Chris Becker

Performances and Premieres: January through July 2026

2026-07-14T12:34:12.384-07:00

2026 has been especially exciting for me as a composer for dance and film. Instead of updating my resume or this blog, once a performance is done, I usually keep moving on to the next project, without pausing to take stock. So to remedy that, here's a look back at some of the highlights of the first half of the year.

March 2026

On March 1, 2026, at the Festival of the Arts BOCA, my dramatically reimagined (and newly rerecorded) version of David Bowie's iconic song "Heroes" accompanied a new duet created and performed by the magnificent Blakeley White-McGuire and Daniel Fetecua Soto. The program was titled "From Swan Lake to the Stones" and took place before an audience of 1,200 people at Mizner Park Amphitheater. The first photo below is of Blakeley's entrance to the music.

From the Festival of the Arts BOCA website:

"Dance icons Melanie Hamrick, Joanna DeFelice, and Christine Shevchenko bring their exhilarating dance production back for its Festival Boca Three-pete. Featuring principal dancers from New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and special guest artists Blakeley White-McGuire and Daniel Fetecua, the production includes excerpts from some of the most loved classical ballets, including Giselle, Swan Lake, Le Corsaire, and features world premieres set to the music of David Bowie and The Rolling Stones."

The work of Houston-based artist David McGee inspired this 16-minute composition, Urban Dreads / Oracles. The piece was commissioned by the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art for McGee’s first major museum survey, The Griot and the Nightingale, on view from March 14 to August 23, 2026. The exhibit has been very well received and has broken all attendance records.

Urban Dreads / Oracle is available to listen to on the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art website and on my Bandcamp page.

May 2026

My most recent collaboration with choreographer and director Rachel Cohen and Racoco Productions, Assemblage (My Mother's Eyes and My Grandfather's Nose), took place May 2, 3, 9, and 10 at 56 Bogart Street in Bushwick, NY in a special "Labatelier" installaion / environment.

I composed and arranged nearly 90 minutes of original music and arrangements for the performances, which featured Lucia Stavaros on harp, Samuel Gray on viola, with dancers Masumi Kishimoto (also Racoco's assistant director), Meghan Schardt-Gensberg, Fina, and Toby Billowitz.

Photos below by Andreas Troeger

June 2026

I have been creating film scores for the award-winning multidisciplinary visual and performing artist Jil Guyon for over a decade. Working with Jil has really pushed me as a composer, recording engineer, and mixer, and challenged my preconceived notions of what constitutes "film music." Our most recent collaboration, Threshold, screened June 7, 2026 in New York City at the Abrons Art Center. Created with the support of the Foundation Obras, and shot on location at the Castle of Evoramonte in Estremoz, Portugal, Threshold is a noir-like montage, in sumptuous black and white, that simmers with underlying violence and ritualistic calm. The music I created is similar in its extremes and features multiple overdubbed performances by Houston cellist Patrick Moore. Below is a photo of the Abrons Art Center screening. (Jil's split-screen, two-channel video Widow's End, which features my composition Nocturne #3 as its score, also screened at Abrons.)

And on June 20, the closing performance of the creative residency was held as part of the FIBRA Festival in Montevideo, Uruguay, featuring Daniel Fetecua Soto (José Limón Dance Foundation, NY) and Blakeley White McGuire (Martha Graham Dance Company, NY). The program included “at the speed of time/on the other side of America,” with original videos, choreography, and solo performance by Blakeley White McGuire, and a score featuring excerpts from my composition, City Suite. Blakeley and Daniel also screened an original video, HEROES: La Mariposa y el Escarabajo, (HEROES: The Butterfly and the Beetle), with my dramatic arrangement of David Bowie and Brian Eno's "Heroes" for its soundtrack.

Here's to another six months of creativity.

Photos of The Festival of Things in Bushwick, New York, 2026

2026-05-12T13:44:39.408-07:00

Please enjoy these beautiful photos by Andreas Troeger from Assemblage (My Mother's Eyes and My Grandfather's Nose), my most recent collaboration with Rachel Cohen and Racoco Productions. The performances featured Lucia Stavaros on harp, Samuel Gray on viola, with dancers Masumi Kishimoto (also Racoco's assistant director), Meghan Schardt-Gensberg, Fina, and Toby Billowitz.

Anderas writes:

"Racoco Productions' Assemblage is a piece in motion, constantly shifting throughout its presentation. This version of the performance, with flawless live music (composed by Chris Becker), was among the most poetic works I’ve seen in New York City in a long time.

"The dancers' excavation of Rachel Cohen’s choreography was executed with humor and precision, moving effortlessly between chaos, ritual, and absurdity. Nothing felt forced. The piece unfolded like a living organism — raw, intelligent, and fully alive."

Music for artist David McGee's 2026 exhibit, "The Griot and The Nightingale"

2026-05-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

Urban Dreads / Oracles by Chris Becker

The work of Houston-based artist David McGee inspired this brand-new composition. It was commissioned by the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art for McGee’s first major museum survey, The Griot and the Nightingale, on view from March 14 to August 23, 2026.

There are two parts to this soundscape. The first is a dreamlike assemblage of urban ambience, including traffic, unidentifiable machinery, sirens, and children playing. It alludes to McGee’s stark, black-and-white, oil-on-burlap Urban Dreads paintings. Part two resonates with the spirit of McGee’s Oracles, a series of collages paying homage to tap dancer and activist Howard “Stretch” Johnson. Emerging out of the gentle wash of an inverted C major chord are Tibetan bells, local and exotic birds (who populate McGee’s recent watercolor portraits), vinyl record pops and scratches, and fragments of conversation with McGee.

Throughout this soundscape, distortion, the superimposition of rhythms, and the rough edges of my edits (all done digitally) are an aural response to the physical textures of McGee’s paintings and collages.

Much like a painter who tests out ideas with studies (something David doesn’t do!), over the course of several months, I shared several “sketches” with David before creating this final work. And now, each time I listen to it, I hear something new, which is not something one, as a composer, can plan for. You have a concept, your technique, and technology, but the actual process of creation is alchemic, and the result transcendental.

credits

released February 6, 2026

Composed, Recorded, and Mixed by Chris Becker

Becker - Field Recordings, Bells, Soft Synths

Patrick Moore - Cello

David McGee - Voice

Mastered by Douglas Henderson

Artwork photography by Thomas R. DuBrock

Special thanks to The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art and Inman Gallery.

Rococo Productions presents a Festival of Things - May 2, 3, 9, and 10, 2026

2026-04-23T10:31:13.019-07:00

Beginning April 26, Racoco Productions will be experimenting in a Festival of Things. We will present our research results (and some choreography!) to live music for harp and viola, composed by Chris Becker, on May 2, 3, 9, and 10.

We hope you will join us in our research, as an audience member or as a participant. And Bring your Things! We will be hosting a series of Thing-Related Events at our new Laboratelier out in Bushwick, Brooklyn, including: the Antiques Racocoshow, more Inanimated Speed Dating, and Make-Your-Own Object Video, along with open rehearsals and workshops.

Sunday, April 26, 
1:30pm - 6pm Action Theater & Objects workshop
6:30pm: Opening reception

Monday, April 27 - May 1: 
Laboratelier open by appointment 

Saturday, May 2
10am - 7pm: Laboratelier open
7pm: open rehearsal: My Grandfather’s Nose

Sunday, May 3
10am - 7pm: Laboratelier open
11am - 1pm: Relinquish workshop 
4pm performance: My Grandfather’s Nose

Monday-Friday, May 4 - May 8
10am - 7pm: Laboratelier open by appointment 

Saturday, May 9 5pm Performance: My Mother’s Eyes 7pm Performance: My Grandfather’s Nose

Sunday, May 10 1pm: Performance: My Mother’s Eyes 2:30pm: A Special Antiques Racocoshow, Mother’s Day Edition 4pm: Performance: My Grandfather’s Nose 5:30pm: Performance: My Mother’s Eyes 6:30pm: Closing reception and raffle/auction

RSVP: info@racoco.org

For more information or to RSVP, send us an email - we'll tell you everything!

Blackstar (Re-imagined for String Quartet)

2026-01-07T22:19:00.000-08:00

This is my arrangement of David Bowie's song "Blackstar" re-imagined for string quartet.

Blackstar (Re-imagined for String Quartet) by Chris Becker

The attentive listener will hear elements of Bowie's original composition throughout, along with a couple of quotes from Greig's Peer Gynt Suite. (The first quote appeared unintentionally, which led me to consider a connection between Henrik Ibsen's dramatic poem and where I took Bowie's music.)

I composed this over the course of several sessions, pretty much from beginning to end, and always in a trance. It was completed on January 1, 2026, and I decided to share it today, on Bowie's birthday.

If you are interested in seeing and performing the score, or using this music for dance or film, please message me.

Thank you for listening.

Created in Sibelius with NotePerformer sound library.

Bright Center Star Cluster photo by NASA

"Heroes" with choreography by Blakeley White-McGuire at the Festival of the Arts BOCA, March 1, 2026

2025-10-20T08:43:00.000-07:00

Woo-hoo! Coming up March 1, 2026, at the Festival of the Arts BOCA, my dramatically reimagined (and newly rerecorded) version of David Bowie's iconic song "Heroes" will accompany a new duet created by the magnificent Blakeley White-McGuire and performed by Blakeley and Daniel Fetecua Soto. The program is titled "From Swan Lake to the Stones."

The performance takes place at Mizner Park Amphitheater.

From the Festival of the Arts BOCA website:

Live Arts Global is a nonprofit formed by three female artists who work to spread art and dance to a wider audience:

Joanna DeFelice: choreographer, contemporary artist, and producer.

Melanie Hamrick: choreographer and former dancer with American Ballet Theatre.

Christine Shevchenko: principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre.

Together these women have performed, created and produced events around the world.

Current and Upcoming Composing Projects

2025-08-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

(Jil Guyon in Threshold, 2025)

It's been a minute since I updated this blog. After the March 16-17, 2025 run of Assemblage, I returned to work on a score for Threshold -- a gorgeous new video by my friend and frequent collaborator, award-winning multidisciplinary visual and performing artist Jil Guyon. Created with the support of the Foundation Obras, and shot on location at the Castle of Evoramonte in Estremoz, Portugal, Threshold is a noir-like montage, in sumptuous black and white, that simmers with underlying violence and ritualistic calm. The music I've created is similar in its extremes and features multiple overdubbed performances by Houston cellist Patrick Moore. (Recorded in my home studio in the middle of summer, without A/C. Whew!) Jil and I are in the final stages of the project. I am sure the final cut, like every film by Jil I've scored, will screen widely.

Two other projects are in the works, but it's too early to share details; suffice it to say that one is a collaboration with an amazing choreographer, the other, with a fantastic painter.

I continue to write about music and visual art for a few online platforms and print publications, including Houstonia, Glasstire, and Arts & Culture, Texas. I also have my still relatively new Substack, Night and Day, which I invite you to check out and consider subscribing to.

Photos of Assemblage in Houston, TX, 2025

2025-05-24T09:41:00.000-07:00

Please enjoy these beautiful images from Assemblage, my collaboration with Rachel Cohen and Racoco Productions. Huge thank you to everyone who came out to experience this unique blend of live music, dance, video, and collage-making, May 16 and 17, 2025 at The Jung Center of Houston.

Was it improvised? Nope. The movement was set; the live score was notated. But the process from point A to B unfurled like the line from a pencil tracing random objects on a map. Kudos to Masumi Kishimoto (who traveled from Brooklyn to Houston to be a part of this), and Houston-based dancers Tobaric Atkins-Montana and Persi Mey, and musicians Luke Hubley, Naomi Hoffmeyer, Molly Wise, and Patrick Moore for embracing the messiness of creativity and community.

All photos by Andrew and Stephanie Lienhard.

Assemblage is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.

Chris Becker

Persi Mey

Persi Mey and Tobaric Atkins-Montana

Tobaric Atkins-Montana and Persi Mey

Masumi Kishimoto

Rachel Cohen

Luke Hubley

Naomi Hoffmeyer

Molly Wise

Patrick Moore

Racoco Productions presents "Assemblage" at The Jung Center of Houston

2025-01-09T12:43:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to share that there will be two Houston performances of Assemblage May 16-17, 2025 at The Jung Center of Houston, 5200 Montrose, in the Museum District.

The reception to performances of this work in Brooklyn last August were so positive, and encouraged Rachel and I to bring Assemblage to new audiences in other cities across the U.S. and beyond.

Here's a succinct description of the work:

Assemblage is a multidisciplinary, multimedia work featuring chamber and electronic music by Houston composer Chris Becker, choreographed and improvised movement by New York-based director Rachel Cohen, and real-time collage-making using zip-loc bags of curated-but-unfinished materials left behind by Cohen’s late mother.

Through intimate videos and live performance, Assemblage explores impermanence, ancestry, and artist identity, and the human effort to fit the pieces together.

The Houston performances will feature Rachel Cohen and Racoco Productions company member, Masumi Kishimoto; Houston-based dancers Tobaric Atkins-Montana and Persi Mey; and Houston musicians Luke Hubley (vibraphone), Naomi Hoffmeyer (harp), Molly Wise (viola), and Patrick Moore (cello).

Performance dates and times:

Friday, May 16, 7:30 - 8:45pm CT

Saturday, May 17, 2 - 3:15pm CT

Tickets are available through The Jung Center of Houston's website.

And on May 14, 2025, 5-8 pm CT, Rachel Cohen will lead an in-person class in Action Theater at The Jung Center of Houston.

Come meet more of yourself in this introduction to Action Theater improvisation. Through simple, fun exercises playing with movement, sound, and language, participants explore living in their bodies as well as their minds, mining and reveling in the multidimensional nature of being a human. Explore radical existence in the present moment, audacious sensitivity to the self and others, and the ripe accessibility of limitless imagination! It is amazing training for performers; it is also amazing training for life. Whether you're a neophyte or an experienced improvisor, come and play!

More details and registration here.

Assemblage is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.

All photos by Andreas Troeger.

Assemblage Performance Photos

2024-08-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

Images from a dream?

These photos are from our Aug 3-4, 2024 performances of Assemblage at The Brick Aux, NYC.

Assemblage was directed and choreographed by Rachel Cohen, with original music and arrangements by yours truly, Chris Becker.

Featuring Rachel Cohen, Fina, Masumi Kishimoto, Meghan Schardt-Gensberg, Austin Birdy (vibraphone, percussion), Sam Gray (viola), Lucia Stavros (harp), and Caitlin Thomas (cello).

Thank you to everyone who braved the rain to experience these extraordinary performances.

All photos by Andreas Troeger.

Assemblage Music Sources and Credits

2024-07-28T08:18:00.000-07:00

Assemblage

Presented by Racoco Productions

Conceived and Developed by Rachel Cohen and composer Chris Becker

Performances: August 3, 7:30 p.m., and August 4, 2:00 p.m.

at the Brick Aux, 628 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

$20 suggested donation

RSVP at info@racoco.org

Score Sources, and Sample Credits

“Chopin (Bouncing Balls)”

Emil von Sauer plays Frédéric Chopin’s Etude No.3. in E, op 10.

78rpm recording digitized by https://78.kenyszer.com/

Vintage toy samples from Sounding the Collection

Courtesy of The Powerhouse Museum Group, Sydney, Australia

Sheep bells recording by Jil Guyon

All other field recordings by Chris Becker

“Jimbo’s Lullaby” from Children’s Corner for solo piano by Claude Debussy (1908)

“The Aspen” from The Five Pieces (a.k.a. The Trees) for solo piano by Jean Sibelius (1914)

Toys photo by Rachel Cohen

Racoco Productions presents "Assemblage," August 3 and 4, 2024 at the Brick Aux,

2024-06-25T16:36:00.000-07:00

A MIDI realization of Chris Becker's arrangement of Debussy's "Jimbo's Lullaby" for vibraphone, harp, viola, cello, and toys. Video created by Rachel Cohen.

Racoco Productions presents Assemblage #1, a multidisciplinary, multimedia work featuring live chamber and electronic music by composer Chris Becker, choreographed and improvised movement by Rachel Cohen, and real-time collage-making using zip-loc bags of curated materials left behind by Cohen’s mother, a quiet artist and quilter, who passed away in February 2020.

Through intimate videos and live performances, Assemblage #1 explores impermanence, ancestry, and artist identity, and the human effort to fit the pieces together.

Assemblage #1 features live performances of original compositions and arrangements for cello, viola, harp, and vibraphone. With performers Rachel Cohen, Fina, Masumi Kishimoto, Meghan Schardt, and Austin Birdy (vibraphone, percussion), Sam Gray (viola), Lucia Stavros (harp), and Caitlin Thomas (cello).

Performances: August 3, 7:30 p.m., and August 4, 2:00 p.m.

at the Brick Aux, 628 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

$20 suggested donation

RSVP at info@racoco.org

Racoco at Women in Motion Salon, April 13, 2024

2024-04-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

Assemblage. Choreography by Rachel Cohen, music by yours truly. Excerpt from a work-in-progress as seen April 13, 2024 in Brooklyn.

Thank you Racoco Productions and Women in Motion. I look forward to seeing you all in person sooner rather than later!

What Did You Do Today?

2024-03-02T08:55:00.000-08:00

This is another sketch for Assemblage, a new, collaborative work-in-progress with choreographer Rachel Cohen and Racoco Productions. Rachel and I are trading music and movement on video back and forth, generating a lot of material, and figuring out how to make a long-distance "virtual collaboration" work.

What did you do today? by Chris Becker

Becker - Soft Synth, Field Recordings, Toy Samples

Breeze Smith - Percussion

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Jimbo's Lullaby

2024-01-07T18:31:00.000-08:00

Jimbo's Lullaby by Chris Becker
An arrangement of Claude Debussy's "Jimbo's Lullaby" from his Children's Corner suite. I've arranged the solo piano piece for vibraphone, harp, viola, and cello.
Becker - Arrangement, Kalimba, Wind-Up Penguin
This is part of a work-in-progress with choreographer Rachel Cohen and Racoco Productions.

Misha Penton Collective at the Silos at Sawyer Yards

2023-11-12T12:20:00.000-08:00

Photo by Dave Nickerson

Misha Penton Collective is Sculpture Month Houston 2023 music ensemble in residence. Experience voice, guitar, and electronic ambient, textural, and spacious music to accompany the visual art installations throughout the sonorous Silos at Sawyer Yards.

Misha Penton, voice. George Heathco, guitars. Chris Becker, laptop.

Performances at 3pm after curator Volker Eisele leads an exhibit tour from 2pm-3pm. FREE.

Performance Dates, Saturdays:
October 14 & 21
November 4 & 18

Site Gallery Houston (MAP)
The Silos at Sawyer Yards
1502 Sawyer Street, Suite 400
Houston, TX 77007

Photo by Lillian Warren; sculpture by Jessica Kreutter

Photo by Doris Murdock; installation by Allison Hunter

City Suite (Remixed and Mastered)

2023-10-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

City Suite (Mastered) by Chris Becker

This is the full suite, an electronic tone poem inspired by life in the city: Prelude and Invocation, Migration, Industry, and Call to Prayer.
Thank you to everyone who checked out the earlier mixes of this piece and offered support and helpful suggestions.
“You have to be surprised. Anything can be music.” - Ryuichi Sakamoto
released October 12, 2023
Becker - Synths, Rainstick, Tambourine, Field Recordings (including cicadas, Houston traffic, rain, and thunder, crosswalks, car radios, birds, airplanes, and the shore of Spanish River Beach)SPIKE the percussionist - GongMisha Penton - Flute
Sampled Voices - Misha Penton, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Max Olivier
Factory interior recordings - KMRU (Sample Pack)
Mastered by Doug Henderson

Does Humor Belong in Psychotherapy? (Online)

2023-06-06T14:05:00.002-07:00

Does Humor Belong in Psychotherapy?

Discover how the music of Frank Zappa, the broad humor of vaudeville stars The Marx Brothers, and the no-filter verbosity of radio personality Howard Stern have inspired the treatment of juvenile patients carrying diagnoses including major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and childhood-onset schizophrenia.

Chris Becker & Enrico Curreri
Saturday, July 1
10 - 11:30am CT
Potentially appropriate for 1.5 CEs

Admission: $20.00

Chris Becker is a contributing editor for Houston CityBook. Becker wrote the cover story for the magazine’s premiere issue and continues to provide thoughtful, deeply researched coverage of Houston’s lively and diverse creative community. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Freedom of Expression: Interviews with Women in Jazz, a collection of in-depth conversations with 37 female musicians representing nearly every style of jazz one can imagine. Becker has presented multimedia lectures on jazz history, music therapy, and writing about visual art at Lone Star College at Kingwood, Project Row Houses, The Jung Center of Houston, and Houston Baptist University. He also composes music for dance, experimental video, and mixed-media installations.

Enrico Curreri, MA, is a Licensed Creative Arts Therapist at Elmhurst Hospital Center in New York City where he works with patients ages 10-17 carrying different diagnoses, including major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorder, PTSD, and childhood-onset schizophrenia. He is a member of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA). Curreri studied music composition at The New England Conservatory of Music and received his degree in music therapy from New York University.

Celebrating Earth Day with A Gift from the Bower

2023-04-24T05:29:00.006-07:00

Chris Becker, Rachel Gardner, Patrick Moore, Carlos Canul, and Ruby Surls.

Photo by Heidi Vaughan.

What a gift it is to be asked to create a new piece of music to herald a new sculpture and poem all created by such talented people. More photos to come from the April 22, 2023 opening of A Gift from the Bower, a group exhibit of incredible outdoor art created by some of Texas's finest artists, included the premiere of my first-ever piece for solo cello "A Gift from the Bower."

A Gift from the Bower was presented by DiverseWorks & Locke Surls Center for Art and Nature. Originally conceived by artists James Surls and Charmaine Locke, the project is co-curated by Jack Massing and Xandra Eden to include newly commissioned works by fourteen artists and artist teams.

Notes for A Gift from the Bower for Unaccompanied Cello

2023-04-02T09:14:00.006-07:00

The Forest Chair by Carlos Canul and Rachel Gardner. Photo by Carlos Canul.

When I first saw the enormous chair Rachel Gardner and Carlos Canul constructed for A Gift from the Bower, an outdoor, multi-disciplinary group exhibition conceived by nationally-renowned artist James Surls, I had a vision of a cellist seated in a chair on the chair, performing solo in a bower deep in the woods of Splendora Gardens. I shared this image with Rachel, who didn’t think I was nuts, and over the course of several weeks, composed a piece for unaccompanied cello to be performed at the opening of the exhibit. I was honored when cellist Patrick Moore agreed to premiere the work; his formidable technique and the deep expression he brings to his playing inspired me to embrace the challenge of composing a solo for his instrument.

Knowing my piece would be performed outdoors, I was inspired to evoke the rhythm of sound events one hears in woods, especially the rise and fall of wind as it moves through branches and leaves. The very opening of the piece and later, what I hear as an extended coda, were created as moments for the cellist as much as for the listener and are performed in a sort of meditative state, calling to mind the age-old question, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The repeating measures of 16th notes in the piece’s demanding middle section pay tribute to two of my heroes, Terry Riley and Philip Glass. While composing the work, Bach’s Six Suites for Violoncello Solo was another important point of reference, as was double bassist Eberhard Weber's 1973 album, The Colours of Chloë.

Once finished, it made sense to name the piece A Gift from the Bower since the opportunity to compose the work was a gift, and in exchange, so is the music I have composed.

A Gift from the Bower opens April 22-23, 2023

at the Locke Surls Center for Art and Nature at Splendora Gardens.

"Widow's Walk" Screens in Paris, March 26, 2023

2023-03-18T07:40:00.004-07:00

Jil Guyon in Widows Walk (2019)

Widow's Walk, a haunting film I scored for my friend artist, performer, and filmmaker Jil Guyon screens on March 26, 2023, in Paris as part of Gentrification of Being, a curated program of ten dance films and live performances. More information about the program is available on the Cinema Trianon website.

"Shot in southern Iceland, Widow’s Walk portrays the Widow character as fated with the Sisyphean task of walking up and down a desolate hill in an effort to conquer her grief. Her existential dilemma is further destabilized by troubling memories and a precarious future."

Chris Becker "Innovative Composer on the Spirit of Creativity"

2023-01-30T10:57:00.001-08:00

It was an honor to be a guest on Music Matters, a wonderful podcast hosted by conductor Jason Tramm. We covered a lot of ground in just an hour.

Maestro Tramm met when I composed music for the two-act ballet The Lost Princess of Oz, and I hope we get the opportunity to work together again soon.

The Lost Princess of Oz Suite

2022-12-11T13:20:00.000-08:00

I am revisiting and revising some of the numbers in my score for The Lost Princess of Oz, the goal being to create a suite of music like The Nutcracker Suite that a chamber ensemble could perform in a concert setting. It's going slow, and I love so many of the numbers, I'm not sure if I can narrow the two-act score into something much shorter. I'll update the blog as things progress.

Here is the revised version of "The Patchwork Girl," one of the craziest things I've ever composed, and a highlight among many highlights in the production.

For banjo, violin, cello, piano, xylophone and bass drum.

The Princess of Oz (Sketches for Ballet Score) by Chris Becker

Rouyn Noranda Screening at the Festival du Cinéma International en Abitibi-Témiscamingue

2022-10-23T05:53:00.004-07:00

News from my friend and collaborator Jil Guyon. I'm very pleased to have contributed the score to this haunting film.

"My recent creation, Rouyn Noranda, screens on November 1st at the Festival du Cinéma International en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Rouyn-Noranda, QC. It is only fitting that this film premieres in the town where it was shot and after which it was titled. The making of it was arduous—extreme cold, heavy snow, location obstructions, not to mention frostbite! But we got the job done!"

"Devotion" performance by Axelrod Contemporary Ballet

2022-09-18T08:23:00.005-07:00

Devotion (2021).mp4 from Blakeley White McGuire on Vimeo.

Devotion (2021) commissioned and performed by Axelrod Contemporary Ballet at Bell Works, NJ. Choreography by Blakeley White-McGuire. Original score inspired by David Bowie and Brian Eno's "Heroes" composed by Chris Becker and played live by the Axelrod Chamber Musicians.

Blakeley writes: "This dance was the first group piece that I made live during the pandemic. It was also the first public performance by these beautiful dancers in over a year and a half. Inspired by the resiliency of the performing arts community, 'Devotion' is just that - dance as a devotional practice."