Max Hopkins’ Portfolio
SYN-Phon (2016)
SYN-Phon is a visual art piece and interpretive score by Candas Sisman. During an independent study at the University of Lethbridge, I removed the audio from Candas’ visual score and re-scored the piece of music (with permission). To avoid being influenced by the original score, I always watched without sound until the project was completed. Once completed and graded I sent the final product to Candas who approved it and later featured it in an exhibition.
My score for SYN-Phon was created in Logic 9 primarily using Omnisphere I and Vienna String Ensemble. It was my final project in my Scoring for Film and Digital Media independent study during the final year of my undergraduate degree. I developed a general concept in sound and timbre which corresponds roughly to shape and height of the visuals, but largely created the music through intuition and translating the visual cues to sounds that came to me while I watched.
This work was featured in a multidisciplinary Art Walk at the University of Lethbridge, was the subject of a Composers Forum lecture that I presented at the University of Lethbridge, and was exhibited in Istanbul as part of Candas Sisman’s NOOSHOCK Exhibition.
The intra-environmental Sound project (2015-2016)
Thanks to the Joyce and Ron Sakamoto Prize for Research in Digital Audio Arts, I had the pleasure of conducting a supervised study in environmental recording, soundscape composition, and sound-mapping.
Over the course of eight months, my research partner and I travelled to Banff, Calgary, and the University of Lethbridge to collect data. During this time we devised optimal capture techniques, created a theory on categorizing natural and unnatural sounds, and held many thought-provoking discussions with our supervising professor D. Andrew Stewart. Over the course of our study we became acutely aware of the increasing loudness of modern natural environments, and shifted more focus toward raising awareness of growing human-made noise as the takeaway message of our work.
As composer for the project, I was heavily influenced by the work of Pierre Schaeffer and his ideas surrounding Musique Concrete, as well as R. Murray Schafer and his compositional philosophy and teachings.
Our project was featured on CBC Calgary, we had an interactive display featured in the University of Lethbridge’s main library, and our website was hosted by the University of Lethbridge for several years after completion.
Find my research paper here. (Google Drive link)
Orchestral arrangments - Boreal Sons (2018-2020)
Following the advanced orchestration course I took during the second-last semester of my undergraduate degree, my interest in scoring and orchestration grew significantly. After my undergraduate degree, my project load dwindled and I decided to begin a personal study in translating rock band arrangements to the orchestra.
Over the course of two years I spent several week-long stints transcribing, arranging, and orchestrating the majority of Calgary band Boreal Sons’ album Threadbare. I had hopes of beginning formal composition lessons with these arrangements as a focus, and one day having them performed by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. However, as I was nearing completion of the scores, the pandemic began and made everything much more complicated.
I received approval from the primary songwriter and singer after sharing samples.
Find the score to The Falconer here. (Google Drive link)
Find a midi rendering here. (Google Drive link)
Listen to the original song here.
Sojourns (2020-2022)
Sojourns is my latest effort as a singer-songwriter. It is the result of two years of personal study in mixing and engineering. I chose songs I had written between 2017 and 2020 to build an eleven-track album. Due to constraints on group gathering size and personal finances, I engineered, recorded, and produced virtually everything on the album and learned a lot in the process.
Wading was written well into the mixing stage, and is the last piece I wrote for the album. This piece acts as a bridge between a stirring piece for orchestra, voice, and acoustic guitar, and a piano-based rock song. I drew inspiration for this piece from people like Olafur Arnalds, Lord Huron, and Hans Zimmer. All parts were written, recorded, and performed by me.
Sojourns will be released in June of this year.