Luke Martin
Santa Clarita, CA, United States
Originally from Massachusetts, Lucas (Luke) Martin is currently a Masters student studying Music Composition at California Institute of the Arts, in Valencia, CA, where he will be working with Professor Michael Pisaro. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in both English and Music from Colby College, graduating Magna Cum Laude with Honors in Music, and distinction in both Music and English. During his time at Colby, he studied music composition and theory with Professors Paul Leary, Steven Nuss, Jon Hallstrom, and Eric Thomas. He was awarded several honors in music, including a Kennedy Center Award for Outstanding Music Composition, the Mollie Seltzer Yett Prize for Excellence in Music Academics, and a commission through a Humanities Foundation Grant to work with sculptor and installation artist Nickolus Meisel, a professor at Washington State University, on a sound installation, When the Eye Listens. Luke arrived at Colby in 2010 as an accomplished jazz and rock guitarist before shifting more fully to composition, though he still loves and plays guitar regularly.
Luke has composed for various mediums including chamber music, orchestral works, electronic music (using Max/MSP), incidental music, contemporary dance, jazz big band and small group pieces, and short film scores. His artistic focus, however, seeks to explore a sonic liminality: an indefinable and fleeting zone of categorical interpenetration, comingling, and confusion where constructs can become briefly deconstructed and blurred. Most recently, he has completed an honors thesis in composition with a 35-minute piece for piano, violin, and alto saxophone, In Search of Murmurings. The piece is inspired by this concept of a sonic liminality as well as Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way. Among his biggest artistic influences are John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Samuel Beckett.