Composer

Biography

Born in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1939 and living in the United States since 1973, Annea Lockwood is known for her explorations of natural acoustic sounds and environments, in works ranging from sound art and installations, through text-sound and performance art to concert music. Her music has been performed in many venues and festivals including: the American Century: 1950-2000 exhibition at the Whitney Museum, De Ijsbreker, Amsterdam, the Other Minds Festival, San Francisco, the Walker Art Center, Cincinatti, the Los Angeles County Museum, Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Purcell Room, London, the Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne, the Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, CNMAT, Berkeley, the Asia-Pacific Festival, Wellington, Donaufest 2006, Ulm, Germany, the 7th Totally Huge New Music Festival and Ruined Piano Convergence, Perth, Australia and An Ear To The Earth Festival, New York.

In 2005 she completed a four-year project, the sound installation, ‘A Sound Map of the Danube’, which was premiered in the Donau Festival in Krems a.d. Donau, Austria, in April, 2005. This is a “sound map” of the entire Danube River (in surround sound), incorporating a wide variety of water, animal and underwater insect sounds, rocks from the riverbed and the voices of those whose lives are intimately connected to the river. Other recent projects include ‘Jitterbug’, commissioned by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for 6 channel soundscape and two improvising musicians; Bow Falls, a collaboration with video artist Paul Ryan; ‘Ceci n’est pas un piano’, for piano, video and electronics commissioned by Jennifer Hymer; Vortex, for the Bang on a Can All-Stars ensemble, ‘Wai Pounamu’, an electroacoustic collaboration with Richard Nunns, and ‘Luminescence’, a song cycle for baritone Thomas Buckner and the SEM Ensemble.

Since 1970 her music has been issued on British, American and Australasian record labels and has been published by Schirmers, Waiteata Press (New Zealand), Smith Publications and in European and American journals. Her undergraduate composition studies were with John Ritchie and Vernon Griffiths at the University of Canterbury. She went on to study with Peter Racine Fricker at the Royal College of Music, London; with G.M.Koenig at the CEM Studio, Bilthoven and at the Musikhochschule, Cologne; and at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, Southampton University, England. She is a Professor Emerita of Vassar College, where she was on the faculty from 1985 until 2001, and has an Honorary Doctorate from Clark University, Massachusetts. She has received awards and fellowships from the Gulbenkian Foundation, the Arts Council of Great Britain, the National Endowment for the Arts, Arts International and the American Music Center’s Henry Cowell Award.