Response/ability

jed blodgett & andrew Maxfield

Commissioned by the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, Art for Uncertain Times project.

this is to say that 2020 has been pulsating like a migraine…

…And so the four vignettes that comprise this "meditation on response-ability” are just four different responses to the steady drip. None is characterized as a good" or "bad” response; each is simply an exploration of the many possible reactions to the ostinato. —Andrew Maxfield, 2020

Jed blodgett

is a freelance percussionist and educator in Hartford, Connecticut. He is a uniquely versatile musician and has performed in professional settings of all varieties, including orchestral, new music, jazz and pop, music of the Caribbean, and the folkloric music of Cuba and Brazil. He has performed with the Utah Symphony, Utah Premiere Brass, Mid-Columbia Symphony, and Utah Wind Symphony. Jed is also a well-respected educator and clinician. He has given performances and masterclasses at the University of Hartford Hartt School of Music, Utah State University, Southern Utah University, Utah Valley University, and Brigham Young University, along with multiple primary and secondary schools throughout the western United States. He has taught at Utah Valley University and at the Skaggs Catholic Center where he also served as the fine arts department chair. During his time at the SCC, the center’s concert and marching percussion ensembles and steel bands received recognition throughout the country and were been praised for their artistry and musical maturity.

Jed served a two-year service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Ribeirão Preto, Brazil. He is fluent in Portuguese and proficient in Spanish, and his wife Tara is a concert pianist whom he loves dearly.

andrew maxfield

Comprising choral, art song, chamber, and orchestral works, Andrew Maxfield’s compositions have been performed throughout the United States and Europe. Additionally, Andrew has produced creative work ranging from music videos to children’s books to The Bridge, a genre- bending contemporary ballet.

Andrew studied music at Brigham Young University, where he was valedictorian and where he occasionally teaches. He pursued advanced studies in counterpoint and harmony at the EAMA– Nadia Boulanger Institute in Paris, France, and additional composition studies at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. His primary teachers include Philip Lasser (of The Juilliard School) and Marti Epstein, and he has also studied with Aaron Jay Kernis and Steven Sametz at the ACDA Choral Composers Forum. He also holds an MBA in Arts Administration from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Recent commissions include choral works for the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition and an extended concert music adaptation of a Caldecott honor book, They All Saw A Cat, for the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts in New York City. Andrew is the 2018-2019 Composer-In-Residence at the Newburyport Choral Society.

Andrew lives with his wife Liz Davis Maxfield—a professional cellist, expert in Irish traditional music, rock climber, and doula—and their two handsome, high-octane boys in Cambridge, MA.