The Los Angeles Electric 8 is an

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

chamber Chamber or the chamber may refer to: In government and organizations * Chamber of commerce, an organization of business owners to promote commercial interests *Legislative chamber, in politics * Debate chamber, the space or room that houses delib ...

octet Octet may refer to: Music * Octet (music), ensemble consisting of eight instruments or voices, or composition written for such an ensemble ** String octet, a piece of music written for eight string instruments *** Octet (Mendelssohn), 1825 compos ...

founded in 2007. The group is based in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. The founding members are Philip Graulty, Chelsea Green, Ben Harbert, Brandon Mayer, Marc Nimoy, Felix Salazar, JohnPaul Trotter and Bryce Wilson.

New music

Much of the Los Angeles Electric 8's repertoire consists of new works including

microtonal Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of tw ...

and

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

music. They have performed music by Frank J. Oteri, Wayne Siegel, Randall Kohl, Cornelius Boots, Peter Yates,

Derrick Spiva Derrick Skye (born Derrick Spiva Jr; 19 November 1982) is a composer, conductor, musician, and educator based in the Los Angeles area who often integrates musical practices from cultures around the world in his work with classical music communitie ...

, and Nathaniel Braddock.

Arrangements of older music

The Los Angeles Electric 8 produces arrangements of older works for their ensemble including

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...

Felix Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sy ...

Dmitri Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich), First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throug ...

, Giovanni Domenico Rognoni Taeggio,

Giovanni Gabrieli Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1554/1557 – 12 August 1612) was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift f ...

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist who was one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically ...

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

and

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...

. Their repertoire adapts music that was originally intended for

strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

, organ,

gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

, bells,

wind ensembles A concert band, also called a wind band, wind ensemble, wind symphony, wind orchestra, symphonic band, the symphonic winds, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of members of the woodwind, brass, and percussion famil ...

, classical guitars and

choirs A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

History

The octet began a 2004 classical performance of electric guitars organized by the Los Angeles Modern Guitar Project. The concert included students of guitarist Peter Yates playing a West Coast

premiere A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition. A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its first ...

of three new works by

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

composer/guitarist Nathaniel Braddock. In 2006, four of those guitarists—Ben Harbert, Philip Graulty, Chelsea Green and Felix Salazar—performed for a memorial concert for the late composer

James Tenney James Tenney (August 10, 1934 – August 24, 2006) was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microtonal ...

. From there, they constituted the rest of the group in 2007.

Recordings

*''Los Angeles Electric 8 plays Shostakovich, Mendelssohn, Braddock, Siegel, and Kohl '' (2008) *''Imagined Overtures'' (2009) *''Interlocking Textures'' (2012)

References

External links