Gascia Ouzounian is a violinist, musicologist, and composer based at the School of Creative Arts at Queen’s University Belfast, where she directs the performance studies programme. She has performed extensively in North America and Europe, appearing with such ensembles as Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, Sinfonia Toronto, Theater of Eternal Music Strings Ensemble, and Biomuse Trio, an ensemble that creates music using physiological sensors. Gascia’s writings on experimental music and sonic art appear in numerous academic journals and the collected volumes Buried in Noise (Kehrer Verlag) and Music, Sound & Space (Cambridge).
Her recent projects include two large-scale compositions that are experienced overnight: EDEN EDEN EDEN with filmmaker Chloé Griffin, and Music for Sleeping & Waking Minds with the Biomuse Trio and R. Luke DuBois. In the latter, four participants who wear EEG sensors generate an audiovisual environment through their brainwave activity over the course of one night. These works explore the experience and creation of music within and between different states of awareness and attention that include deep sleep and awakening. To view excerpts of these works, please visit: http://vimeo.com/gascia

MEDIAMORPHOSIS, May 10, 2013