Ronald Keith Parks (b. 1960) is an active composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. His diverse output includes orchestral works, instrumental and vocal chamber music, choral music, electroacoustic music, and interactive computer music. Recent commissions include Elements for the Blue Ridge Chamber Players, Fierce Winds for the Charlotte Symphony Flutes, I thought I’d better let you know for the Charlotte Symphony’s Orchestra on Campus Composers Project, Things Get Out of Hand… and Alhambra Tiles for the Out of Bounds Ensemble, A Matter of Perspective for Duo XXI, Off on a Tangent… for the Red Clay Saxophone Quartet, Torque, Wavelength and Afterimage 8 for the Charlotte Civic Orchestra, Afterimage 7 for the NeXT Ens, and …drift… for the Force of Nature artist exchange program.

Parks compositions and papers have been selected for inclusion at numerous national and international festivals and conferences including the New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Malgrat del Mar International Music Festival, the Society of Composers’ national conferences, the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival, the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States conference, the International Computer Music Conference, the Electronic Music Midwest Festival, the Spark Festival, the National Flute Association conference, and numerous performers’ and composers’ concerts and recitals around the world.

Parks’ research into granular synthesis methods and FFT-based spectral filtering methods has been included in the Amsterdam Catalogue of Csound Computer Instruments and has been featured at ICMC, SEAMUS, SCI, and SPARK conferences and has been published in ICMC and SPARK conference proceedings.

His honors and awards include the Aaron Copland Award, the Outstanding Junior Professor Award at Winthrop University, the South Carolina Music Teachers Association Commission, and honorable mentions in the Truman State/MACRO Composition Contest, the Minnesota Composers Forum, and the Shepard Composer of the Year Award.

His music has been recorded and is available on the 2007 International Computer Music Conference CD (fractures), the Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival Volume 1 EMF CD 031, (Residual), the 2005 and 2006 60X60 CDs, (non divisi and Sul C), Duo XXI: Quest, released by Albany Records (A Matter of Perspective) and the Society of Composers, Inc. University of Florida Student Chapter CD Volume 1 (VoiceWall).

Parks received a B.M. in composition from the North Carolina School of the Arts, an M.M. in Composition from the University of Florida, and a Ph.D. in Composition from the University at Buffalo. He is currently Associate Professor of Composition, Music Technology, and Theory and is the Director of the Winthrop Computer Music Labs at Winthrop University in Rock Hill SC.

Albums

Spellbound

Release Date: May 1, 2013
Catalog Number: NV5911
21st Century
Orchestral
Large Ensemble
Orchestra
From mythic origin stories, to the Elizabethan stage, to the modern cinema, the human experience is bound in storytelling that has the power to captivate minds and inspire creativity. Like a good story, the composers featured on SPELLBOUND transport the listener across landscapes only limited by the imagination. These new works for orchestra behave as narrative arches, allowing tension and emotion to build and release to a euphoric conclusion or a haunting realization.