A double portrait of sound artists and instrument builders Laetitia Sonami and Viola Yip, the concert will feature both artists performing a collaborative work as well as two solo works.

The artists will expand on their 2021 collaboration for Issue Project Room’s Distant Pairs when they got to meet each other on zoom. For the telematic performance, they envisioned a virtual electronic instrument which connected their gestures between Berlin to Oakland. They now will face each other for the first time and see how their presence transforms the piece.

For their respective solos, Viola Yip will perform her self-built light instrument, Bulbble, which allows her musical body gestures to be translated into an interplay between sounds, lights and shadows. Laetitia Sonami, will perform a solo work on the Spring Spyre, the instrument she designed for the application of Machine Learning to audio synthesis, as well as perform with her recent lady’s balls for her collaboration with Viola.

Viola Yip is an experimental composer, performer, improviser, sound artist and instrument builder from Hong Kong. She has been interested in creating new self-built instruments and sound works at the intersection of composition, performance, improvisation and sound art, exploring various relationships between media, materiality, space and our musical bodies in experimental music.

Her work “Bulbble” recently received an Honorary Mention from Giga Hertz Preis from ZKM (Center for Arts and Media) in Karlsruhe. She is also a recipient of Künstlerhaus Villa Waldberta (München) stipendium, Projektstipendien Junge Kunst /Neue Medien für Musik 2021 from the Rathaus München and INITIAL special grant from Akademie der Künste Berlin (Academy for the Arts Berlin).

Viola's instruments and performances have been presented in places such as Issue Project Room, Look and Listen Festival, Yale University, Frequencies Festival in Constellation in Chicago, University of Chicago, Cycling 74 Expo, Sonic Lab in SARC at Queen University Belfast, Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, Huddersfield University, Orpheus Insitute in Ghent, QO-2 in Brussels, Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), Alte Feuewache in Cologne, Seanaps Festival in Leipzig; Festival für Immaterielle Kunst in Hamburg, A L’arme Festival in Berlin, Universität der Kunste (University of the Arts) Berlin.

Laetitia Sonami is a composer, sound artist, performer and researcher.

Born in France, she settled in the United States in 1977 to pursue her interest in live electronic music. She studied with composers Eliane Radigue, Joel Chadabe, Robert Ashley and David Behrman.

Sonami's sound performances, live-film collaborations and sound installations focus on issues of presence and participation.

Best known for her unique instrument, the elbow-length lady's glove, which is fitted with an array of sensors tracking the slightest motion of her hand and body, she has performed worldwide and earned substantial international renown.

Recent projects include the design of a new instrument, the Spring Spyre, based on the application of machine learning to music performance; an improvisation duo, Sparrows and Ortolans, with James Fei; and Le Corps Sonore, a fully immersive sound installation on six floors of the Rubin Museum, NYC in collaboration with Eliane Radigue and Bob Bielecki. Sonami received the Herb Alpert Awards in the Arts (2000) and the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Awards (2002).

Sonami lives in Oakland, CA and is currently a guest professor at Mills College (music dept).

Live Stream Here: https://youtu.be/ZwuJZVgN7TI