BRANDON CARSON

COMPOSER

The music of Brandon Carson (b. 1994) has been described as “stunning” (Cheryl Callon, TheatreJones), and has been said to convey “menace, trepidation, glee and joy and everything in between” (Margaret Putnam, TheatreJones). Carson’s compositions encompass a wide variety of sounds stretching from the Western Orchestral, to Balinese gamelan, to music created with his own uniquely crafted instruments.

Brandon is a graduate of Southern Methodist University Meadows Music Composition program in Dallas, Texas. He completed his Masters in the Performer/Composer Program at California Institute of the Arts. Brandon currently resides in Los Angeles serving as Music Director for St. Gregory the Great School in Whittier, CA.

Some of Carson’s recent collaborations have included creating musical scores for contemporary dance. Brandon has provided many scores for award winning choreographer Joshua L. Peugh, including Big Bad Wolf, which premiered in South Korea at Seoul Performing Arts Center in October 2017. In 2018, Brandon composed the music for Peugh’s Aladdin, حبيبي , a 75 minute work featuring a live band of Arabic, Chinese, and African instruments. This dance focused on the Arabian Nights story of Aladdin, and dealt with this story’s themes in a modern context. Aladdin, حبيبي , and Can’t Sleep but Lightly (Brandon’s gamelan-marimba hybrid score for New York based choreographer Gabrielle Lamb) were both named as standout performances of 2018 in performance art review TheatreJones. More recently, Carson composed music for Dark Circles Contemporary Dance productions “Pete: A New Dance Musical” in 2019, and Backcountry Basin in 2021.