Composer

Shifting Ground weaves together pieces for solo violin and violin/electronics by J.S. Bach and composers of other eras to form a program with dramatic arc, flow, and scope. Violinist Alexi Kenney's creative forces are combined with new media artist Xuan in an immersive multidisciplinary program that joins solo violin works from the 18th to 21st centuries with boundary-pushing projection art. Music by J.S. Bach and Nicola Matteis flows seamlessly into works by new voices such as Rafiq Bhatia and Angélica Negrón, as Xuan conjures immersive, imaginative landscapes in response.

EPSG:4326

Shifting Ground

Century II Performing Arts & Convention Center

Experience the sound of an Alaskan glacier in Transient Landscapes, an extraordinary, fully immersive live performance installation created by composer Matthew Burtner and percussionist Matthew Duvall. Featuring percussion, keyboards, voice, and field recordings of Alaska’s Matanuska Glacier, Transient Landscapes explores a performative means of remapping climate change into sound. In Burtner’s own words, “this work confronts the transience of interconnected and human-altered landscapes… in which glacial melt becomes flood water on the other side of the world.” Join us for this monumental, once-in-a-lifetime sonic experience!

Transient Landscapes

St. John's College

A discussion with Matthew Burtner, composer, and Matthew Duvall, percussionist, moderated by Paul Sta. Ana. Duvall and Burtner’s monumental collaboration, Transient Landscapes, brings the sound of an Alaskan glacier to Santa Fe. Learn how sound art, data modeling, and ecoacoustics make data emotive and connects human imagination to climate change.

Creative Connections – Reflections: Arts and the Changing Landscapes

Santa Fe Art Institute

In an intrepid act of programming, the insightful young violinist Alexi Kenney matches well-loved solo works by J.S. Bach with new compositions by the best and brightest voices in contemporary music. Kenney, a recipient of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant, enjoys melding the new with the old, the familiar with the undiscovered, and here highlights the spiritual and mystical dimensions of Bach’s music. The revered Chaconne from the Partita in D minor is the jewel at the center of Kenney’s recital, illuminating recent works for solo violin (with and without electronics) by a host of contemporary composers. The title Shifting Ground references the heart of all Baroque music—the omnipresent ground bass—upon which variations are built. “Spellbinding…[an] architect’s eye for structure and space and a tone that ranges from the achingly fragile to full-bodied robustness” (The New York Times).

Composer

Matthew Burtner

Events

Past events

Oct 4, 2025

Shifting Ground · Wichita Symphony Orchestra

Sep 16, 2023

Transient Landscapes · Performance Santa Fe

About

Matthew Burtner hasn't added a bio