Daniela O’Fee
Seeking relevant approaches to democratic public art engagement motivates Daniela to re-tune her practice of music performance towards the amphitheater of the outdoors. Based in Kamloops on the traditional and unceded lands of Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc the flux between acoustic and visual realms, she uses field recording, graphic scores, soundwalking, wood bending, deconstructed instruments, obsolete media and extended piano techniques to address resource extraction, settler colonialism, culture dynamics, ecology, immigration, and diversity. While maintaining her indoor performances at the piano, Daniela has been spending more time in the field discovering shifted sounds, assessing atmospheric conditions, and resonating with the environment approaching the limitless, land-based immersion of alternative listening theories.
See and hear Daniela O’Fee work on July 15th from 11 am-12 pm PST in the Hexennacht online stream!
Polymetric Distancing, 2020
From their normal justification of providing precise musical timing, metronomes transform into the un-synchronized realm of internet video conferencing. Recorded on the Zoom app ubiquitous with remote music lessons during the pandemic lockdown, five young students randomly set their metronomes to personally selected backgrounds, speeds and mute patterns for an indeterminate rhythmic outcome.
Bark Score, 2021
When snowshoeing in the forest on the edge of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, I found a piece of bark that had left its tree. I used a metal necklace and a tennis ball inside of my piano to resonate the decay, transformation and rebirth as a nature score.
All Prepared but Nowhere to Go, 2020
Nocturnal improvisations take the listener through a series of failed attempts to go someplace during the isolated back drop of pandemic 2020. During the course of one evening, the instrument was prepared by wedging old piano hammers in between the strings to distort the timbral sound character while illuminated with festive mini-lights. Resonating from a transformed state of existence, each hopeful departure sparked in the upper register encounters obstacles during a descent into futile darkness.