in 2011. I toured and released a single with them on Thrill Jockey Records
"Night Now Is Sleeping Soundly" (2007)

Movement 1 of 4 from the Golden Age. Golden Age was a collaborative song cycle written with Emmanuel Nicolaidis for an art opening at the Current Gallery for "Inside/Out" in 2007. It was written to find the intersection between pop songs and classical song cycles. It was performed again in 2008 as part of Whartscape.
"Western" (2007)

Movement 4 of 4 from Golden Age. Golden Age was a collaborative song cycle written with Emmanuel Nicolaidis for an art opening at the Current Gallery for "Inside/Out" in 2007. It was written to find the intersection between pop songs and classical song cycles. It was performed again in 2008 as part of Whartscape.
More Dogs 2000-2006

A studio project collaboration which turned into a live performance trio. We released 2 albums S?T (2003) and "Never Let Them Catch You Crying" (2005) on Monitor Records. We toured throughout the United States and Canada.