Mike Vargas
"(My) central framework is an evolving list currently consisting of 86 terms. Each of these terms represents a specific axis of possibilities from which the structural, procedural, conceptual or contextual details in music (or any medium) could be chosen. Isolating these aspects and using them to structure improvisational models provides insight into the mechanics of inspiration ..."
Composer, improviser, pianist, and percussionist, Mike Vargas is known for making music with a particularly broad stylistic range. Though he has performed music from Herbie Hancock to Mozart to John Cage, he has spent the last 20 years developing his own forms of music based on structured improvisation.
Vargas has performed at venues ranging between Indonesian cocktail lounges, underground clubs on New York's Lower East Side, Kennedy Center, nursing homes, Playback Theatre ... He has composed context-specific music in hospitals, concert halls, prisons, corporate conferences, dance classes, churches, train stations, school cafeterias, parks, restaurants, and theatre workshops ... He has composed over 150 works on tape, using piano, electronic keyboards, percussion, samples and recorded media, found sounds and a variety of small portable instruments, including end-blown flutes and melodica. He has also created more than 70 commissioned dance scores, live and on tape. His collaborators have included choreographers Liz Lerman, Bebe Miller, Peter Pucci, Douglas Nielsen ... and musicians Ron Miles, Bruce Odland, Zeena Parkins, Chris Cochrane, Janet Feder ...
Mike Vargas currently pursues a free-lance career, including teaching and performing worldwide with dancer Nancy Stark Smith.
Available CDs
