Arthur Kampela is a Brazilian-American composer, guitarist, and songwriter.
Though Kampela has been associated with the New Complexity movement, his style evolves out of extreme extended-technique improvisational practices which remap the ergonomics of one instrument onto another (percussion onto guitar, or guitar onto viola).[1][2]
An important aspect of Kampela's music is his development of micro-metric modulation, a formula for precisely controlled transition from any polyrhythm to any other polyrhythm, without either the tempos of the respective polyrhythms being directly related.[3][4][5] (He has also participated in activities that revive the theories and practices of Swiss-Brazilian musician Walter Smetak). Kampela's rhythmic and timbral techniques are sometimes framed by a reference to Theatre of the Absurd and combined with electronics.[6] Another aspects of Kampela's music is the fusion of vernacular Brazilian roots (bossa novas and samba) with subversive wordplay lyrics and atonal harmonies, which can be heard in his 1988 LP Epopéia e Graça de uma Raça em Desencanto… (‘Epic and Grace…’) His compositions, particular his Percussion Studies for Guitar, have been performed numerous times around the world (North America, South America, Europe, and Asia), resulting in dozens of renditions on YouTube,[7] and by ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic, Ensemble Linea, Momenta Quartet, and Ensemble Modern.
Kampela has taught composition at Columbia University, New York University, Bates College, and Escola de Música da UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro).
Kampela attended Conservatório Brasileiro de Música, Centro Universitário, then Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Ursula Mamlok. He continued his studies at Columbia University, principally with Mario Davidovsky and Fred Lerdahl, and earned a DMA (1998) degree. (He also studied privately with Brian Ferneyhough in 1993)