Postcards II: Akari (2018)

flute/voice, viola, harp, and fixed media, duration 20’
// alternative versions:
// voice alone in place of the flute
// cello part in place of the viola
// guitar part in place of the harp

Inspired by Noguchi’s akari lamps, the piece invites the audience to feel as though they’re inside the light sculptures, perhaps overhearing their light conversations / adventures / dreams. The text is drawn from Isamu Noguchi: A Sculptor’s World—the artist’s descriptions of light sculptures. The piece premiered as part of Akari: Sculpture by Other Means.

The Akari Sessions (2018)

2-channel installation, duration 57’

This installation was created in celebration of the exhibition Akari: Sculpture by Other Means at The Noguchi Museum in New York City. Recordings of tapping, opening and closing, and rubbing the washi paper, bamboo, and wire of the lanterns evoke the feeling of being inside the light sculptures, or perhaps overhearing their conversations. Akari is a registered trademark of The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York / ARS

birth, death (2017)

obsidian sounding stones, strings, and voice (or flute), duration 9’

This work was written in honor of the exhibition of Isamu Noguchi’s two sculptures Birth (1934) and Death (1934) being displayed together in the same gallery for the first time. The two obsidian sound sculptures used in birth, death—Untitled (1978) & Sounding Stone (1981)—were created by Noguchi to be played as instruments.

The work explores loss, memory, and change, and is dedicated to Anne Grilk King.

beyond the accident of time (2019)

percussion and voices, duration 12’ / flexible duration

Commissioned by The Noguchi Museum. Additional arrangement commissioned by Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice (CRiSAP), for Un-Earthed: a festival of listening and environment.

This work honors Isamu Noguchi’s never fully-realized Bell Tower for Hiroshima, 1950 (partially reconstructed 1986). The original bell used for the first movement is Noguchi’s Bell Image (1956–57). The piece responded to the exhibition Changing and Unchanging Things: Noguchi and Hasegawa in Postwar Japan.

beyond the accident of time (installation, 2025)

8-channel installation version (2o25), duration 20’
The 8-channel installation was commissioned by Sonic Acts Biennial.

For the 8-channel installation version of beyond the accident of time, I wanted to uplift the different versions—combining excerpts from concert version performances in Chicago, New York, Tokyo, and the UK with field recordings of a version of the work that invites community members to enact the piece in their urban environment.

Sky Gate (2022)

flexible instrumentation, duration 12’

This composition honors Isamu Noguchi’s Sky Gate, one of the most prominent works of art on the City and County of Honolulu’s Civic Center. He created the sculpture for a version of the park he would never see: one where the monkey pod trees had grown for almost 50 years more, reaching out to touch each other with their branches, making the sculpture a literal sky gate amongst the shade of the surrounding park. The sculpture then not only activates the park, but also us: it activates us to look up, to come together, to be present in the space.