JACK LANGDON

is an experimental composer, filmmaker, and writer who was born in 1994 and is a citizen of the sault ste. marie tribe of chippewa indians.

[archive and documentation of past performances can be found here]

UPCOMING EVENTS

3.8.26

Jack Langdon (bibigwan), Luke Martin (tone generator), Jeff Kimmel (clarinet), Graham Stephenson (trumpet)
Frequency Series at Constellation
Chicago, IL

3.17.26

performance of “Fish Laying Egg in a Circle” by Brightwork Ensemble
Tuesdays at Monk Space
Los Angeles, CA

5.14.26

performance of new work for clarinet by Zach Good
Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

BIOGRAPHY, CV, CONTACT

PHOTO BY HANNAH KRUSE

A Family of Things Rendered as Magic Chords
a book of harmony, images, and stories
work in-progress

Created as the first print project of Empty Stage Editions, A Family of Things Rendered as Magic Chords arose from a desire to return to the building blocks of music and to find new paths not taken in the canon of modern tuning systems. The book arose from a questioning in my own work regarding the basis of the harmonic languages I utilize and the imperatives towards “rationality” and “systematicity” in various tuning systems available. Rather than seeking legitimacy in performative pragmatism (keyboard temperments, EDOs) or scientistic schemas (extended just intonation), I radically center my own empirical listening capacity in constructing a series of harmonies based on the unmeasured tuning of tones. Through this method, specious forms of musical universality and theoretical generalizations are avoided. This book acts as a harmonic, pictorial, and narrative companion to my work as a composer—constructing an annex where sound, things in the world, and meaning coalesce.

This work is an attempt towards concieving a system of “non-harmony” through a rejection of various a priori axioms properly understood to be the grounding for most systems of harmony.

Category
Writing