Bruce Odland, sound artist,composer, sonic observer of the visual culture.

audio tour short bio resume O+A website press+radio cd's and cdrom's

philosophy

current and upcoming projects:

O+A will give a keynote talk on July 7th to the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF)in Turin Italy "Towards a Hearing Perspective" introducing their work to an international audience of scientists and students and encouraging ongoing investigation of why our world has come to sound the way it does.

   
O+A will perform Requiem for fossil fuels in San Jose's St Joseph Cathedral September 18th,2010 as part of the 01SJ Biennial. The performance consists of an 8 channel "orchestra" of resonances extracted from cities around the world, played live by O+A, and their new setting of the Requiem text for four virtuosic singers. More information.
   
"River of Sound". Bruce was invited by Laurie Anderson to co-direct an extensive sound park at the site of a new Frank Gehry building on the Novartis Campus in Basel Switzerland. It will open August 27th 2010.
 

 

"SAGA" is a work for chorus, soloists, hardanger fiddle and organ that traces the history my people from the earliest written words of the Norse poetic Edda and the People born of Ice and Fire, to the flat plains of South Dakota. Immigration and forgetting. The project was instigated and commissioned by my father, Paul. The Libretto is by Mary-Ann Greanier. So far two of the five movements have been written.

 

   

SeaGlass Carousel will be a permanent attraction in New York City's Battery Park.

Funded by the Battery Conservancy
Pavilion and original concept by weisz + yoes architects
Carousel production concept and design by George Tsypin Opera Factory
Music and Sound Design, Bruce Odland, with Acme Sound.

 

recent projects

 

"Phyllis and Harold" by Cindy Kleine,chronicles the filmmaker's parents’ disastrous 59 year marriage and addresses the effects of secrecy on the family. Bruce wrote the music. It was held over for 4 weeks at LAEMMLE'S MUSIC HALL in Beverly Hills and LAEMMLE'S FALLBROOK in Encino after being held over 3 weeks in New York at Cinema Village.

     
  "North Atlantic" Bruce joins the Wooster Group in remounting its Cold War Classic. It will be at the Barishikov Art Center, 450 West 37th Streetin New York City , March 10- April 25, 2010 Tickets
     
  "Future of Noise" was broadcast on CBS Sunday Nov, 8th with Mo Rocca interviewing O+A. We were in process of gathering materials for our new performance piece "my eyes. . . my ears. . . " Why do we live in a culture where the highest art (Moma Sculpture garden) sounds like any taxi stand? watch
     
 

"my eyes. . . my ears. . . " A new performance piece by O+A explores perception, memory and the failure of the 'sonic commons'. Premiered at the Ear to the Earth Festival in NYC October 2009, and was presented April 7,2010 in Montreal April 7th, 2010 sponsored by IRHA, Concordia University, and McGill University.

Commissioned by Ear to the Earth Festival

     
 

La Didone, performed by the Wooster Group, Musical Direction and Sound Design by Bruce Odland, was at REDCAT in Los Angeles from June 11-2. It is really a treat for the senses. New York Times Review. LA Times "I heartily recommend it to all fearless theatergoers as part of their annual neural-pathway tuneup."

"Opera but not as we know it" review in the Herald. Variety Review.

     
  "Grasses of a Thousand Colors", Wally Shawn's new play will premier at the Royal Court, London, May 12- June 13, 09. Directed by Andre Gregory, Music and Sound by Bruce Odland.
     
  "Harmony in the Age of Noise", 2008,was a cross disciplinary examination of the politics of hearing and seeing using the Tufts University Campus as a living psychoacoustic map. Anthropologist David Guss teams up with Bruce Odland to generate a campus and community wide discourse which will culminate in a sonic intervention on top of the Tisch Library that allows visitors to explore the politics of their senses. With sculptor Mark McNamara and new media artist Michael Luck Schneider. Press and Reviews.
     
 

INSA Art Space Seoul, Korea,2007

Hearing Perspective: Think with Your Ears
O+A (Sam Auinger & Bruce Odland)
December 10 - 15. 2007

Odland and Auinger led a week long workshop with artists and students exploring and mapping the Seoul soundscape.

     
 

"Hearing Space" five channel sound environment with visual clues at THE STUDIO in Armonk NY, Sept 29- Nov 11 2007. Listening deeply to the world in which we live and finding beauty, music and information in ice, water, wind, weather. A five channel surround DVD with center channel of video which alters the normal ratio's of senses in this medium, foregrounding the ears.

Ltd. Edition boxed set of signed DVD and 25 ft. scroll is available.

Installation Photos ,<1s > ,<2> , <3> , <4>, <5> ,<6>

     
 

Requiem for fossil fuels by O+A at Judson Memorial Church, NYC Oct 19-20, 2007. Presented by EMF.

"We now face the passing of our way of life dependent on fossil fuels, and hope to gain insight by examining the sounds of our culture through the lens of the "Requeim Mass".

Performed live by O+A on an 8-channel "Orchestra of Cities" with Martha Cluver-soprano, Hai Ting Chinn- mezzo soprano, John Young-tenor, Joshua South-bass. NY Times article.

     
 

"La Didone" an early Venetian Opera (Cavali 1641), with the Wooster Group. I'm the anti- maestro, and we are trying to include both the 17th and 21st centuries simultaneously. It has been seen at festivals in Brussels, Rotterdam, EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 07 Edinburgh, Scotland Herald review, Luxemburg Festival . It will come to New York and Los Angeles in 2009.

     
  "The Fever" Wally Shawn is performing his brilliant monologue at The Acorn Theatre, till March 3rd 2007. I made the sonic space which is like being in Wallys Brain, and I highly reccomend going for both personal and political reasons.
     
  "Good Vibrations" by Bruce Odland and Michael Luck Schneider, for MCA Bella International Artist in Residence Project, at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Sidney, Australia. We used a period 60's trailer to make a mobile installation about perception and memory. We went to 6 schools around Sydney and worked with groups of students with disabilities, who loaded the caravan's memory with images and sounds to be remixed with touch. Here's the blogsite.
     
 

"Elevated Harmonies" O+A -the whole range of fossil fueled madness reduced to harmonic intervals in an installation at the Elevated Acre, 55 Water St. NYC. For theEar to the Earth Festival, Oct, 2006.

     
  "Living Harmonies" O+A (bruce odland and sam auinger) will make an installation which live transforms Stuttgart street sound into harmonic resonances for the World New Music Festival there in July, 06
     
  Whitney Biennial- DTAOT:COMBINE a 5 channel sound installation is part of the"Dont Trust Anyone over Thirty" installation by Tony Oursler and Dan Graham, based on the much talked about puppet rock opera- its on the 2nd floor on the left in the back room.
     
  "Thousand Years Waiting" Feb 24-March12 @ PS122, an extraordinary new play by Chior Miyagawa, new score by Odland, "Time Tunnels", puts ancient instruents in the lens of modern technology.
     
  "Phantom Canyon" an exquisite 10 min animation by Stacey Steers showed at New Directors/New Films at MOMA and Lincoln Center, April 1-2. This is Stacey and Bruce's third film together. It will be at the Sundance Festival January 2007.
     
  "Bone Songs " Andre Gregory's poetic exploration of his wife Chiquita's death from cancer was performed at the 92nd St. Y May 24th, and I made the aural and musical environment live.
     

sound installations currently running

  "Harmonic Bridge" by O+A in the collection of MASSMoCA, North Adams, Mass. since 1998 under the Highway2 overpass by the parking lot, this real-time resonance installation converts roadnoise into harmony. video documentation
     
  "Tonic" in the collection of the City of West Hollywood, California. The SE corner of Santa Monica Bvld, and San Vincente. Operates 24 hours a day.
     
 

"Box 3070" by O+A hasbeen collected by a sound park in Neerpelt, Belgium, and will travel to other cities from there. You tube link.

     

Here's some links.

O+A sound installations of Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger.

CD's and CDroms. some published, some one of a kind.

contact: