Middle Haddam, Connecticut
Born 1955, Boston, Massachusetts
Sound Artist and Composer
Loudspeakers rarely produce sparks,
The world has many, many different busy signals,
Dutch tram bells sound like slowed down bicycle bells,
No two watches tell the same time,
Trains passing a movie theatre, unheard but visible through a sound-proof window.
My work starts for that wonderful discovery that music can be a way of listening. Some pieces form with an influence. Something that makes me hear (see, feel, think, know) one thing rather than another thing. The question becomes, how about that other thing? What is the least I can do that allows it on stage as well? Perhaps this is simply a desire for clarity and tidiness in gluttony. How many sounds can I really hear at once? There are other ideas, issues, obsessions at work as well, of course. But the one rule of thumb I return to again is: “if the piece is in trouble, lower the volume until you can hear everything that contributes.” As we get ever deeper into this era of content untroubled by experience, it is harder and harder to do.
1979 M.F.A., Mills College
1977 B.A., Wesleyan University
Adjunct Professor of Music, Wesleyan University
2006 Visiting Professor, Brown University
2005 David Tudor Composer-in-Residence, Mills College
1999-2007 Visitations, sound installation, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA
2007 Castle, with brothers, sound installation, Moyland Museum, Bedburg-Hau, Germany
2006 Filtering 5.31.07, concert performance, collaboration with Ed Tomney, Diapason Gallery, New York, NY
2006 Architectonirama, concert performance, HFG Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany
2005 Rocks Role/Interleave, concert performance, Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College, Oakland, CA
2003-2004 Outgoing message, sound installation, DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA
2003 Fugue States, colliding, concert performance, The AGNULA Project, BYOL Festival, Prato, Italy
2002 Train (under glass), sound installation, WDR Spring Festival, Witten, Germany
2000 Twilight of the Second Hand, sound installation, DEAF_00, V2 Organization, Rotterdam, Holland
2000 Sparks on Paper, sound installation, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Donaueschingen, Germany
2003 Artist in Residence, Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Lake Como, Bellagio, Italy
2002 Guest Composer, Kunst Akademie, Berne, Switzerland
1999-2000 Artist-in-Residence, DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm, Berlin, Germany
1998-1999 Artist-in-Residence, Institute for Studies in the Arts, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
