Music

Doornbusch’s compositional output spans electroacoustic works for instruments and electronics, fixed-media electronic music, solo and ensemble writing, choral music, and large-scale multimedia installations. His music has been performed in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA.

Corrosion

Music for Instruments, Computers and Electronics
Electronic Music Foundation, 2002  ·  EMF CD 043

Five works combining acoustic instruments with live electronic processing or prerecorded computer-generated materials. Composed while resident in The Netherlands during the 1990s, in collaboration with musicians from across Europe.

Reviewed in Computer Music Journal (Vol. 30, No. 3, 2006) by Richard Barrett: “never less than thought-provoking”.

iTunes / Apple Music CDBaby last.fm

Works on Corrosion

Excerpts from all five works. Scores and performance materials available on request — see Contact.

• Continuity 3 (2002)
  for percussion and computer

  Uses transformations of performing technique and sound to explore relationships between continuous and discontinuous textures and structures. Three metallic sound-sources are processed in real time via Max/MSP; the computer acts as a resonating body extending and refracting the percussionist’s sounds. Performed by Timothy Phillips.

  Excerpt:
• Continuity 2 (1999)
  for 4 bass recorders and electronics

  Written for the Malle Symen recorder quartet (Amsterdam). Virtually no traditional sound-production; instead the physical components of playing — breath, embouchure, fingers — are disengaged and independently notated. The electronic part combines sampled concrete sounds with Xenakis’s dynamic stochastic synthesis technique. The electronic part has a separate existence as Continuity 1.

  Excerpt:
• Act 5 (1998)
  for amplified bassoon, electronics, and hanging percussion

  A theatrical work in which three large objects (pots and pans, a xylophone, a kettledrum) hang over a darkened stage and are released by the soloist to fall to the floor in turn. The bassoon part gradually opens from a restricted low register outward and upward. Performed by Hamish McKeich.

  Excerpt:
• g4 (1997)
  electronic composition

  Composed exclusively using Xenakis’s dynamic stochastic synthesis. Form is reminiscent of the abrupt, unpredictable layer-structures of Xenakis’s Gendy3, but with greater internal complexity and denser conglomerate textures — a tribute to Xenakis’s work that simultaneously opens its own direction.

  Excerpt:
• Strepidus Somnus (1997)
  for 4 mixed voices and electronics

  Four vocalists perform with earpieces, each reproducing a precomposed track of vocal material ranging from coital gasps to algorithmically-fractured English. The aim is parallel streams of quasi-improvisatory consciousness, with occasional coordinated moments creating a floridly surrealist sense of dislocation. At 27 minutes, the longest work on the album.

  Excerpt:

Other Recordings

The Frog Peak Collaboration Project (Frog Peak Music: FP007, 1997) — includes Iceberg (1995). Apple Music

Continuity 4 (2013)

For piano and computer. Available in three versions: performed by a human pianist; performed by a MIDI player piano (pianola); and as a fully realised piano-and-computer work. The piece explores the realm of 20th century piano works from Ligeti to Stockhausen, Feldman, Nancarrow and more. It explores the timbre and performance practice of piano through extremes of playing technique and extends that through real-time computer processing.

It was exhibited at Musica ex Machina at EPFL Pavilions, Lausanne, from September 2024 until July 2025, where the pianola version ran continuously in the exhibition space.

Multimedia and Installation Works

Complete Works

Works marked † appear on the Corrosion album above.

More information on compositions and performances can be found at the Living Composers Project. Scores and performance materials are available via email.