The Apt Ensemble - Actaeon At Home

2005 The Apt Ensemble - Actaeon At Home Vladmaster5 (cd & viewmaster reels)

A musical picture story in 4 disks & 1 mini-cd.

The Apt Ensemble:
Peter Broderick
Nathan Crockett
Branic Howard
with Tim Nicodemus - narration on track 1.

1. Introduction
2. Soundtrack

The first commercially-available recording to feature Peter Broderick was a soundtrack by The Apt Ensemble.

The Apt Ensemble were Peter Broderick, Nathan Crockett and Branic Howard. Formed to provide musical accompaniment to Vladimir's handmade View-Master™ reel Actaeon At Home, the band "play[ed] strange and delightful music on an assortment of instruments including toy piano, tuba, musical saw, melodica, pump organ, and train whistle."1 The recorded soundtrack (available on a 3" cd with the four discs of View-Master™ reels which make up Actaeon at Home) runs for 5 minutes and 41 seconds.

During the Vladmaster California tour of 2005, The Apt Ensemble "also perform[ed] a wonderful set of music unaccompanied by tiny photographs and clicking noises."1 Sadly, no record of this music exists, although photographs of the performances can be seen here.

Vladimir described the coming-together of the Apt Ensemble thus: "There was this guy I didn’t know very well who was a student at the Northwest Film Center, who did the scores to his own films, and I really liked those. So I asked him to score "Actaeon," and he got the other two to help."2

1 (http://www.atasite.org/calendar/?x=1506)
2 (http://homepage.mac.com/merussell/iblog/B835531044/C1592678312/E20050826021234/index.html). It is more likely than not that the guy was Peter - some of the films he made at this time are on his youtube channel.

Music for Three (People)

2004/2005 Peter Broderick - Music for Three (People) (mp3)

From Peter's flickr photostream:

"Today I've been sorting through a bunch of old boxes of my things, out at my father's place. I found all these compositions I wrote while I was studying music theory in 2004-2005.

This was a piece I wrote for piano, violins, and tuba. I remember the teacher wanted us write everything out on the computer, so that it was easier to read, and to hand in the printed composition with a MIDI recording of the piece. I never learned how to use the computer program, so I ended up writing out everything by hand, and making recordings of the music.

This one cracks me up. This was only 4-5 years ago, yet it's hard for me to believe that I'm the one who wrote this piece of music. It seems my music just keeps getting slower and simpler as time goes on.

And I managed to find the recording I made. For some reason at the time I decided to add drums and harmonium, which aren't even in the score. Guaranteed to give you a headache and make you smile if you listen to the whole song :-)"

listen here