Phantom Acoustics

Program:

Acoustic Fields         Tania Rubio
Et Error No 2             Kelley Sheehan
Artificial Collection           Itzá García
Grito Silente del Mar           Tania Rubio
Attavist II                 Bethany Younge

Soprano and Arduino, Nina Dante
Flutes, Triangle and Arduino, Dalia Chin
Triangle and performer with objects, Emily Beisel
Wind up toys and performer with objects, Sam Rowe

Tania Rubio (website)

My work is focused on the study of sound within animal communication and natural acoustic environments for the creation of new music. My research is primarily centered on Biomusic, exploring the realms of acoustic ecology and interdisciplinary, intercultural studies of soundscapes. I am particularly interested in the dynamic interplay between art and science from an ecocritical perspective. I engage in diverse concert formats, ranging from musical theater to immersive multichannel sound installations and hybrid forms, all aimed at fostering a contextualized listening experience deeply embedded in the geocultural and biopolitical dimensions of sonic events. I am the founder and director of the Acoustic Ecology Lab in Mexico.

I have premiered more than 57 works in different formats in more than 17 countries between America and Europe, in international festivals. I have received several awards and recognitions for my work; the most recent are: "Sistema Nacional de Creadores en México 2023-2026"; "Sharing Knowledge" by the Danish Composers' Society and Art Music Denmark in collaboration with Initiative Neue musik, Berlin 2023; "Internationaler Koproduktionsfonds 2022-2023" by the Goethe Institut, among others.

I am currently pursuing doctoral studies with Carola Bauckholt with the project: "Biomusic: from animal communication to music composition" at the Anton Bruckner Private University.

Acoustic Fields

The composition is inspired by field work carried out during the Acoustic Ecology Lab Mexico-Germany in 2023. “Acoustic Fields” proposes an immersive listening to insects and their vital importance for biodiversity. The work is based on the acoustic communication of nocturnal species in the jungle, where visibility is very limited, making sound and listening a survival tool.

The work aims to encourage a deep listening to the rhythmic patterns found in nature and their link to animal behavior. Within dense vegetation the acoustic patterns for acoustic communication at a distance are simpler than the rhythmic patterns when species are at a shorter distance. This acoustic behavior inspired the writing of the present work and the movements of the performers. It is written for two percussionists who must walk around the audience simulating the nocturnal acoustic communication between two species at different distances.

Grito Silente del Mar

Sound is a nodal tool for survival, and many marine species depend on it. At certain depths where visibility is very limited, sound travels great distances, allowing communication, locating food, protection, navigation in the water, and helping to understand the environment.

The piece delves into two critical aspects of underwater sound: animal communication and habitat deterioration. The focus is on the vocalizations of 7 marine species: Orcinus orca, Physeter macrocephalus, Pseudorca crassidens, Hydrurga leptonyx, Phocoena sinus, Inia geoffrensis, Euphausia superba. Some of these species have developed complex communication systems much older than humans. Nevertheless, the potential disruption of their communication due to habitat deterioration is a grave concern, and all of them are classified in some risk category. With their habitats threatened, they may disappear before we can appreciate and understand the complexity of their language, like other sentient living forms threatened with extinction due to the accelerated human way of life.

Kelley Sheehan (website)

Kelley Sheehan is a composer and electronic musician moving between electro-acoustic, multimedia, and performance art works. Her work has been described as "full of discovery, collaboration, and unpredictability” (Iannotta, Kyriakides, & Stäbler) and “shatteringly visceral" (VAN Magazine, ty bouque).

In any medium, her work constructs environments meant to merge electronic and acoustic forces into one composite organism, dependent on this merging to become more than just an extension of itself. Her work focuses on sculpting noise, shifting materiality, housing structures, and machinery.

Named prize winner of the Gaudeamus Award 2019, laureate of the 2025 IMPULS Composition Competition, awardee of a 2022 Hildegard Commission,  recipient of a 2023 Barlow Endowment Commission,  awarded first place for the 2020 ASCAP/SEAMUS commissioning competition, the 2023 John Green Prize, and given honorable mention at the 2023 Darmstadt Summer Courses, among others. 

When not composing, she’s an avid improviser on self-made DIY electronics, no-input mixer, her AI-electric guitar hybrid called ‘other machines,’ or modular. Having performed at festivals such as the impuls international music festival and at such venues as the Banff Center for the Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, and at festivals such as the impuls international new music festival. 

As of Fall 2025, she is Assistant Professor in Music Composition and Technology at Northwestern University. Previously, Kelley taught at  the Smith Music Department as a Post Doc in Music Technology (2023-25). She obtained her PhD in Music Composition from Harvard University having studied with Chaya Czernowin and Hans Tutschku. 

Et Error No 2

Itzá García (website)

Itzá García (b.1993, México) is a composer focused on time and togetherness in technology-mediated musical settings. Her music and research engage current transformations in acoustic instrumentation, from augmented instruments to the use of instrumental sound as training data.

In her recent projects, she trains machine learning models with field recordings of weathered musical instruments, adding space and texture into the timbre of AI sound output.

Her music has been performed by ensembles such as JACK Quartet, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Yarn/Wire, Talea Ensemble, Ensamble CEPROMUSIC, PinkNoise, and Mise-En Ensemble, among others. She has received prizes and distinctions such as the Atlantic Center for the Arts Residence program, the ICST Artist Residency from the Zurich University of the Arts, the CONACYT Grant for Graduate Studies in Mexico 2018, and the Art Science Connect Fellowship for co-organizing the innovation:SOUND:technology series.

Itzá is currently based in New York City, pursuing a Ph.D. degree in composition at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the co-founder and current co-organizer of the Overdrive electronic music festival in New York.

Artificial Collection

Bethany Younge (website)

Bethany Younge is a composer and performer whose work interrogates the physicality of music-making, merging acoustic and electronic sound with the visceral presence of the performer. Her pieces often employ instrumental deconstruction, motion-activated technologies, sounding costumes, and choreographed movement to amplify the body’s role in musical expression. Currently Technical Director and Lecturer at Dartmouth College, Younge has been commissioned and performed by festivals worldwide, including National Sawdust (New Works Commission), Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Darmstadt International Summer Course, Resonant Bodies Festival, Long Beach Opera, and Frequency Festival. She has collaborated with ensembles such as JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, ASKO|Schönberg, Fonema Consort, and Ekmeles, among others across the U.S. and Europe. Her awards include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Charles Ives Award, a Fromm Commission, the Kanter/Mivos Prize, the Barcelona Mixtur Commission, and a Stipend Prize from Darmstadt, along with a Gaudeamus Award nomination.

Attavist II