B I O G R A P H Y
Ha Chung Gong • Nilan Perera • Sarah Peebles

S A R A H • P E E B L E S
electroacoustics and shô

"Sarah Peebles has one of the most careful and subtle ears
of any composer of musique concrète working today."
—Terra Nova Journal (MIT Press)

Composer/performer Sarah Peebles integrates sounds she has gathered from natural habitats and cityscapes in North America and Japan into her improvisations and sound works. Exploring alternate performance settings, such as museums, bamboo groves, temples and parks, she has developed computer-assisted musical performance systems using Max and Sample Cell programmes. Peebles’ work in new music has included performances at The Kitchen, Roulette Intermedium (NYC), Studio Kinshicho (Tokyo), SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater Evening, Adelaide Festival of Arts—The Listening Room (ABC), the Music Gallery, production/performance for Sonic Circuits ’96 festival in Toronto, publication on a variety of labels, and performances in Canada, U.S.A., Australia, Japan, and the U.K. Peebles has also studied and performed traditional and contemporary music in Japan independently and as a Japan Foundation Uchida Fellow.

Selected Recent Performances

• Computer-assisted performance with guests Leonardson and Barsotti. The HotHouse, Chicago, IL, 10/98.
• Shift #3, solo computer-assisted performance, Artemisia Gallery: "Mixing, an international sound art festival, celebrating women in sound art" (with performances also by Olivia Block and Yuko Nexus6), 10/98.
• "Sinusoidal" collaboration by Peebles, Suzanne Binet-Audet, Bentley Jarvis. Gésu, Montréal, Quebec:
• Festival d’ondes Martenot de Montréal, 10/98.
• "eXtatic" digital sound scapes mixed via computer-controlled multi-channel sound system (Shift #2, tape). The Public Office, Melbourne, Australia: 1998 Next Wave Festival.
• Solo computer-assisted performance, "Shift #1", The Kitchen, New York, NY: "Music from Nature", Terra Nova Concert Festival/Terra Nova Journal (MIT Press), 1/98.
• "Language", a work by Peter Chin. Du Maurier Theatre Centre, Toronto, 11/97.

Selected Recordings and Publications 1996–1999

"This remarkable work demands to be heard with one’s senses and mind wide open. Multilayered and challenging... it conveys a subtle sense of impermanence and of creative interplay of musicians whose level of sensitivity is uncommon in much contemporary expression."
— Leonardo Music Journal (review of "Suspended in Amber")

• "Suspended in Amber", collaborations in Japan with Japanese artists. innova 506, 1996.
• "White Powder/The Spiders" with spoken word by David Toop on "Hot Pants Idol". Barooni, 1999.
• "Where the wild things went" on "The Female of the Species" LA13CD 1999.
• "Blue Moon Spirit and Insect Groove" on "‘Whose Forest?’ Defending our Public Lands". Produced by Sarah Peebles and Studio Excelo. HR 98104, 1998.
• "Nocturnal Premonitions" in "Music from Nature" issue of Terra Nova, Vol. 3, Summer 1997; journal with CD compilation), MIT Press Journals.
• "High-tech vs. My-tech", an article including music on accompanying CD. Musicworks 66, 1996.

Broadcasts and Reviews

• The New York Times, Radio-Canada, The Wire (England), Leonardo Music Journal (USA), The Globe and Mail, Eye Weekly, CBC Stereo, Bravo! TV, CIUT-FM, The Improvisor (USA), and The Australian Broadcast Corporation.

Supporters

"The music here has a rare elegance, its evolution taking place in near-silence."
— Eye Weekly, Toronto (review of Sarah Peebles’ CD "Suspended in Amber")

Back to Cinnamon Sphere main page

• Biography: Ha Chung Gong
• Biography: Nilan Perera