Jukebox

Pretty much everything.

Pretty much everything.

Compositions for Wilson Lai’s senior thesis film at Wesleyan University.

Film credits:

Director: Wilson Lai
Producers: Annie Ning, Ruby Lu, Hannah Levin
Writer: Wilson Lai
Editor: Wilson Lai
Cinematography: Ale Lampietti
Art Direction: Beatrix Herriott O’Gorman, Justina Yam
Set Decoration: Ruby Fludzinski
Composer: Gabriel Drozdov
Sound: Sherwin Yu
Costumes: Hope Fourie, Minu Jun
Make-up: Mina Khan

Sound design for Wesleyan University's production of Eurydice, mounted at the CFA Theater.

Show credits:

Play by Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Corey Sorenson

Asst. Director: Ava Grob
Asst. Director/Dramaturg: Lauren Stock
Costume Designer: Summer Lee Jack
Asst. Costume Designer: Analiese Guettinger
Lighting Designer: Calvin Anderson
Assistant Lighting Designer
Set Designer: Emmie Finckel
Asst. Set Designer: Tekla Monson
Asst. Sound Designer: Elam Grekin
Properties Manager: Ella Larsen
Movement Director: Julie Mulvihill

Eurydice: Naomi Okada
Her Father: Nika Litt
Orpheus: Alex Carroll-Cabanes
The Nasty Interesting Man/Lord of the Underworld: Jeremy Sherman
Big Stone: Henry Yang
Little Stone: Olive Wexler
Loud Stone: Shana Laski

Featured samples:
“Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree” — Glenn Miller
“La Vie en rose”
“String Quartet in F Major” — Ravel
“A New Satiesfaction” — Made in Berlin string quartet

I was the sound designer and engineer for Jordan Tragash’s production of the play Rhinoceros, written by Eugène Ionesco. The play was produced by Second Stage at Wesleyan University and mounted in the Patricelli ’92 Theater during the spring 2018 semester.

For the show’s music, I settled on a mix of genres that juxtapose classical orchestrations with electronic/pop songs to reflect the play’s themes of absurdity and confusion. The score gradually devolves into an amalgamation of rhinoceros sounds, which I produced by pitching down human grunts. For the production’s sound system, I placed subwoofers under the audience’s seating such that the aforementioned rhino sounds would vibrate the entire floor of the theater.

Show credits:

Play written by Eugène Ionesco
Directed by Jordan Tragash

Assistant Director: Ray Jordan Achan
Stage Manager: Lea Moore
ASM: Betsy Zaubler
Sound Designer/Composer: Gabriel Drozdov
Assistant Sound Designer: Aïli Niimura
Props Designer: Andy Tan
Set Designer: Rowan Hair
Set Painter: Erin Rose
Light Designer: Zack Lobel
Assistant Light Designer: Wilson Lai
Costume Designer: Sofie Rose Somoroff
Assistant Costume Designer: Mae Davies
Fight Choreographer: Aaron Josephs
Publicity: Adam Munawar Rahman
Master Electrician: Devon Cooper
Electricians: Anik Bernstein, Sam Driver
Master Carpenter: Levi Ask
Carpenters: Rose Shuker-Haines, Tom Fischer, Ava Grob
Photographer: Sige Zheng

Berenger: Ariel Fromm
Jean: Andrew Dalton
Daisy: Celina Gray Bernstein
Dudard: Christopher Desanges
Botard/Cafe Proprietor: Dariush Yaz
Housewife: Nicole Boyd
Logician/Fireman: Matthew Seidenfeld
Grocer's Wife/Little Old Man's Wife: Julia Chung
Grocer/Little Old Man: Franklin Gu
Mrs. Boeuf/Old Gentleman: Olive Wexler
Waitress/Mr(s.) Papillon: Grace Stanfield

Sound design for Eva Yichen Lou's senior thesis at Wesleyan University. Cello performed by Aïli Niimura. Featuring Prelude to Bach's Cello Suite No.1 in G.

Songs that might've transitioned between other songs, but don't. They're probably not meant to be listened to in this way, but ah well.

An album of songs I wish I had time to finish, but at least recorded on my phone. Featuring calligraphy by Maddie Ulevich.

Time Passes is a remake of my first album, To Home this time shorter and different. I tried to make it better, but I really mostly made it shorter and different. Ah well. I tried again later with To Home?? To Home!!, which just features the instrumentals.

The album cover is an original pencil sketch.

A string quartet adapted from a synthesizer piece, with an album cover of my late grandfather, Pyotr Drozdov.

Unfortunately, I do not know who performed the piece. I remember that only two of the musicians had met before the recording session, and that those two were married.

A score to a film that doesn’t exist, something about J. Alfred Prufrock and love songs. Does that still make it a score?

Granola is an experimental pop album created NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music during the 2014 Summer High School program. The album is credited to Lola, a group that consisted of myself, Joaquin Friedman, Pavlina Osta, and Jourdan Kelli.

I was the artistic director and primary musician on the project. Joaquin was a co-producer and co-writer, assisting in the completion of several tracks. Pavlina was our chief marketing manager. Jourdan was our photographer and social media manager.

After the album’s release, I self-produced a limited run of physical copies. For fun!

Additional credits:

“Dirk Diggler” features guitar by Will Adler.
“Empty Bowl” features percussion by a NYC street drummer.
“The Outsider” features production by Joaquin Friedman.

I wrote a concept album, To Home, in 2015 before I graduated from high school. I knew nothing about music production or engineering. I could write faster than I could record—I ended up adding an additional four songs to the album, as well as wrote and recorded tens more that wouldn’t make the cut. I wrote lyrics for the whole album and sang them—my voice wasn’t good, and I grew tired. I released the album in 2015. None of the vocal recordings sounded particularly professional, or refined, or good. I tried again in 2016 by making a shorter, refined version of the same album, this time called Time Passes. That also did not end up particularly good. I still love the underlying songs, though, so I’ve taken out the vocals and extracted the piano recordings. To Home?? To Home!! is a collection of what I played at the time, remastered a bit and put into one place.

To Home is concept album about a failing relationship between Mason and Erin. The story is told from Mason’s perspective and is arranged in five parts that span eighteen songs. The last four songs on the album make up an EP titled More.

The parts are as follows:

One: tracks 1-3
Two: tracks 4-6
Three: tracks 7-10
Four: tracks 11-14
Five: tracks 15-18
More: tracks 19-22

I’m not crazy about this album because I wrote it in high school and would prefer not to hear myself sing. If you’d like to hear the piano instrumentals from To Home, please listen to To Home?? To Home!! instead.

The album cover is an original acrylic painting. While in high school, I self-produced a small run of physical copies that featured 2 CDs and additional artwork. I also created a digital lyrics booklet, which featured the (semi-)original typeface Boxfish Political. I designed this font by modifying all of the letters in another font, Adobe Arabic. I was very proud of all of this at the time.