About Arranged Accidents:
Arranged Accidents is an orchestral album with modern and futuristic elements thrown in by composer Mike Burns. This is music geared towards lovers of epic movie soundtracks like Last of the Mohicans, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Dune, Blade Runner, and Braveheart.
…but you already read about that on the Home Page. What’s my story exactly? What got this stem major out of bed every day to grind on this project with the bulk of his free time for seven years: learning Music Theory, Harmony, Counterpoint, Four Part Writing, Audio Engineering basics, Pro Tools, virtual instrument programming and ultimately web site building in the process?
Well, I’ve been practicing meditation for about twenty five years and somewhere along the line I started to be able to go very deep into altered states and from there plumb the depths of imagination and come back up with melodies I thought people would really enjoy hearing. By about 2010, I had several cassettes filled up with musical ideas. It was around that time I became friends with members of a now defunked Classical act that at the time didn’t have enough original material to put out a full album. That really inspired me to take my writing to the next level and create more complex arrangements and full on songs. It would be through them (I thought) that my songs would get to come to life. By the time the band broke up, I had an album’s worth of material written into the sequencer of a simple Korg Keyboard. I had in the interim branched out and written many songs that were geared for full orchestras and included many instruments my friends didn’t play. I decided to go it alone. I built a home studio. I assembled a massive computer. I bought high end mics, preamps, monitor speakers, terabytes of instrument and scoring software along with audio plugins, and a five star audio interface. I got a fantastic deal on a Martin D28 acoustic guitar which I play on the album. I learned Pro Tools. I learned how to program legato, vibrato, and numerous other articulations into virtual instruments.
by 2015 much the album was done and mixed. I was so happy with it, yet I imagined how much better it would sound with real world class musicians recording the parts for the songs. I hired the best of the best. It was the people featured in the articles below that fully realized my vision.
By 2020 I had completed additional songs. Instrument libraries and my programming skills had both improved to the point where I was able to record, mix, master and produce them entirely inside my studio without outside help. These replace some of the lesser and extra-genre pieces that appeared on a briefly released 2018 version of the album which is still available on CD here on this site. Special thanks to my wife, Jennifer Burns, for all of her patience, inspiration and support.
About Sefi Carmel:
I had the pleasure of working with the great Sefi Carmel, who mixed 4 songs on Arranged Accidents: Dante’s Lament, Siog, Sigil of the Wolf and In the Hall of the Pumpkin King. He took very busy arrangements and gave them so much depth and spacing that each part had enough room to be heard clearly. Plus I get to say that I’ve got a guy who mixed for Bowie mixing on my album. Here’s his full Bio:
Sefi Carmel is an award winning London based composer, sound designer, producer and mixer. He has been creating soundtracks for films, TV, commercials and games for over a decade.
His diverse credits range from work on A list Hollywood feature films with the likes of Ridley Scott, John Woo, Chris Columbus and Kevin Reynolds; to mixing, remixing and mastering tracks for David Bowie, Phil Collins, Bruno Mars, Michael Bublé, Massive Attack, BB king and many more.
He has enjoyed success creating scores and soundtracks for Disney, Universal, Buena Vista Miramax, Scott Free, BBC, MTV, ITV, National Geographic, Discovery, Sky, Five, Channel 4, BskyB’s cross platform gaming channels and many more.
Advertising clients include top agencies such as Publicist and M&C Saatchi, and top brands such as Mercedes, BMW, Samsung, and many more.
For the past 5 years Sefi has been mixing all the audio for Steam Motion and Sound. Steam is a high end creative agency with offices in London, New York and Sydney.
Sefi has mixed hundreds of cinema and TV commercials and trailers for Steam, working for A list clients such as Cameron Macintosh, Warner Bros, Decca, Universal, Vodafone and many more.
His soundtracks are an exciting hybrid of epic, cinematic orchestral and cutting edge electronic music, using superb live musicians coupled with larger than life sound design, mixed in earth shattering 5.1 surround, to create that big cinema experience.
Here’s the link to his IMDB profile.
About Brian Losch:
As a Grammy Award winner who focuses on Classic music, I had to get Brian on board for this album. You can hear his mixes on Last of the Mohitos, The One Who Knocks, 2200 and MMCC. Does he ever know how to make a violin sound fantastic! I also had him mix the only EDM song on the album, Trans FM, just to see if he could do it and he did not disappoint.
Making recordings for Sony Masterworks, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, and organizations such as The Metropolitan Opera, Brian has album credits which span multiple genres and include artists Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, Stuart Duncan, Anne-Sophie Mutter and the New York Philharmonic. As an engineer, he has worked on film scores for ESPN and composer Hans Zimmer, also live concert broadcasts featuring Tony Bennett, Celine Dion, and Andrea Bocelli.
Brian has been awarded multiple Grammys as an engineer (Best Engineered Album, Classical and Best Classical Vocal Solo) for Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks, was involved in Steven Mackey’s Lonely Motel and Yo-Yo Ma’s The Goat Rodeo Sessions which won multiple Grammy awards. Additionally, he has earned a Bradley Award for excellence in music production from McGill University, is an AES Student Recording Competition winner in pop/rock and folk categories, and holds Downbeat Awards for his studio and live recordings. As an engineer, Brian has worked on a variety of respected music productions and continues to do so in New York City. Click here for more.
About R. David Pettit:
David has worked with some of the biggest names in pop music like Wale, Natalie Imbruglia, and Anessa LaRae, but he’s also mixed with The Philadelphia Orchestra. My 3 songs: Piper Down, Kubrick’s Cube and imaginary Dragons also draw from different genres and benefited immensely from David’s wide range of experience. I especially enjoyed the tone of how the guitars sound on those songs. Kubrick’s Cube is a fully orchestral song and he proved without a doubt that mixing Classical is definitely in his wheelhouse. Click here to hear some of his other work.
About Jonas Petersen,
I doubt very much this album would exist in it’s current format without the enormous amount of heavy lifting done by Jonas Petersen and his team at 24 Violins. Jonas’s work is featured extensively on the soundtrack for Sherlock Holmes 2: a Game of Shadows, where he got to work with arguably the greatest composer of our time, Hans Zimmer. Jonas’ skills are multitude but it was his ability to not just perform, edit and deliver a flawless violin performance, but to be able to do it with severely challenging and fast parts dozens of times and layer them seamlessly into one cohesive fully orchestrated performances that really impressed me. He did the same for me on the viola as well more than once. His Paganini level playing, featured most prominently on the songs Sigil of the Wolf, Siog, Last of the Mojotos, In the Hall of the Pumpkin King and The One Who Knocks made me very happy to have chosen live strings for the album. Here’s the link to his site.
About William Stewart:
William delivered one of the finest and most emotional violin performances that can be heard on this album. His double tracked performance on Dante’s Lament is exactly what I envisioned for the song. He worked incredibly hard to get perfect intonation for every note.
William started playing violin at the age of 10 and at 14 won a scholarship to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music. After completing his studies and winning first prize in many competitions he toured with most of the major orchestras in Scotland. Then he left for Germany, where he was leader of the Passau State Opera Orchestra. After that he joined the world famous Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra where he played and toured for over 3 years.
William is an incredibly inspired human being who knows where great music comes from. He has released the greatest album of anyone I personally know or have worked with. I have listened to it dozens of times. It’s one of my missions to get it’s YouTube hit count up over a million. It’s called Songs of War.
About Monique Canniere,
Monique is a dear friend, violinist, vocalist (vocalinist), multi-instrumentalist and one of the hardest working women in show business. She keeps an incredibly busy schedule teaching full time, practicing, writing and playing local shows in the Philadelphia area so I didn’t impose on her too much to play on my album, especially since she refuses to charge me for the session time. She did come to the home studio in August 2017 and knocked out my favorite violin solo on the album for the song 2200. She played every note I wrote exactly as I hear it in my head. It’s a performance for the ages, absolutely electrifying! Kudos also to Brian Losch for the world class mix on this song. Monique also sings on the track MMCC. She’s so musical even her speaking voice is unintentionally melodic. A joy to be around and to have in one’s life.
Monique was a scholarship student at Mansfield University of Pennsylvania, where she got her BM in performance. She performed at both the MU Symphony as concertmaster and with the MU Jazz Ensemble. She was also a member of the Williamsport Symphony while attending MU.
Monique received a full tuition scholarship to the 2003 Henry Mancini Institute at UCLA. She attended the Masters in Jazz Studies program at University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she was a student of world-renowned jazz violinist John Blake. She has also received extensive mentorship from Orlando Haddad, Christian Howes, Don Glandon, Ben Schachter, and Micah Jones. She has appeared in various prestigious venues such as the Kimmel Center, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, World Cafe Live, the Trocadero, the Leocouris Center with Kanye West, the Tin Angel, Sellersville Theater, and West Chester University. She released her first solo album Preaching to the Choir in 2015, and you should get it, right now!
You can read her full bio and very impressive resume at her website, and you can hear her performances here and here.
About Rick Curran:
I was fortunate to find so many skilled violinists for my album, but finding a truly great violist is like trying to find a unicorn. Rick plays viola so well it’s hard to imagine him finding time to play cello and violin as well but amazingly, he’s proficient at all three. Rick plays an incredibly difficult viola solo I wrote for the song In the Hall of the Pumpkin King and he played it incredibly: zero edits and zero editing required by the mixing engineer. He’s also the featured violist on the song Dante’s Lament. He also plays in the beginning of The One Who Knocks, a part I added in after the original recording session, though Jonas does A list viola work on the rest of that song. I can always count on Rick to get it right the first time.
Rick Curran has. 30 years live and studio experience. His live appearances include: Wembley Arena, Montreux Jazz festival, V festival, Greenbelt festival, Ronnie Scotts and Mean Fiddler. His album credits include: Bert Jansch, Steve Tilston, Maggie Boyle, Corner Shop, Angie Palmer, Albert Lee, Dave Pegg, Dave Mattacks and numerous others. Rick has numerous Film, TV, Game and Library music credits.
About Daniela Savoldi:
Daniela is a cellist of such immense talent that I literally postponed the release of my album to get her on it. Daniela hails from Brescia, Italy and has been playing cello since she was ten. She enjoys playing a wide array of genres ranging from Bossa Nova, to Indian, to Classical, to Pop. Her recording credits include, most impressive to me Muse but also Le Luci Della Centrale Elettrica, Paola Turci, Lorenzo Monguzzi. Calibro 35, Dente, Nada Malanima, Gianni Maroccolo, Alessandro Mannarino.Suona with Vincenzo Fasano, Francesca Lago, Corimè and with Le Man Avec Les. You can her masterful layered performances on Siog, Kubrick’s Cube, The One Who Knocks and In the Hall of the Pumpkin King. Much thanks to recording engineer Giancarlo Roberti for finally divulging her name after recording her for me twice in his acoustically perfect, top gear laden studio. She is credited as the mystery cellist on the first pressing of my CD.
About Michelle Packman,
Michelle can be heard playing outstanding cello on the songs The One Who Knocks and Last of the Mojitos.
Michelle’s early accomplishments include performing at Carnegie Hall and receiving the Semper Fidelis Music Award from the U.S. Marine Corps. She dual majored at the Irvine Valley College and University of California. While there she was awarded Tanya-Reed Gardner Memorial Scholarship for excellence in music at the collegiate level and was a featured in a solo recital for the Orange County Philharmonic Society. She completed her degree at the Cole Conservatory of Music CSU, Long Beach where she studied under Dr. David Garrett of the LA Philharmonic. Michelle pursued further education at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. She was able to attend thanks to the North American Tour Scholarship. There she studied under Eugene Friesen and earned an Artist Diploma in Professional Music.
Michelle has had a successful career as a session musician, recording in many famous Hollywood Studios like The Barbara Streisand Stage at Sony Pictures, The Bridge, United Recording on Sunset Blvd., East West Studios at Warner Bros, Clearlake Studios, The Village Recorder, and others. She was also the cello teacher of the late WWE wrestler, Joanie “Chyna” Laurer. Most recently, Michelle performed with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on their West Coast tour. Here’s her site
About Noah Hoffeld:
Noah Played cello on my song Dante’s Lament, and performed the full cello section in Sigil of the Wolf, one layered track at a time. A New York City native, Noah’s musical life is varied, alternating producing and performing his own music, playing featured cello for the likes of Renee Fleming, Philip Glass, Natalie Merchant, Krishna Das and Brad Mehldau, recording cello solos for films like The Skeleton Twins (Kristin Wiig and Bill Hader), Experimenter (Peter Saarsgard), A Walk in The Woods (Robert Redford and Nick Nolte) and HBO’s Show Me a Hero, by the makers of The Wire. And he’s a composer himself, currently attached to two indie films in production. His productions recently made him an endorsed artist of Moog Synthesizers. And Noah is a Ricci Artist, playing the World’s finest carbon fiber cellos.
About Sandro Friedrich:
Track one on the album is called Piper Down, and features bagpipes played by Sandro. I was already happy with the virtual bagpipes previously used in this song provided to me for free by Ken Black at Sonokinetic, but Sandro’s performance took it to the next level. He plays with incredible energy and has a fantastic home studio that delivers top tier recordings! Sandro Friedrich is a studio musician who plays over 200 different flutes and other wind instruments from all over the world (duduk, fujara, didgeridoo, low whistle, tin whistle, bass flute, traverse flute, soprano sax, bag pipes, etc.) As a studio musician Sandro has recorded with musicians such as Andreas Vollenweider and Tina Turner. He has recorded for numerous international films, video games and CDs with composers including Howard Shore, Mychael Danna, Atli Oervarsson, Shigeru Umebayashi and many others.
His musical styles vary from film music and world music to rock, folk and pop. He also plays live in various bands and combinations, including Andreas Vollenweider’s 2011 live band.
He has performed as an orchestral soloist for presentations of film music, including an international debut performance of Howard Shore’s “Lord of the Rings Symphony and performances of the music of Shigeru Umebayashi under the direction of Dirk Brossé at various international film festivals.
As musician and composer his strength lies in the originality and passion of his melodic lines, the power of his rhythmic grooves and his ability to competently and flexibly support diverse musical atmospheres. His technical knowledge also enables recording jobs via internet in addition to traditional studio work.
About Jen Lightfoot:
Much of the artwork you see on this site, including the iconic portrait seen on the single cover for “I Want Your Cray Cray 2” was created by artist, singer, songwriter, creative genius, friend, and all around Neo-Renaissance lady Jen Lightfoot.
Jen received her MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2013, and in 2007 received her BFA in Illustration from Moore College of Art and Design.
Her work has been featured in publications such as the Canadian erotica magazine IN MY BED, and the Philadelphia-based arts and fashion magazine NUMiNOUS. She has shown her work at galleries internationally, including Gristle Art Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), La Bodega Gallery (San Diego, CA), La Luz De Jesus Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Future Gallery (Lake Orion, MI), and Penumbra Art Boutique and Studio (Loures, Portugal).
Special thanks also to the mysterious mixing engineer Giancarlo Roberti from Verona of whom little is known. Though he did not mix on this album, he has a high end recording studio and access to some of the finest session musicians in the world. He recorded full cello sections for Kubrick’s cube, In the Hall of the Pumpkin King, The One Who Knocks and Siog and the performances and recording quality are 10 out of 10. I couldn’t get him to post a picture or name the cellist or cellists involved, and all of our work together was done over the internet, but his work is greatly appreciated. Update 6/12/18: Giancarlo has released his identity to me, providing me with a picture, and the identity of the concert level cellist he recorded with, Daniella Savoldi.