IATH NEWS

Sound Artist Bill Fontana: Acoustical Visions

February 28, 2014

Sound Artist Bill Fontana will be lecturing at the University of Virginia School of Architecture on March 6th sponsored by the Jefferson Trust as part of a Creative Listening Grant awarded to Kenan Professor Karen Van Lengen in 2013. The lecture and workshop are an integral part of the “Listening to the Lawn” seminar taught by Van Lengen and musician Troy Rogers. The lecture takes place in 153 Campbell Hall, March 6th at 6PM, entitled Acoustical Visions.

Fontana is a distinguished artist who began his career in the late 1960’s exploring the new territory of sound art. A student of John Cage, Fontana has worked with environment sounds to reveal the hidden characteristics of space and materiality while creating a significant body of new music. In a recent project in Cern, Switzerland, Fontana recorded the sounds of the Large Haldron Collider in a piece entitled Acoustic Time Travel. Other legendary projects include Soaring Echoes at the Pritzker Pavillion, Millennium Park, Chicago; Harmonic Bridge at the Tate Modern, London; and Sound Island at the Arc de Triomphe, Paris.

He is the winner of the Bay Area Treasure Lifetime Achievement Award and the Golden Nica Lifetime Achievement Award in Digital Music and is currently preparing for a retrospective exhibition of his work in Abu Dhabi.