sound projects.
I found a love for experimental music in college at Wesleyan University, and through classes, was able to develop my own soundscapes for various projects.
I had the opportunity to work with Adam Vidisksis, a member of the performing arts and educational organization SPLICE, for this project. We worked together to create a piece for which I submitted the visual component and he brilliantly composed the sound you hear behind the video. There was an improvised element on either end and we teamed up in order to develop a narrative and tone for the final piece. I was very intrigued by the sudden emergence of mushrooms all around the Wesleyan campus. It felt as though they were taking over the space, assembling, multiplying, and getting stronger. For this piece, I created a narrative around this army of fungi, a trailer perhaps, which was heavily inspired by horror films from the 70s and 80s, revolving around growing monsters, ready for war.
The illustration I made to use as cover art for the piece.
This piece was meant to create an anxiety-filled atmosphere, a nightmare that turns into a dream which then pulls you right back into the nightmare. While isolating in my large, creeky house in college, I recorded sounds throughout of doors creaking and slamming shut, footsteps, tools and knives being sharpened, unstable floors... I experimented more with reverb and sound panning to accentuate the horror aspect of the composition. At some point, I insert a recording I had made during my morning reflections with my parents at the start of the pandemic, we would all get into a bed together, talk about our dreams and anything that was on our minds at that moment. We had created a safe space to bring us together and appreciate our family, contemplate what we were grateful for. It was very comforting, and I continue to remember if not seek those moments out to help me through my anxieties. When listening to this, I feel as though I am in a movie, without any visual components, I was hopping to create an amorphous narrative. While the overall tone of the composition was somber, I see it as edging throughout. On the cusp of destruction, but a lifeline is always near. (LISTEN WITH HEADPHONES IF POSSIBLE)
I composed a piece, a sound collage perhaps, made up of recordings (upwards of 30 minutes worth) documented from my window during the first lockdown in Paris. I live on the fourth floor of a relatively quiet neighborhood in Paris, France. My balcony was my only access to the outdoor world. Since the isolation began, I noticed both a deepened silence as well as a more musically vibrant atmosphere, which seems to have intrinsically welcomed a sense of community. My neighborhood is somewhat diverse, bordering many of the universities in Paris, making it home to many students, families, older retired couples, and government housing in which many immigrants reside. I used to wake up to the sounds of people setting up outdoor markets, songs and prayers from the mosque around the corner, and children playing and singing as they walked to school. I was surprised one morning, at 6 AM, to be woken up by what I thought was two old women fighting in the streets, only to find out that they were yelling at each other from across the street on a walk, and were talking about how much they missed each other. This piece was inspired by those first few months of isolation, the impact of sound, and at times lack thereof. We were scared, but there was an intangible sense of hope and light that came from the sounds which echoed through our streets. (LISTEN WITH HEADPHONES IF POSSIBLE)
This was a small component of a larger performance and research project I conducted with Daisy Mayer at Wesleyan University. We were interested in the history of the monumental neoclassical Russell House, which stood out from the architectural landscape of Middletown, Connecticut, and now a National Historic Landmark since 2001. It was known as the haunted house on our campus, so we wanted to uncover some truths behind the rumors. The first portion of our project involved performance in the house itself. After investigating and recording sounds throughout the house, we put together some compositions and organized playing them through large speakers. This glass centered piece was one of them, we wanted to recreate the liveliness the house once had, but also emphasize the spookiness of the space which was ever present. The second portion of the project was more research based, and the final product was a podcast that included interviews, sound effects recorded in the house and some character play. We even interviewed ghost hunters who had surveyed the space. We uncovered quite a bit about the history of the space and the town, and went through archives from Middletown and the university dating back to the 1800s.