Jean-Francois Charles
he/him
Iowa City, Iowa, USA
Jean-François Charles is an Iowa-based musician. He is passionate about teaching media hybridity with Max, the creation of new musical instruments with RNBO and Raspberry Pi, and the spectral nature of sound with Max.
He uses Max to design interactive music situations, to perform with other artists, and to teach creative digital arts. He has been known for a tutorial on spectral sound processing with Max, popular Max for Live devices, and the Spectral DJ performance set-up.
He teaches composition & digital media at the University of Iowa.
As a clarinetist, he has performed with classical, jazz, and other sound artists, from Maurice Merle to Douglas Ewart, from Gozo Yoshimasu to Karlheinz Stockhausen. As an electronic musician, he performed Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie I with Ensemble Sillages in Brest and Paris.
His compositions include the opera Grant Wood in Paris commissioned by the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, the Jamshid Jam album with setar virtuoso Ramin Roshandel, and the Missa brevis Abbaye de Thélème recorded by Anika Kildegaard.
Over the years, he co-composed with Nicolas Sidoroff live scores to silent movies such as Kino-Pravda No. 5 & 6 (Dziga Vertov, 1923), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Wallace Worsley, 1923), The Eleventh Year (Dziga Vertov, 1928). His collaborative works include the 2019 Scientific Concert: a hybrid performance of music, physics, geology, and chemistry.
He is available for workshops and one-on-one consultations.
He uses Max to design interactive music situations, to perform with other artists, and to teach creative digital arts. He has been known for a tutorial on spectral sound processing with Max, popular Max for Live devices, and the Spectral DJ performance set-up.
He teaches composition & digital media at the University of Iowa.
As a clarinetist, he has performed with classical, jazz, and other sound artists, from Maurice Merle to Douglas Ewart, from Gozo Yoshimasu to Karlheinz Stockhausen. As an electronic musician, he performed Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie I with Ensemble Sillages in Brest and Paris.
His compositions include the opera Grant Wood in Paris commissioned by the Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre, the Jamshid Jam album with setar virtuoso Ramin Roshandel, and the Missa brevis Abbaye de Thélème recorded by Anika Kildegaard.
Over the years, he co-composed with Nicolas Sidoroff live scores to silent movies such as Kino-Pravda No. 5 & 6 (Dziga Vertov, 1923), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Wallace Worsley, 1923), The Eleventh Year (Dziga Vertov, 1928). His collaborative works include the 2019 Scientific Concert: a hybrid performance of music, physics, geology, and chemistry.
He is available for workshops and one-on-one consultations.