James Taylor Opening Soundscape

An original soundscape commissioned to open every show of James Taylor's  2017 US Tour in collaboration with Switser & Knight who handled all multimedia and scenic design elements. The design is inspired by the nostalgia of a distant freight train. As the train comes closer to the audience, its whistle becomes reminiscent of an orchestra tuning as the rhythmic sound of track-ties build in anticipation of the show.

*Not for laptop playback. Please listen with headphones and/or fullrange speakers. The sequence begins in near silence and builds to extreme volume over 2 minutes.

This sequence introduces the show and leads directly into a retrospective video about James beginning with a phone call. The concert then begins.

Stuck Elevator

“Stuck Elevator tells the story of Guang, a Chinese food deliveryman struggling for freedom from debt, human smugglers, loud-mouthed coworkers, and the temptations of General Tso. Based on the true story of an undocumented immigrant who survived 81 hours in a Bronx elevator, this comic-rap-scrap-metal-music-theatre work follows Guang’s increasingly fantastic attempts to escape a 4′ by 6′ by 8′ metal box.”

at New York Theatre Workshop's Dartmouth summer residency

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Charles Francis Chan Jr.

“1967. The auspicious beginnings of a new political identity called Asian American, as a young literary hippie named Frank essays an inscrutable Chinese detective. A harmless sing-song orientalist minstrel show that ENDS IN A GROTESQUE CARNIVAL OF MURDER!!!”
Photo Credit: William P. Steele

Photo Credit: William P. Steele

Jeremy's work remixed and satirically  intertwined snippets of historical Charlie Chan film scores with purposefully over-the-top or orientalist sound design tropes to realize the play's metatheatrical film-noir aesthetic. 

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CNN Films: All American Family

“Welcome to Pleasanton, California. This affluent suburban neighborhood is quintessential USA, not excluding the local high school football team that everyone cherishes: The Eagles. The Pedersen family has been at the center of it all, having four generations star on the team. Unlike other teams, the players on the Eagles are all deaf. ”
Click here to watch.

Click here to watch.

  • Director: Andrew Jenks
  • Producers: Andrew Jenks  & Daniel Zinn
  • Editor: Daniel Zinn
  • Cinematographer: Mike Edmund
  • Executive Producers: Vinnie Malhotra, Amy Entelis, Chris Berend
  • Supervising Producer: Courtney Sexton
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Sojourners

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Jeremy's work for Sojourner's consisted of diegetic "match cuts" that linked scenes of different environments to each other.  As the revolving set turns, music from a living room radio becomes muffled behind a wall and then to a distant car pulling away from a gas station. Alarm clocks morph to original bell rhythms inspired by the carnival music of Nigeria's Ibibio culture  and then to the pneumatic sounds of a gas station and so forth. 

“Abasiama came to America with high hopes—for her arranged marriage and for her future—intent on earning a degree and returning to Nigeria. But when her husband is seduced by America, she must choose between the Nigerian and the American dream.”
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Phoebe in Winter

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For this piece, Jeremy worked with percussionists Matt Evans and Carson Moody to create source-material that blurs the line between percussive musical accent and explosive war soundscapes. Other aspects of the design were inspired by Mazen Kerbaj's "Starry Night" as well as textual references to birds with bladed wings and the reassembly of broken ceramic shards. 

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Fordham University @ Lincoln Center

Photo credit: Amy Rubin

Photo credit: Amy Rubin

“Home can be the most dangerous battlefield of all”
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Takes on Silence

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“Takes on Silence is a multi-media performance piece inspired by the Vitagraph Company of America, among the nation’s first silent film studios located in Midwood, Brooklyn from 1906-25. ”
Transient

For this piece, Jeremy was tasked with scoring a number of films which were integrated with action on stage. He used a combination of originally composed material and period "mashups" which seamlessly integrated various samples of historical film music. The show's musical theme "Vitagraph Girl" was published in 1910. Without access to an original recording, Jeremy referenced an archived score to arrange and fully produce a period reproduction of the song.

Combination of original musical material and sampled period music. 

•Developed by Nellie Perera

•Performed by Nellie Perera

•Directed by Amy Jensen

•Lighting: Burke Brown

•Videography: Arsenio Garcia

•Stage Management: Samia Fakih

•"Vitagraph Girl" Vocals: Ned Riseley

 

The Mysteries

“An extravaganza with 48 playwrights and 54 actors retelling the entirety of The Bible in a single night. 50 World Premiere plays telling the entire History of Man’s Salvation from The Fall of Lucifer through and including Judgment Day.”
Photo: Tara Pacheco

Photo: Tara Pacheco

Jeremy's most ambitious work with over 300 original sound cues, an 8' long steel thunder-sheet, "musique concréte" depictions of hell inspired by German industrial noise-rock, and collaborations with Music Director David Dabbon on floods, meteor storms, and more! 

Noah's Flood Transition. 

Underworld inspired by German industrial noise music. 

Meteor Storm Collaboration. Music by David Dabbon. Sound & patches by JSB. 

Moses Exodus transition. 

Into Garden of Eden.

Crucifixion Transition.

Lucifer Transition. 

  • Assistant Sound Design: Lee Kinney
  • By 48 playwrights including José Rivera, David Henry Hwang, Qui Nguyen,  Billy Porter, Jeff Whitty, CollaborationTown & more...
  • Directed by: Ed Iskandar 
  • Dramaturgy: Jill Rafson
  • Music: David Dabbon
  • Choreography: Chase Brock
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Love Suicide / Hikikomori

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For this piece Jeremy worked on two intertwined pieces in separate spaces. Love Suicide, an Edo-period traditional Japanese play and Hikikomori, a contemporary devised piece about Japanese shut ins.  Jeremy wrote two original songs for "The Lollygaggers" a fictional girl pop band, and created interstitial cues generated from found traditional Japanese music, and worked with the actors to create live soundscapes featuring gongs, chant, and a percussion piece using traditional "geta" clogs. 

Produced by: NYU Tisch MFA prog.

Directed by: Dawn Saito & Jonathan Rosenberg

Lighting Design: Abby Hoke Brady & Jennifer Hill

Scenic Design: Yu-Ting Lin & Perrine Villemur

Costumes: Ilana Breitman & Nina Vartanian

Stage Management: Kristin Loughry & Emily Ballou

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Under Milk Wood

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“The 92nd Y’s Poetry Center celebrates Dylan Thomas’s centenary by turning Kaufmann Concert Hall into a studio for a free reading of Under Milk Wood broadcast live on BBC Radio Wales. The Poetry Center presented the premiere of this “play for voices,” with Thomas himself leading the cast, in May 1953.”
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  • Directed by: Michael Sheen.
  • Sound Design & Foley: Jeremy S. Bloom
  • Stage Manager: Robert Peters.
  • With: Michael Sheen, Kate Burton, Mark Lewis Jones, Francine Morgan, Karl Johnson, and Matthew Aubrey.
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Restoration Comedy

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"When virtuous Amanda Loveless learns that her rakish dead husband is very much alive, it’s time to stop mourning and start plotting. Wicked wit, irresistible intrigue and fabulous fashion combine through a dizzying kaleidoscope of Restoration characters, all chasing the joys of love. Director Ed Sylvanus Iskandar creates a modern-day Restoration experience. The play will begin with a baroque musicale while guests sip on unique holiday cocktails. Intermission will feature a variety show and to end the evening, guests will be able to join in a post show dance party It's all play and all party."

In "Restoration Comedy" director Ed Sylvanus Iskandar sought to fuse what is otherwise a period play with a modern day party experience. His only restriction for the sound design was that the music was to be exclusively sourced exclusively from The Scissor Sisters.  In this piece, I saw a need to create fluid transitions between what are otherwise starkly contrasting modern and period worlds. The show's other sound designer Jill BC Du Boff edited the modern dance tracks chosen by the director according to the choreographers needs and then delivered them to me.  After some experimentation, I then composed and produced a series period musical intros that seamlessly morph into the modern music. 

These transitional morphs  were declared "One of the most creative moments of the night" by theater blogger Michael Block. They ultimately created a surprising and fluid method of  throwing the play into a modern setting. I also wrote some outtros in a similar fashion that bring the play back into period.  

 

  • Director: Ed Sylvanus Iskandar
  • Playwright: Amy Freed
  • Choreography: Will Taylor
  • Co-Sound Designer: Jill BC Du Boff
  • Set: Julia Noulin Merat
  • Lighting: Daniel Chapman
  • Costumes: Loren Shaw
  • Props: Rowan Doyle
  • Produced by The Flea Theater 

Smoke

“On the edge of a reservation, on the edge of a river, she risks love and family to claim her heritage...”
  • By Vickie Ramirez  
  • Director:   Richard Avan
  • Stage Manager: Liz Richards  
  • Costumes: Lux Haac
  • Lighting: Amanda Clegg Lyon
  • Set: Sarah Martin
  • Produced by Mixed Phoenix Theatre Group at The Pershing Square Signature Center. 
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    Sky Woman, a spiritual character, played by Soni Moreno. 

    Sky Woman, a spiritual character, played by Soni Moreno. 

     In Smoke, a play about contemporary Native American identity conflicts, sound was primarily tasked to aurally distinguish moments of supernatural intervention from normal earthly  existence. Such supernatural scenes were associated with two specific characters, each of whom were assigned a sonic theme. Following early research on Haudenosaunee theology and music,  these themes were carefully embedded and blended within river ambiences by using a custom convolution processing workflow. This technique allowed spiritual characters, their supernatural actions, and nature itself all to become one. 

    Act 1 ends in a large thunderstorm and building fire, an exciting opportunity to collaborate with lighting designer Amanda Clegg Lyon and set designer Sarah Martin.  For this effect, dedicated speakers were hidden behind a set piece made of acoustically transparent material. This was then lit to appear on fire, an effect made all the more believable by carefully sourced sound.  

    In a Word

    “Two years have passed since Fiona’s eight-year-old son mysteriously vanished. As Fiona goes back over the events she remembers leading upto that fateful day, logic buckles and language breaks. ”

    "In a Word" was a new, award-winning play by Lauren Yee that workshopped at The Williamstown Theatre Festival under the direction of Ethan Heard. In this show, sound served to clarify the complex, nonlinear progression of time over the course of the play. Throughout the show there are flashbacks to various locations - a detective's office, a grocery store, or a school - each defined largely via sonic means. 

    The design utilized a quadraphonic 'rep' system to its fullest extent by dynamically panning flashback sounds, accelerating them from the stage to behind the audience, essentially pulling us back in time. The system's cababilities were also harnessed to create a photographer character from prerecorded voiceovers reproduced behind the audience as the cast posed for their photos in front. 

    Photo by Sam Hough

    Photo by Sam Hough

    • Director: Ethan Heard
    • Playwright: Lauren Yee
    • Lighting: Matt Bathe
    • Set: Ryan Grossheim
    • Costumes: Steven Buechler
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    Cautionary Tail

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    “First generation Chinese-Americans growing up in New York City, siblings Vivienne and Luke confront their confused tangle of family, their diverse array of friends, and their rampant sexuality. In our digital age, how can they navigate the traditional expectations of their mother with their American culture of individuality?”

    Example 1: Original music cue into the second act jungle setting accompanying a short dance\scenic transition. This material was generated by sampling obscure ethnomusicological field recordings and then rearranging and layering them to create a new piece. 

    Example 2: An excerpt from an original music cue built from sampled iPhone interaction sounds to accompany movement into a "social media scene" choreographed by Laura Brandel. 

    Transient
    • By: Christopher Oscar Peña
    • Director: Ben Kamine
    • Movement: Laura Brandel   
    • Costumes: Andrea Lauer
    • Lighting: Jon Cottle
    • Sets: David Meyer
    • Produced by The Flea Theater