Christopher Luna-Mega
Christopher Luna-Mega is a composer and improviser from Mexico City. Interested in focused listening, performance strategies, audio technology, and interdisciplinary collaboration, his work analyzes sounds and data from natural and urban environments and translates them into notated music for performers and electronics in various forms of media.
His research on acoustic ecology and environmental sound-based composition has been presented and published in the proceedings of the Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research conference and the Jefferson Journal.
Christopher Luna-Mega received a Ph.D. and M.A. in music composition and computer technologies from the University of Virginia; M.A. in composition from Mills College; B.M. in composition at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México –UNAM, Mexico City; and B.A. in film/communication theory at the Universidad Iberoamericana –UIA, Mexico City. He is an Assistant Professor of music composition, audio technology, and theory at the School of Music and Dance at San José State University.
Waves Break Aural Shores
Waves Break Aural Shores -portrait of Puerto Marqués, for soprano saxophone, electronics and film (2022/23)
"Within the imperfect circle of his optical universe, the perfection of that oscillatory motion formulated promises that the unrepeatable oneness of each wave condemned to not be kept."
-Alessandro Baricco, Ocean Sea.
This piece is an exploration of the varying ways in which human and technological perception can understand reality. Waves Break Aural Shores was written using various spectral analyses of the sound of the ocean in Puerto Marqués, in the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Each analysis utilizes a specific resolution, register and loudness threshold, which result in different music notations and instrumental techniques. This leads to the notion of different versions of reality (waves)through the multiplicity and variability of perception (aural shores). Underlying the technique and theory behind the piece, my attempt is to translate the breath and pulse of the breaking waves, to reach inside the heart of another vastness.
-Christopher Luna-Mega