User:Schlockading
Ben Boatwright | |
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| Born | Benjamin David Boatwright February 5, 1992 |
| Education |
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| Occupation(s) | Author, musician, filmmaker |
Ben Boatwright (born February 5, 1992), sometimes known by his pseudonyms Schlockading or Yoeth Gallopers, is an author, composer, violinist, filmmaker, and scientist. He is known for his various literary works in the science fiction and fantasy genres, notably the Space Voyages series, and has also made significant contributions as a concert violinist and classical composer. Boatwright is currently a graduate student in the Planetary Geosciences group at Brown University and graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College with a double major in music and geology in 2014.
Born and raised in a middle-class suburban home in Texas, Boatwright led an unusually rich childhood and was nurtured from a young age in both the arts and sciences. This has led to a notably interdisciplinary career that has been equally successful in both realms. He was once described by the late Dallas Symphony Orchestra violinist and New Conservatory of Dallas Artistic Director Arkady Fomin as "a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci."
Literary works
Of Boatwright's myriad creative pursuits, writing by far developed the earliest. His first works include short stories such as The Shy Bird, The Dumbest Basketball Player, and When You Give a Pak Scissors, all of which he wrote in his own form of proto-English before he had properly learned to speak. Beyond this, Boatwright's first major contribution came in late 1998 with his own take on the mystery genre, the Croner Boys. The adolescent detective duo was modeled directly after the Hardy Boys, albeit with considerably less detail involved. In total some dozen or more "books," each only several pages long, were produced in the series until around 2002. Today, the Croner Boys mysteries are remembered fondly for their laughably inconsequential plotlines and corny dialogue.
The end of the Croner Boys saw the beginning of a much more wide-ranging and successful endeavor in the form of Space Voyages. The series of seven novels chronicles the adventures of three teenage astronauts who come face to face with a number of alien friends and foes on their journeys through space. Space Voyages saw a major improvement in plot and character development, and numerous spinoffs and adaptations have resulted. Written from 2002–2005, the series as a whole remains Ben Boatwright's longest completed work of literature. A concept for an eighth book was developed but never completed.
The next major undertaking was Jack Pumpkin's Great Adventure, which was started as part of National Novel Writing Month in 2007. In a departure from science fiction, the book is more a Tolkienesque account of Jack Pumpkin, a vegetable man, who is swept up into a web of political intrigue when he discovers he is heir to the throne of the fruit kingdom. It was also a vehicle for a healthy dose of self-referential humor and wordplay, with everything from Bannie and "the coch" to a rickety raft named the Bananic. While it was technically finished in 2009, the somewhat improvised plot resulted in various discrepancies between the beginning and end; edits and rewrites have continued intermittently to the present. A revised and much improved version of the book was finally completed in October 2017, almost a decade to the day since it was begun. The author is currently in negotiations for publication of a hardback edition with Hopefully Someone Will Publish This, Inc.
Most recently, Boatwright's main focus has been on an encyclopedic childhood memoir entitled But Sir, I Wasn't Involved! An Oddobiography: 1992–2010, or, the Thousand and One Pages. In it, Boatwright attempts to summarize his entire life from birth to age eighteen. The idea for such a work came from his earlier "novel emails," which were extremely detailed accounts of various family vacations. He was also inspired by James Thurber's autobiographical sketch My Life and Hard Times. Thus far, the book is over 300 pages long and has covered approximately ten years.
Among other recent works that are either on hiatus or have been abandoned altogether are From Tresco with Love, a romance novel set on the Isles of Scilly; and Hiambre, a surrealist drama that follows the protagonist's slow descent into insanity and his explorations of reality.
Compositions
In terms of his musical training, Boatwright's compositional skills developed secondarily from those as a classical violinist, with his first real works not coming until around the age of fourteen; indeed, his career as a composer took shape almost completely outside of any formal training or guidance. In the intervening decade, Boatwright has written some two dozen pieces for ensembles ranging from solo instruments to full orchestra. Many of his early works were film scores for the brickfilm productions in which he participated as a high schooler. Considerable maturation was seen during two years of composition classes at Amherst College, and his most recent works have developed a more distinctive style that embraces the late Romantic idioms of lyricism and extended tonality championed by such composers as Richard Strauss and Sergei Prokofiev.
List of compositions
Orchestral
- An Experiment in Dissonant Fifths (2006)
- Johnny in Three Movements (2007)
- EmBELLishment (2007)
- A Western Overture (2008)
- The Final Frontier (2011, rev. 2012)
- Ballet Cliché (2012)
- Beowulf: A Choral–Orchestral Poem (in progress)
Chamber and solo
- Improvisation for piano (1997)
- 21st Century Graduation March (2003)
- Dance for Piano No. 1 (2007)
- Reflections on Modi (2008)
- Three Dances for Violin and Piano (2008)
- "Hrunting nama" (2010)
- Pavane pour un violoncelle defunte (2012)
- 35 mm (2012)
- Nighths in Barthelona (2012)
- "For You (The Weddin' Song)" (2012)
- Cerulean (2012)
- Quintet for Brass (2013)
- Five Pieces in Search of an Exit (2013)
Film scores
- The Brick Zone: Thaddeus and the Elevator (2006)
- HurriCast Theme (2007)
- Infiltration (2008)
- Moronic (2008)
- The Red Room (2008)
- Kensington (2008)
- Plant (2009) – Nominated for Best Original Score, 2009 Bricks in Motion Awards
- Tacoma (2009)
- Zombie Attacks 3 (2010)
- BBP Theme (2014)
Arrangements
- Ravel: "Le jardin féerique" from Ma mère l'Oye, string orchestra (2009)