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Patrick Flanagan      

The one-man band Jazari

The one-man band Jazari consists of machines that play the djembe drum, the bongos, and a variety of hand percussion instruments, all under the control Patrick Flanagan, who wields a custom-built controller and a Wiimote to improvise through his mechanical band-mates. Jazari has played between punk bands at outdoor rock festivals and in darkened, reverent art spaces. No humans have been hurt or made obsolete. Prior to working on Jazari, Patrick earned a Master’s degree in music composition at the University of Minnesota, where he studied primarily with Dr. Noel Zahler. As an undergraduate, he studied composition at Columbia University, where he encountered numerous luminaries of new music and music theory, including Fred Lehrdahl, Tristan Murail, Joseph Dubiel, and John McGuire. After college, a Fulbright scholarship brought Patrick to Germany to study composition at the Musik Hochschule in Cologne, where he took classes with two brilliant composers of the Feedback school, the late Johannes Fritsch and Clarence Barlow.

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Robot Drummers and Patrick Flanagan of Jazari
Cyborg percussion ensemble Jazari was created by “token human” Patrick Flanagan. He made a kind of robot drum circle that beats on acoustic bongos, cowbells, a djembe, and more. In episode 32 of Composer Quest, Patrick talks with me about his robot band, his day job creating musical iPhone apps, and his reasons for leaving the academic composing world to create dance music.

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