Composer Devon Tipp Discusses Their Recent Work

Our guest for this episode of the Music at Pitt podcast is Devon Tipp. A PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh, Tipp’s music draws influence from their Japanese and Eastern European roots, experiences as a jeweler and painter, and studies of gagaku and hogaku in Japan and the US. They received their BMus from Montclair State University, where they studied composition and microtonal music with Dean Drummond, and shakuhachi with Elizabeth Brown. Their music has been performed by microtonal specialists Kjell Tore Innervik, Veli Kujala and Tolgahan Çogulu. They have also worked with Rarescale, the Thin Edge New Music Collective, the Sudbury Guitar Trio, and members of Avanti! Chamber Orchestra. Devon's compositions have been featured at the Soundscape Festival, Bowdoin Festival, Atlantic Music Festival, Sävellyspaja Summer Composition Masterclasses, and the Tokyo International Double Reed Society Conference.

Devon was recently announced as the winner of the 2020 Dead Elf Music Award for the best composition by a Pitt graduate student for their composition Tokyo Shift Response Shards and they have been named an Andrew Mellon Predoctoral Fellow for 2020–21.