Compositions

• The Edge of the World (orchestra)
• Gabon (jazz ensemble)
• Saga for Clarinet (Cl+Fl+Hn+Vn+Vc)
• Hills Roll By (orchestra + tenor)
• Who else gains trouble at her doorstep? (voice + strings)
• Suite for Hydraulophone (orchestra + concert hydraulophone)
• After Hours (film score)
• October Alchemy Beckons (hydr.12+Cl+IrishWhistle - can be performed by separate people, but it is physically possible for one person to do, with 2 hands and 2 feet, as proven in Calgary)
• Mennonite Hymns in Flight (Cl)
• Snowflake (Fl+Cl)
• Power (dramatic sketches with piano + Irish whistle + electronics)
• Stray (andantephone interfaced to pipe organ)
• Become (piano+voice)
• Fidelia (piano)
• Evershadow (water-hammer hydr.)
• Sketch for two pencils (Cl+Hydr)
• Changing spirit of an oxbow lake (violin+hydr)
• Swivel (piano+keyboard+pedals+looper+whistle+accelerometer)
• Sentindet Facing Her Echo (Fl+Alto)
• Hanadagá:yas (Iroquois, "Town Destroyer")
• We harbour force in the waves / With my little eye / In the workshop (electronics+voice+projection)
• In the land where secrets bloom
• Namaiye (voices+voice in the African vocal tradition)
• Vox [26 Fe] (voice of iron: Ferro) (2 solo voices, orchestra, custom suspended percussion)
• Word of the Departed (orchestra + 3 solo voices + chorus)
• Her hair flows (jazz ensemble + didgeridoo + voice)
• I disarm you (hydr. + Inuit throat singers + solo voice + percussion + electronics

Music destined for next CD:

• Become (piano+voice)
• Fidelia (piano)
• Ritual - ominous intro (electroacoustic)
• Hills Roll By (from Ritual)
• Who else gains trouble at her doorstep? (from Ritual) - make this version have **whispering** to fill in the first section
• The clan calling -- or something big and orchestral/choral (from Ritual)
• Clarinet piece - either Mennonite Hymns in Flight, or Meditations
• Snowflake - Laura and Ryan (have a poor-quality recording from concert)
• Saga for Clarinet no.3 -- Peter Stoll
• Fifteen cats in heat
• She's Like the Swallow - hydr. solo, or accomp. from other hydr., with Larissa K
• Changing spirit of an oxbow lake -- Yi-Ting?
• Fauré, Sicilienne - hydr. solo
• Huron Carol (arr. for hydr.)

Music destined for 2nd next CD:

• her hair flows (upbeat, needs fast percussionist)
• Gabon
• Power/Vox Fe. (pronounced Vox Ferro - voice of iron) (from Ritual)
• Word of the Departed (from Ritual)
• choral piece - St. Thomas church, or Pax Christi Chorale
• Five little apples are important to me
• Schubert, Ave Maria - (arr. for hydr., voice)
• Walking in the air (arr. for hydr.) (reminder to manage copyright issue)
• Suite for Hydraulophone - with Jamie, Max, etc.

Music Arrangements

• Oxford boar's head carol - SATB, to be performed annually at Knox College, University of Toronto, 2008-
• Walking in the Air (Howard Blake) - hydraulophone duet (with Steve Mann), 2007
• Huron Carol - hydraulophone solo, 2007.12
• She's Like the Swallow (trad.) - hydraulophone solo, 2008, revised 2011 (with percussion, fast section, at ROM)
• Fauré, Sicilienne - hydraulophone solo, (early version 2009); completed 2011

Ryan Janzen's compositions have been performed internationally in Canada, the United States, Denmark and China. As co-organizer of 11 live concerts and producer of 3 albums, he has collaborated extensively with musicians, orchestras, and interdisciplinary researchers. Janzen's work embodies a fusion between art and science that comes naturally: Janzen's scientific research has led to advances in acoustics, aerospace engineering, and electric vehicle propulsion, and was awarded a federal grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. His music research is published in eight international music publications. After founding a technology consulting company in elementary school, Janzen worked on the award-winning film Commedia Fantasia (winner of the 2002 Houston International Film Festival Gold Medal Award in performing arts), and has since produced an array of art music, film music, orchestral and choral compositions, performance art, and high-tech performances that push the limits of art and science.

Janzen's interplay between music, sound and acoustics is driven by a passion for ethereal wonder and dramatic narrative. Janzen's compositions are often dark and "grandly introspective." His experimental works have been documented internationally. Janzen in 2006 was the world's first composer to create music for hydraulophone, an exotic instrument which is played by touching jets of water. Janzen developed a new expressive performance style and (along with inventor Steve Mann) a new musical notation which gives the performer access to a never-before-seen ability: polyphonic embouchure, brought into existence by hydraulophones.

His film scores also include "Ritual", an eerie film/concert performance in which audience and performers are left in pitch dark. Janzen's compositions have been commissioned recently for a grand-opening of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind in Alberta, and for the Marshall Fels Elliott short film "After Hours". His compositions have been performed at the Music Gallery in Toronto, NIME in New York City, and the Vandkulturhuset in Denmark.

Fusion between music and science is also Janzen's thrust as an invited lecturer internationally at courses and conventions alike. Samples of his work can be heard/seen at:
   ryanjanzen.ca/composing

Bio for RJ+hydraulophone

The hydraulophone is a newly-invented instrument played by direct physical contact with pressurized water, where expressive music is generated by turbulent fluid flow inside the instrument. It is the world's first instrument in which sound is produced directly from matter in the liquid state, rather than a solid or gas (strings and percussion make sound from solid matter whereas wind instruments make sound from gas). The hydraulophone was invented by Professor Steve Mann and has received recent attention at the Ontario Science Centre and the Smithsonian Institute.

Ryan Janzen, a composer, and Engineering Ph.D. student at UofT, has created the first repertoire for hydraulophone and orchestra. Janzen introduced the musical world to the hydraulophone's compositional possibilities with pieces requiring expressive capabilities not possible on any other instrument. Janzen's new works for hydraulophone have been performed in New York, Toronto, and Copenhagen, Denmark.

Bio for ISTAS 2013

Ryan Janzen applies principles of electrical engineering and physics to diverse fields, from biological research, to fluid dynamics and aerospace, to music and acoustics. Janzen's scientific research has led to advances in signal processing, acoustics, aerospace engineering, and electric vehicle propulsion, and has been awarded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Canada. With nineteen international peer-reviewed publications, he does research and teaching as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto, with Steve Mann.

Janzen is, in parallel, a composer of orchestral music. Performed internationally, his concert and film music has been featured at the World Expo in Shanghai, screened in Italy and Slovenia, and aired on Canadian and Danish national broadcasts. Janzen was the first composer to score music for hydraulophone, a new instrument causing resonance in water. As music director of 19 live concerts and producer of 3 albums, he has collaborated extensively with musicians, orchestras, and interdisciplinary researchers, at the nexus of art and science. Janzen has lectured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and has given 18 talks at international conferences on engineering, science and music, and their interface to humanity.

Website · Research · Composing

Bio grist

Alternate text: Recent music has been commissioned by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind in Alberta and Marshall Fels Elliott Animations in Vancouver. His film scores also include "Ritual", a total-immersion film/concert performance in which audience and performers are left in pitch dark. His compositions have been performed at the Music Gallery in Toronto, NIME in New York City, and the Vandkulturhuset in Denmark.

Ryan Janzen is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto.

A composer of orchestral music, Ryan Janzen's compositions have been performed internationally in Canada, the United States, Denmark and China. As co-organizer of 11 live concerts and producer of 3 albums, he has collaborated extensively with musicians, orchestras, and interdisciplinary researchers. His scientific research, awarded a federal grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, bridges across engineering and physics. After founding a technology consulting company in elementary school, his work in engineering and science has been commissioned by clients including Environment Canada, ranging all the way to Gina Lori Riley Dance Enterprises, designing special effects technology for a motion picture, winning the 2002 Houston International Film Festival Gold Medal Award in performing arts. As an invited lecturer at courses and conventions alike, his talks have been received internationally.

Janzen's compositions have been commissioned recently for a grand-opening of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind in Alberta, and for the Marshall Fels Elliott short film "After Hours". His film scores also include "Ritual", a total-immersion film/concert performance in which audience and performers are left in pitch dark.

Samples can be heard at:    http://individual.utoronto.ca/janzen/composing

Alternate text: Recent music has been commissioned by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind in Alberta and Marshall Fels Elliott Animations in Vancouver. His film scores also include "Ritual", a total-immersion film/concert performance in which audience and performers are left in pitch dark. His compositions have been performed at the Music Gallery in Toronto, NIME in New York City, and the Vandkulturhuset in Denmark.

other fields:

• human-machine interfaces, user-interfaces
• biological research = {bioacoustics(animals), human perception={acoustics,music,aerospace,cartography}, ophthalmology}
• engineering, science and music, and their interface to humanity

Musical collaborations

Commissions:

• filmmaker Marshall Fels Elliott, soundtrack for short film
• CNIB, composition premiered at a concert attended by Ralph Klein (former Premier of Alberta)
• National Capital Commission, Opening Ceremony for Winterlude 2010, concert performances, $8000/$10000 (funding new technology for the concert)
• National Capital Commission, Canada Day 2010, installation art, $2500 (shared with Steve Mann)
• Majlis Arts Collective, Toronto. concert design, music direction, performances 2010.07.09-10
• Royal Ontario Museum, "Sketch for two pencils", premiered 2011.07.09-10 (total concert+demos totalled $1500)
• Discovery Channel / PS Productions = $300 for on-camera interview and performing 20-second excerpt of "October Alchemy Beckons".
• Queen's University / TEI 2012 = $1000 for Musical Keynote (they also gave $1000 to Mann for technology presentation)
• National banquet of Canadian Mennonite Magazine: New compositions of Janzen.
• RBC Blue Water Project. 2012. $3000 to composer, musicans and equipment. $500 remaining to RJ.
• Digifest 2015.
• (for full list, ask.)

Listed performances of fixed-duration pieces:

• Suite for Hydraulophone, New York
• Stray
• Oxbow Lake at DOT
• Digifest 2015 (4 pieces)

Acknowledgements in Research

[105] Bolt, Laura M. (2014), "Male-specific use of the purr in the ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta)". Folia Primatologica 85(4): 201-214. DOI: 10.1159/000363057

[104] Bolt, Laura M. (2013), "Squealing rate indicates dominance rank in the male ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta)". American Journal of Primatology 75(12): 1174-1184. DOI: 10.1002/ajp.22179 *author photography credit for cover photo of this issue

[103] Bolt, Laura M. (2013), "The function of howling in the ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta)". International Journal of Primatology 34(1): 157-169. DOI: 10.1007/s10764-012-9654-8

[102] Steve Mann (2012), "Hydraulikos: nature and technology and the centre for cyborg-environment interaction (CEI)", Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction (TEI2012), February 19-22, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, pp. 29-32 [PDF].

[101] Ernest Chun Yue Ho (2011), "If you want to be slow you have to be fast: Control of Slow Population Activities by Fast-spiking Interneurons via Network Multistability", Ph.D. dissertation.[Link]

[100] Bolt, Laura M. (2010), "Applying Human Interactive and Communicative Theories to Ringtailed Lemur (Lemur catta) Communication. vis-à-vis: Explorations in Anthropology 10(1): 3-20. [ link ]

Mentors

• the late Ted C. Grunau (founder of Intelex Technologies and CEO of GEAC Corporation (sold in 2006 for US$1 billion)
• Steve Mann (inventor of wearable computing at MIT, University of Toronto)
• Allen Bahn (worked with Robert Oppenheimer at Princeton (an inspiring person in spite of my opposition to nuclear weapons proliferation))
• Hiroshi Ishii (MIT Media Lab)
• Narayan Kar (founder: Chargelabs.ca)

Collaborations

• Brad Bass, International Panel on Climate Change (awarded the Nobel Peace Price) [website]

Worked on other art pieces:

• "Ambient Walk", Ed Janzen, 2012: New Media Installation, Performance. Created at Nuit Blanche, Toronto, 2012. [Site] [Real-time tracking archive.]

Other coverage

• Blog: "Weird but Real Musical Instruments"
• Gadgetoff 2009 Flickr video
• (The Toronto Star, 2009.08.29 "Water organ inventor goes with the flow")
• RJ interviewed on camera, hydraulophone explanation, then Fauré Sicilienne, 2010.03.05
• EYEBEAM Art+Technology Center, New York: blog 20??.10.12
• NHK Japan Broadcasting Corp. 2012.10.19 interview of Steve Mann by Hajime Yoshino (business and technology correspondent in New York), RJ explained the content to the interviewer and producer Rosa Sobrino, before Mann arrived.