The international experimental media duo, with performances now logged in 42 USA states--
A new CD store, called "Art into Life" in Tochigi-ken, Japan, has a complete line of all McLean CDs and a few historic LPs as well. Email Shingo Aoyagi at aon@cc9.ne.jp Additionally , a brand new CD called "Electronic Landscapes" has just been released by the Japanese company EM Records.
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Husband-wife composer/performer duo Priscilla and Barton
McLean form the McLean Mix, employing an
unusual combination of (1) audience
interactive installations or "creative playpens" through use of technology,
(2) virtuosic and evocative concerts and
lecture/performances, (3) extensive
use of visual media, and (4) specific thematic content drawing from sources
such as intriguing experimental techniques, world music, and sounds of nature.
Their versatility is evidenced by their extensive touring as full-time artists
in virtually all corners of the world for the past 20 years, after having
taught at major universities before that (see Academic
Credentials link).. Although often centering its activity around
university residencies and concerts which
serve as its mainstay, The McLean Mix is equally at home with
alternative spaces and galleries
and community arts centers and museums,
where it has developed specifically-targeted programs for urban audiences
as well as family-oriented events. Additionally, special programs have
been developed and widely implemented for university
environmental studies programs,
cultural ethnomusicology
and environmental organizations.
FUNDING: THe McLean Mix has several options for supplemental funding to help with the total fee. They sometimes receive funds from Meet the Composer (Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-America Arts Alliance), Community Connections/Heartland Art Fund (Mid-America Arts Fdn, Arts Midwest), NYS Decentralization Program, and NYS BOCES. They are also on the NYFA Artists Roster and as such available for funding in New York State. Inquire about this if applicable.
CLICK ON THE AREA WHICH BEST DESCRIBES YOUR VENUE:
University residencies, concerts,
installations ~ Alternative Spaces,
Galleries, and Museums ~ Community Arts
Centers, Concert Series, Galleries, Libraries ~
Environmental Studies Programs
First Night Saratoga ~ Modfest 2005 at Vassar College ~ Electronic Music Festival at Muhlenberg College ~ First Festival of Electroacoustic Music-Electroshock, St. Petersburg, Russia ~ Athens International Film Festival ~ MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art ~ Bennington College Composer/Chamber Music Conf. ~ Western Illinois University at Macomb: New Music Festival '95 ~ WGBH-FM: Morning Pro Musica Live with Robert J. Lurtsema (four appearances) ~ The Oakland Museum ~ The Univ. of Texas/ San Antonio Festival of New Music ~ Festival of New American Music at Calif. State at Sacramento ~ The Morning Program at KPFA, Berkeley (3 appearances) ~ New Music America ~ College Music Society National Convention (2 appearances) ~ Society of Composers Inc. (5 appearances) ~ MTNA National Convention ~ Contemporary Music Festival 1991, Univ. of Deleware ~ SEAMUS National Convention (3 appearances) ~ Australian Broadcasting Corp. "Free Range" ~ Chautauqua Ins. Conference on Global Ethics and the Environment ~ Univ. of Vermont Symposium on Music and the Environment ~ 4th Annual Festival of New Music: Univ. of Maryland ~ 6th Annual New Music Festival at Bowling Green State University (commissioned guests) ~ The North American New Music Festival (SUNY-Buffalo) ~ The Lipa Festival, Univ. of Iowa/Ames ~ Festival of Contemporary Music/ The Univ. of Kansas/Lawrence (2 appearances) ~ Zagreb Muzicki Biennale ~ ICMC at Univ. of N. Texas ~ Yellow Springs Institute ~ Bourges Festival ~ Internationale Gaudeamus Muzeickweek ~ Electronic Music Plus (3) ~ CNN ~ NPR All Things Considered ~ Radiofest: New American Music (NPR, APR) ~ UNIMAS (Malaysia) ~ Asian Composers League Fest. TUNUGAN '97 (Philippines) ~ Ball State Univ. Festival ~ Kerrville Festival ~ Indiana State Univ-Terre Haute/Indianapolis Symphony Festival ~ NPR-The Environment Show ~ Albany Symphony Orchestra (as soloists)
"There are very few contemporary composers who make their living from touring and performing their own music. The McLean Mix, consisting of Priscilla and Barton McLean, is, even within that small group, an even greater rarity – a duo of composer/performers who make their living this way. Furthermore, they do this performing music that, while it does have a considerable popular appeal, is absolutely uncompromising in terms of artistic style. This contradicts the popular wisdom that one can only make money in the arts by giving people something they are familiar with."
Warren Burt, reviewer/composer in Summer, 2006 "MUSICWORKS" magazine.
"The McLeans' music is based in an admiration for nature, but it's created using the most advanced electronic tools available. The combination is thus primitive and highly sophisticated at the same time. One critic described the experience of a McLean Mix concert as "getting close to the inner forces and rhythms of the Earth."
In today's larger musical scene, the McLeans are as rare as a banjo in symphonic orchestra. Their music is as unique as the way they lead their career, which is with a remarkably low level of ego-driven ambition. "They follow their own star," says composer Joel Chadabe, who runs the Electronic Music Foundation in Albany. "Within the world of electronic music, there are definitely conventions and norms. ... They don't fit (any of) them easily."
The McLeans' music is characterized by an austere, often macabre resonance. The boundary between reality and the cyber world becomes slippery."__ Joseph Dalton (former director of CRI) in The Albany Times-Union
"The result is astonishing and often surprising..." Comment on Rainforest Images by New Straits Times, Singapore
"Thoughts of Charles Ives and the risks he often took with his music were in my mind throughout the March 4 Alternative Museum concert featuring Barton and Priscilla McLean as The McLean Mix...Using wilderness sounds (crickets, wolves, eskimos, etc.) as the principal sound material is just as dangerous as was Ives' use of 'banal' hymns and popular tunes of his day. It has never been easy for audiences to reconcile banality with classical tradition. The McLeans made it easier for the audience to cope through their performance virtuosity and the evocative and sometimes dramatic nature of the music." -- The New York Times
"Long known for their adventurous electronic scores, they have recently been staging an installation piece called "Rainfor -est" and a multimedia performance work, "Gods, Demons and the Earth", both with the intention of making provocative music and reminding audiences of the importance of keeping what's left of the natural world healthy." -- Keyboard
"Working within that philosophical realm (she refers to cage and Stockhausen) and creating some strikingly beautiful and meaningful music along the way, are Barton and Priscilla McLean." Deborah Parisi in Electronic Musician
"Jambori Rimba has provided a wonderfully creative artistic window for the Malaysian people to rexamine the relationship between their rainforest and its native population." -- commentary on RadioTV 1 Malaysia broadcast
(Rainforest) ..."a lush, wetly dripping, sonorous aural environment that really is evocative...sounds were all beautifully sampled and synthesized, and mixed with skill and understanding." -- Music in New Zealand
"...a strange but intriguing aural and visual experience." -- New York Times
"Priscilla's singing, replete with "extended vocal techniques," was more lyrical than Joan LaBarbara's, less hysterical than Cathy Berberian's, though potentially as unsettling as both. The evening was filled with ...gasps of insight and moments of frightening, uncontrolled beauty."-- The Village Voice
"Can high-tech electronics and the natural realm get along together? Yes, enchantingly, in the music of composers-performers Barton and Priscilla McLean."--San Antonio Express-News
"... all fused into a profound and memorable impression, bringing to a fitting close the constant theme of the concert and of the McLean's work in general--how one can get close to the inner forces and rhythms of the earth through sound and sight, enhanced through technology."--San Francisco Chronicle
"Slowly both resonated into an eerie cascade of synthesizers that washed over the auditory faculties of everyone in the audience for several minutes. Together with visuals, it was like a surreal MTV from the darkest canopies of nature...thus shaping the dimensions of contemporary classical music as we know it today." Description of McLean Mix performance at Tunugan in Manila by Lourd Ernest H. de Veyra with a feature article in TODAY, Manila, Philippines
Full copies of all reviews, demo cassettes, video, brochures available upon request, as are information on funding sources. Address: #55 Coon Brook Road, Petersburg, NY, 12138, USA. Phone: (518) 658 3595
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