Don't Be Evil: Fanfare for Band

2'

Perusal Score [PDF]

​Published by Just a Theory Press

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Premiere
Yale Concert Band
Ryan Lindveit, guest conductor
Woolsey Hall, Yale University
New Haven, CT
4/13/18



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Program Notes
Don't Be Evil: Fanfare for Band is an irreverent critique of Big Tech neoliberalism, especially as practiced by Google, which celebrated its 20th birthday in 2018. The puzzling motto "Don't be evil" is part of Google’s corporate code of conduct. The idea that one of the world's largest tech companies would tell itself to not be evil in the way it handles user data is both wildly hilarious and suggestively grim. Given that 2018 is also the 50th birthday of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, fragments of the song "Daisy Bell" (sung by the antagonist computer system HAL 9000 while it’s being shut down) appear in the piece in various guises. The opening fanfare is a paraphrase of a sound effect from SNL's "The Californians" skit, in part inspired by a 1995 essay "The Californian Ideology" by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron which, like my piece, is a critique of Big Tech neoliberalism.
 
Don’t Be Evil: Fanfare for Band was premiered by the Yale Concert Band (Ryan Lindveit, guest conductor) on April 13, 2018 in Woolsey Hall in New Haven, CT.