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Bill Thompson
bill thompson has been an active musician and composer for over ten years within the central texas area. he began music studies with private teachers in austin and eventually attended north texas state university, and texas state university in san marcos where he earned a masters in composition under russell reipe and taught electronic music and composition.
after graduating he started the gates ensemble that became one of the only regularly performing electro-acoustic ensembles in texas and the southwest specializing in improvisation and modern composition.
with clark crawford and brent fariss, he founded thomfaricraw, a modern music initiative dedicated to the creation and presentation of the highest caliber of modern experimental music. they hosted one of the only house concerts (the loft series) in the us that presented new experimental music.
he was one of the founding members of austin's new music co-op, presenting austin with works by terry riley, pauline oliveros, christian wolff, cornelious cardew, morton feldman, john cage, earle brown, as well as local composers.
with brent fariss, he played at amoda's first performance series and later co-curated the series bringing richard chartier and soon, phill niblock to austin.
other collaborations include work with seminal artist rick reed in intersect 6, the austin noise quartet, and field. he also played regularly with josh ronsen in brekekekexkoaxkoax, and hosted austin's first phonography festival with alex keller, brent fariss, and trey smith.
with doug ferguson, he designed and edited the website www.experimentalmusicintexas.org that gave artists within the texas area a common meeting ground as well as serving as a focal point for others interested in the experimental music scene in texas.
in 2004, bill thompson was awarded a scholarship to study with pete stollery at the university of aberdeen in scotland and he currently is living in the uk.
he has written for acoustic, electro-acoustic, and electronic, tape, and digital media, including several installations that have been performed in texas and california (field effects 7). additionally his works have been performed by thomas helton, the imbroglio string quartet, the austin new music co-op, and various ensembles within texas. he has also had pieces performed on Resonance FM in london, and been released on Ven Voisey's somewhere/somewhere else, phonography's field recordings, spectral house, ecolirecords, porkbones records, distillery records and has work distributed by deadline records. he has a cd pending release on elevator bath records in 2005.
as a performer, bill thompson uses an assortment of equipment that range from prepared guitar, to digital cd mixers, laptop, radio, and digital/analogue synthesizers, as well as found objects and diy circuit bent devices. regardless of equipment, an attention to sound and presence is always foremost in his approach to sound art.
bill thompson is available for performances, lectures, and workshops concerning modern composition, improvisation, synthesis techniques, and aesthetics. contact him at: billthompson@billthompson.org