Laetitia Sonami was born in France and settled in the United States in 1975 to pursue her interest in the growing field of electronic music. Her work combines text, music and "found sound" from the world, in compositions which have been descibed as "performance novels". She is creating and utilizing some of the most sophisticated technologies in order to create an intimate, spontaneous art form which transcends technology.

For the past few years she has developed and adapted new gestural controllers to musical performance and composed works with these materials. Her lady's glove, made out of black lycra, is embedded with numerous sensors which track the slightest motion of each finger, the hand and the arm. The performance thus becomes a small dance where the movements shape the music.

Sonami has been performing and presenting her work in numerous venues across the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan, among which the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, the Bourges Music Festival in France, the Sonambiente Festival in Berlin, the Interlink festival in Japan, Bang-on-a Can, The Kitchen and Other Minds, S.F

Recent awards include the Alpert Award in the Arts (2002), Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts Award (2000), the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship (2000), Studio Pass-Harvestworks residency (2001) and a Creative Work Fund award (2000) for a collaboration with Nick Bertoni and the Tinkers Workshop ("BAGS").

At CNMAT Sonami will be performing recent works and premiere a new piece "The Appearance of Silence" with sounds and images controlled by gestures.

Sponsored by Consortium for the Arts