KEN UENO

Winner of the 2006-2007 Rome Prize, Ken Ueno, is an internationally performed composer who actively involves himself in a wide range of activities in order to evangelize for modern music (including producing and hosting a television show about new music). Informed by his experience as an electric guitarist and overtone singer, his music fuses the culture of Japanese underground electronic music with an awareness of European modernism. In an effort to feature inherent qualities of sound such as beatings, overtones, and artifacts of production noise, Ken’s music is often amplified and uses electronics. The dramatic discourse of his music is based on the juxtaposition of extremes: visceral energy versus contemplative repose, hyperactivity versus stillness. Ken holds degrees from Berklee College of Music, Boston University, the Yale School of Music, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is a co-founder/co-director of the Minimum Security Composers Collective and is the vocalist in the experimental improvisation group Onda and the noise/avant-rock group Blood Money. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Electronic Music Studios at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor at the Berklee College of Music.